Inspire: July Update

This is the July update as part of the DreamGames competition. The points tally for the first quarter was released recently and to my joy Inspire is currently number 6, behind some very impressive projects. There's still a lot of points left in the competition however, so the competition is still wide open.

Over the past months there has been a lot of game refining. I indicated that testing was to begin soon - unfortunately there's been business and development problems over the past month which has delayed it. However, Inspire will now have a single-player mode and I plan to release a demo for this at the end of the week for feedback.

After experimenting with a lot of gameplay elements and styles, I've finalized the design and come up with a 1 line description. Templar Skies is an Avatar based Tower Defense multiplayer game. Instead of a God-View like in most Tower Defense games, you directly control a persistent character, with passive & active feats, able to collect resources and use gizmos.

I'm also considering whether launching the game with a lobby is worth the cost, or if it's something I should add once there's quite a few players. The code and tech are there for it, it's more an issue of cost and time to set up a server.

Other stuff you can read about at the development blog:

- Issues with Z-sorting on Skinned Characters.
- TGE doesn't support TGA textures, so I had to add the resource for it.

(obligatory comment on lack of, and conflicting, information)

- Wrestling with an AI system for monsters so they don't stall on each other.
- Music from Jesse Hopkins arrived.
- Models and Animations from Scott Thunelius arrived.
- The camera was changed from my platformer one to an orbit as it suited the game style better.
- Cel shading was dropped as it wasn't working and was too much of a hassle to fix given TGE's lacking in that area.

Media - - -

Main Character Model

Short movie of character animation.

Screenshots