Okay it’s an empty promise, but in truth I could’ve been at this all week. While this blocky scene doesn’t look anywhere NEAR final, the lighting is more or less finished and the stage theme is close to set. I really didn’t feel like texturing all that or dealing with more two sided or alpha blended layers. I know I’m going to build on to the tool eventually but now isn’t exactly the time to do it, thusly I’m only making it harder for myself by working with geometry right now. Why not build on to the tools now? Because there are much more important things afoot to deal with!

Seems my graphics, once again will be one of the last things I work with. Even so, it’s nice to have something to work up from.

Some of you may remember this post! Exactly one year later I spent my time working on that very thing, grass! I swear I didn’t realize that til I looked back at the date. Sometimes it’s like my brain has yearly patterns.

These screens aren’t from an actual theme I was going with, but it is a hint at the theme of the first stage. The grass isn’t as pretty as it could be but I’ll see how much freedom there is to add detail when the game is complete. That said, it still looks great in-game. It’s shadowed, it moves in the wind, and it all runs at (that number again) 60fps. I feel like I’ve came a long way in a little over a year, especially not knowing how I was going to pull 3D off.

I know it STILL looks sorta unfinished, but the final-esque screens are coming soon! I’m still getting my resources in order.

I really hope I’m wrong on this, but if my projection is right I’m going to be working on this thing all they way til May. I’ve never made a game this long before so I guess it’s to be expected somewhat. I’m being very generous with my allocated time, so I have a bit of hope I can be done sooner (maybe as soon as March).

I know I said I’d shot for a video this month but I kinda just changed my mind. Even if the game may look more finished it really just dawned on me how it’s bad practice to show games in such early stages. I was puzzled how games can show off gameplay elements so early and have such very far away release dates, until I figured out a team works on all the components of the game at the same time while I have to work one at a time. Building my own tools puts me even further behind. Thusly, I can’t really show much until the last second.

While I may not have video, I expect to have some pretty good screenshots this month. Stay tuned!

If you looked at the game now from when I made the early video build, it would probably look and play the exact same. The reason for that is I’ve spent most of the time improving the core. I may not have have a video in January but I’m still sure I’ll have something that looks near final.

Last game on PC I think I tapped out at about 22 foxes on screen even on levels with simple geometry. Now I can handle over 50! I certainly won’t be attempting to support 50 characters on Xbox, but it’s a statement of how optimized things have become. And of course this all runs at 60fps.

I’m extremely impressed with the engine right now. The amount of potential there is far beyond what I thought when I began the project. It may take more than technical prowess to make a good game, but it sure as heck doesn’t hurt to have it!  ; D

Strangely enough, I think even I’m excited to play the game after I”m done with it.

Today’s post is pretty much the reason why I wrote that whole maturity post. The first stage is extremely deceptive to the game’s nature. In fact that second stage will look absolutely nothing like this! But, I won’t go into that speech again.

Moving on, the first stage will be the Whimsical Forest. It’s filled with magical happy dancing plants and other vegetation to have you merrily bouncing around the screen. There will even be some fantasy-based puzzles in the mix. It’s the perfect stage to put all this planning I put into dynamics into use.

This art is likely to be inaccurate for the most part, as most of my graphics skew towards realism, but it should give some sort of an idea of what I’m going for.

Happy Thanksgiving! For such an occasion I’d like to draw a little turkey trying to ban the holiday but I never have the energy for those things. This brings me to the subject to this post. The website and production of the game has slowed down. It doesn’t mean I’ve lost enthusiasm (which you’d think I’d be overdue for doing), but I need time to step away from the project and try to remember what’s most important about it.

In short I probably won’t be talking about development much more because honestly I don’t have anything to add and I’m still too far away from showing real material. Regardless of what I show, I won’t be releasing this game unless I truly think it would sell a million copies. Something like that will take time, and thus, I’m slowing down and focusing my chi (whatever that is).

You can probably find some actual gameplay video in January, in the time between, I have no idea what I’ll put up.

I remember back when I thought I would release the title in May, but no it’ll be going into Q1 year. There shouldn’t too many things out at time to risk overshadowing the project and everyone should be done with games released over the holiday for the most part. I’d like to say the time frame is strategic but for the most part I’m suffering the burnout from the second half of a project. Don’t worry, I won’t be doing some major cut to the project like I usually do. : )

It all started with a little idea, stacking boxes. I did pushing boxes (poorly) back in tandem tales but, this time I really wanted to further with it considering that dynamics is the focus of this game. Looking at the physics engine so far, I think you can easily see that. Long story short I had to gut out the entire physics engine to get boxes as smoothly as the rest of the world. This means I’m going to need to time redo and retest all the features I had set up. The engine is far better for it, but it’s so stressing I could kick a baby right now.

This will be my first step towards puzzle elements, and interactive objects.

I really need to lower my standards a bit or this could take a long time….