Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year!

Hi!

First of all! Merry Christmas to you all!

At the moment I'm at my wife's parents place to celebrate x.-mas. I'm about 400 km from my puter, so there will be no coding for about 4 days. I'm hoping to get the Tech Demo completed before new year, but it all depends on how many bugs I have to take care of.

The last things to do before the first Tech Demo is complete:

• If host enteres client's room: 1. Ask for all changes made on the map and receive them. 2. Receive all the enemy data. 3. Take over the controll of the enemies.
• If host or client leaves the room: Client takes over the control of the enemies and both client and host stop sending in-game data.
• If client enters host's room: ask for all changes made on the map, and receive all the enemy data.
• Fix a few flags that are not reset when client leaves the game and reconnects. (Minor bug)
• Create the 4 Tech Demo rooms.
• Add a customize keyboard button for the in-game menu.
• Look for bugs and fix them.

Until next blogpost.

SolarStrings

TechDemo Teaser video!

Hi!

Here you have the first teaser video of the tech demo!

Here I'm playing with "Valpskott", a good friend of mine.
All Music in the video is composed by: Josef Falkensköld (www.falconshield.com)

There is still a couple of bugs here and there to sort out so you have to wait some more before I release it. This is the first video with only my screen, I will post one more later on with both screens side by side.



Until next blogpost

SolarStrings

Working on the first tech-demo release!

Tech Demo in the making!

Hello again!

I've started working on the first tech demo release for you! You've waited long enough to get your hands on playing some of the stuff you see!

The tech demo will include the following:

• 4 rooms to walk around in and explore
• Try out the two programmed probe abilities (bombs and hover platform)
• 2 player co-op - Play with your best friend over Internet or LAN
• Play with Gamepad or keyboard
• Some enemies to shoot!

In this coming tech demo release the probe abilities is unlocked, but in the next tech demo you will have to find the right enemies and hope for a "tech-drop" from them in order to research and build the different probe abilities. Enemies will also drop materials which you need in order to build the new ability you researched.

This is just a "teaser" post for you so you know what's coming soon.

I have some network programming to do, handling players in different rooms and lots of testing too, so it could take up to 1-2 weeks before I release the tech demo so stay tuned! (I'll probably post another in-between thingy reporting how things go).

Until next blogpost!

SolarStrings

Next Probe Ability: Hover Platform

Hello again!

These last days have been filled with more packing and cleaning of the apartment + work and family so there has not been much time left for coding, but I still managed to squeeze in a few hours here and there on the project resulting in todays blogpost.

The Hover Platform

The hover platform is the next ability for the probe's explore mode. It is used in order to reach places where you could not jump up before. At first I made it possible to fly around while standing on the probe, but I soon realized: When the player research and build the hover platform, they will be able to reach everything in the game, and thus removing a lot of puzzle ability to the game. So in sake of making things challenging for the player I decided to remove the flying mode.

Here's the youtube video showing of the hover platform:



Until next post!

SolarStrings

Secret Revealed!

Hi everyone!

First of all, sorry that I have not posted in a while. At the moment we're packing down our apartment and moving to a new larger one, so most of my time has been going into packing down stuff into boxes. Also I've been working as usual and taking care of my family. With that said, let's move on to why you're really here ;).

Today I'm revealing some of the "secret" stuff I've been working on. However I will only reveal that which I have programmed, so you have to wait for the next blog where I will unlock the next feature of: "The Probe".

The Probe.

We did not want to do a Metroid copy with the "morhpball" thing, so we used our innovative brains/skills and came up with what we call. "The Probe".

The Probe is a small flying object that the player can have either in Protect mode, or Explore mode.

Explore Mode

In explore mode the player can control the probe and fly around with it to scout the surroundings. In this mode the probe can do a lot of different things, but I'm only revealing one of those aspects today: Lay bombs.

Protect Mode

In this mode the probe rotates around the player and act as a small shield (32x32 pixels) and will absorb the projectiles it collides with. This mode also have some nice extra features which will be uncovered later.

Youtube Video

As you can see (in the video), the map is still W.I.P, so forgive me for being lazy with the map creation :P.



Until next post!

Mapbuilder Update!

Hello again!

For starters: This is not the "secret" stuff we're working on, this is just a mapbuilder update ;).

Changes in the editor:

• Resolution is now 1024x704 pixels (704 because it has to fit on my friends laptop screen :P)
• New "shiny" interface (thanks to: Valpskott)
• Minimap
• Export Png
• Select tile color for minimap

Here's the video:



Until next blog!

SolarStrings

Take in-game screenshots and export map as png!

Hello again!

At the moment I'm working on the "secret" stuff that will be released later on, but before that time comes I need to "feed" you with some kind of update so you know the game is progressing forward.

For starters I've smashed some bugs and fixed a few things:

• New collision code for the player to the world is completed
• The enemy AI bug is fixed (the shellbiter had a problem) 
• Added .png export support

As the topic says, it is now possible to take screenshots and export the whole map in the map editor as a .png.

Here's the temporary map you've seen in all the videos:

 Now I need to get back and finish the p...... ehrm.... code :D

Until next post!

SolarStrings