Bit Battles: December in Review (Screenshots!)

[Bit Battles is a multiplayer-only vehicular combat game currently in development by Fanatical Games. Visit Fanatical Games for more information.]

The countdown to beta stage has begun and boy, time is getting scarce. With so much left to do before the tentative February beta it's time to kick things into overdrive and get this game done. But first, here's a rundown of what's been happening at Fanatical Games.

In my last .plan I discussed working on the offline/singleplayer training campaign for Bit Battles. At the start of the month I had managed to make the AI drones just smart enough to allow me to move forward with creating the actual training levels. In my blog post titled You Put Your Left Foot In..., I talk setting a few specific guidelines for myself to follow while creating the training campaign. These guidelines were aimed at helping me make the tutorial levels fun enough to hold a player's attention while simultaneously teaching them how to play.

Things got a bit more interesting as progress on the first two training maps progressed. In Unintential Conditionals I talk about some of the pitfalls involved in tacking a singleplayer component on to a multiplayer-only game. In my case, it meant changing some fairly fundamental code to deal with unexpected (and unintentional) situations. On the bright side, the first two training maps were nearly completed and the AI drones, which had given me some trouble back in November, were finally capable of putting up a decent fight (and by decent I mean entirely capable of kicking my butt!).

Then the month took a turn for the chaotic. My nice, neat todo list was thrown out the window and instead I focused my efforts on doing as much "stuff" as possible in the shortest amount of time. In Multitasking I discuss how I updated the Fanatical Games website with new Bit Battles screenshots, got the third training mission to the design phase, fixed more bugs than you can shake a stick at, played artist and updated some aging art assets and roughed out the terrain for the fifth multiplayer map called SegFault. Phew!

Finally, with the holidays freeing up some time to work on the game, the end of the month saw me being cautiously (nervously!) optimistic about reaching beta status by February. In a post titled Betanoia - Possessing a Fear of Reaching Beta I discuss my todo list for January, talk about finishing the last three of the training levels (woohoo!), mention adding in some easy engine optimizations, reworking a few more art and sound assets, and preparing to work on the last two multiplayer maps.

It's certainly been a busy month and January is set to be more of the same. With all of that said, let's get to the real reason anyone reads these things: screenshots! [Click the thumbnails to view hi-res versions]

A little battle on second training level. Of course, I missed but that pesky bot hit me dead-on. Lucky shot, I say...


Bit Battler defending a Capture Pylon for the Red team on the map Gateway. Reinforcements for both teams are just around the corner...


After losing control of the Pylon, Bit Battler decides to join the Green team. If you can't beat em', join em'.


Bit Battler capturing and defending the Central Capture Pylon for the Green team. Traitor!