Moving trains...
posted on Tue, 12 Jan 2010
The first post of the year 2010 comes with good news: the game/editor integration is almost done, now there are moving trains in the level preview!
Hard to believe... but the Christmas break didn't help my productivity (but it helped me finishing killzone 2 :-)), so most of the code I wrote for this new beta has been written in the last week (a week of sleepless nights). Basically that means that the train path editing is re-using the code I wrote for track editing, and I already know it will need some improvement/change in a future. Anyway, the current editing works fine and for now that's all we need for making full levels.
The current train path editing is using tiles instead of waypoints/lines, so the user has to select all the track segments making the path, but the editor helps doing straight lines, so that's not too bad, for now at least, and it still allows to make levels in a pretty quick way, as showed in the following video:
If you prefer, the video is also available on Vimeo.
Now the editing part is working, I'm going to spend this week on refactoring and polishing of the code (and I know that's not going to be fun...), after that I'll move on the new level file format (totally changed since the first version) so to allow the editor to load and save levels again.
Hopefully the next tasks won't take more than 2 weeks and I hope we'll be able to start a first closed-beta program the first week of February, so stay tuned for the next updates!
Edit SMART, edit S-MART!
posted on Mon, 14 Dec 2009
It's been a while since my last post, but I've not been wasting time during the last few weeks...
As probably everybody already noticed we have a new logo and in this post I'm proud to announce a second beta release of the level editor!
This new beta comes with a complete change in the editing system that now allows to design tracks in the simplest way possible, just by drawing lines (basically like it was in the prototype), leaving the task of choosing the right track segment to the editor. This new editing system is called SMART, even if probably it's not using the most advanced AI techniques in the world, it's still aided editing and an improvement respect the old system based on user selection of tiles.
Furthermore the new editing system helps to show the user design errors in a clear way and highlighting the active layer/track.
Another very important feature introduced in this release is the real-time preview of the level, powered by the game engine. Now just by pressing a key (space) it's possible to switch between the edit and preview mode, having so the best view for editing and, at the same time, a preview of how the level is going to appear in the game.
The main reasons behind the decision of a radical change in the editor are related to all the work I've done in the last weeks on the game prototype/engine and the decision to embed the editor in the full version of the game, so to allow gamers to create and share their levels, but I'll speak about this in a future post.
Considering the long time passed since my last post and all the new features, I've also decided to post a video of the editor in action instead of the usual screenshot, the graphics are mostly placeholders, but I hope you're still going to enjoy it:
If you prefer, the video is also available on Vimeo.
Game features and key points
posted on Mon, 09 Nov 2009
Last week we had a meeting/brainstorming to address the design decisions still pending.
Even if probably few things will require some changes and polishing during the rest of the development, I'm proud to say we sorted out most of the doubts and now we have a finished, well defined design.
Even if for now I can't reveal all the details, I'd like to share some key points of our design to give you a better "high level" idea of what our game is going to be:
- the game has to be easy to learn, but hard to master.
- the game has to be fast, always. All the levels will be played using the keyboard only and there will be (almost) no interruption in the game flow, so basically there will be no pop-up windows to open/close during the action part of the game.
- the game is not pure action/ability, it requires quick thinking and planning of every single move in order to get high scores.
- there will be an interesting system of power-ups and slots to unlock during the whole game experience.
- there will be an online leaderboard.
- There will be integrated interaction with the most important social networks like Twitter and Facebook.
These are just few key points of our current design, but there are a lot of other features I can't announce yet, mostly because we need to have some tests before to announce them officially.
Regarding the current state of the development, I can confirm we have a first working prototype of the game, and in these days the development is focused on the beta version, so, hopefully, I'm going to show you a gameplay video in a couple of weeks.
Stay tuned and subscribe to our RSS feed to not miss the next updates!
Level editor in beta with new graphics
posted on Wed, 14 Oct 2009
At last the level editor entered in beta, or all the needed features have been implemented!
There are still a lot of minor things to polish/improve, especially in the errors management, and more features
will be added during the game development, but it's working and usable so now we're able to create the first game levels.
Furthermore I've replaced all the graphics with new ones, anyway a screenshot is worth a thousand words, so have a look:
The current graphics won't be used for the game, but I think they are nicer and give a better idea of the game's graphic style than the placeholder graphics used in the prototype 8-)
The good thing related to this news is starting from next week I'm going to focus on the development of the game, so probably the next blog post will introduce something about the game.
Another good news is encelo is going to join me in the development, so (in theory) we'll be able to have a first working beta of the game quicker, we are also going to start a closed beta period soon, but I'll say more about that in the a next post.
Remember to follow us on twitter and join our IRC chat if you want real-time updates on the game or just have a random chat with crazy people ;)
The level editor is coming...
posted on Wed, 23 Sep 2009
At last, after about 3 weeks of development, I can show something more than an empty window with a menu bar :-)
During last week the development was focused on the event management system, totally based on the SDL event
queue and the propagation of events amongst all the widgets, and I think it will probably remain unchanged until
we'll have some good reason for adding another logic layer.
In the last few days instead, I started to work on level editing (the easy part), so now it's possible to create
a new level then place, remove and rotate the track segments.
What we have now is basic tile-editing, and probably I'm going to change something in the low-level code, but it works and as soon as the load&save code is finished, we will start to create the first levels and I'll finally move on the game code, so expect a new post (probably featuring new graphics) next week. ;-)
New Level Editor WIP
posted on Mon, 14 Sep 2009
Even if a bit behind schedule, I can finally post some info about the development of the new level editor for The Undergrounder.
Probably I should start saying the current development is focused on the GUI library (code name GG = Game GUI) more than the editor, but the border is quite thin here considering I'm developing solely the widgets/components I need for this particular editor.
This is a screenshot showing the current status of the editor:
Most of the graphics elements are placeholders, and they will remain so until we publish the first screenshot of the game, but now the important thing is that most of the needed components (like the MainWindow, the MenuBar, the ToolBar and the Buttons) are implemented.
Some people asked me why developing a GUI library from scratch instead of using an existing one, well,
there are several reasons for that, some related to the main GUI libs I know and use(d) for other projects
(wxWidget and QT), some related to the current project.
Anyway the main reason is I needed something I can use, modify and integrate in the game code easily without
hacking a code made by somebody else, and I believe the best way for that was making a lib from scratch,
especially if you want to learn and improve your coding/designing skills.
Furthermore I'm not creating the Cry Engine 4 here, so I guess that's not a too crazy goal 8-)
Some geeky stuff for the other developers:
- The GUI lib is totally based on OpenGL for rendering (so 3D accelerated) and SDL for input
- The old editor prototype (a full working editor) is about 1300 lines of code, instead the current engines (graphics + GUI) are more than 4100 lines of code (and nothing is really working yet :) ), aka OOP can require a lot of work at the beginning 8-)
According to the current schedule, I hope to complete a first version of the editor the next weekend, so hopefully wait for a new blog post the next monday ;)
Level editor prototype
posted on Mon, 31 Aug 2009
The first working application I realized for [b]The Undergrounder[/b] was the level editor.
The effective development lasted about 3 working days, mostly because the program is a total "hack"
more than a real application, but I needed something "quick and coarse" to use for making real design decisions.
Nevertheless the editor works fine and implements most of the needed features:
- a menu bar
- modal windows
- level editing (ofc 8-))
- loading and save
I coded everything from scratch using C++ and SDL only (yeah, no GL, so the frame rate is probably 10 FPS :)).
Now the development is centered on the design of the GUI system and I hope to ship a brand new version of the editor next weekend.
P.S.
the screenshots in this post don't represent the game graphics, the editor prototype uses placeholders and it's
simpler than what the real editor is going to be.
Anyway, I'm probably going to post a screenshot of the game soon, so... stay tuned ;-)
