Here’s the first test video of the upcoming game’s game engine:
(The game seems to lag a bit in the video. This is because Windows was installing new drivers to my graphics card without telling me. The game runs normally at steady 60 FPS.)
Hope you like it! Feedback is welcome. Tell me what you think and suggest things I should add into the game.
Landmine Crusade is the project I’ve been talking about for a while in Twitter. It is a top-down shooter with WASD+mouse controls. I promised you a video, but you have to wait for a while because I can’t record one with this laptop. It doesn’t have graphics card drivers and I can’t find them anywhere.
(Note: all of the graphics in the following screenshots are just placeholders)
The game engine itself…oh, I was about to reveal you some of my technical secrets. Anyway, here’s a list of the current features:
Even though a lot of stuff is ready, there’s still much to be done. Props and other non-pickable items, their physics and vehicles are to be added in the near future. The most complex thing in the entire project, the campaign system that allows custom campaigns (with custom dialogue, graphics and sound effects!) to be created by players, is currently under work.
Besides the campaign system, another big thing to do is the story system. I don’t know how it will work yet. The story sequences may happen in the game world itself, with text boxes, or by playing a video, which may be simpler and would grant more freedom over the events of the story. The dialogue and other level-related text is stored in text files, from which the game can get the characters’ lines and other stuff, such as level objectives.
When I release the game (my next post will concern the story of the main campaign, Landmine Crusade) I will provide some kind of mod tools/level editor. I’m quite proud of the system, but I’m not going into details yet.
I’ll make the video soon to show all this to you.
Now I feel quite weird, writing stuff like this. This is my first big project that I plan to get finished.
Am I too ambitious?
Cruiser Eidolon has experienced some unexpected problems, since I a) am too excited about two new projects and b) almost lost its source code and all other files.
Let me tell you a story. One day I was packing my stuff because I was going to my grandma’s for a week. My eight-year-old laptop had Xubuntu in it, but because it didn’t work so well (it ran into some errors when trying to run Minecraft, for example) I reinstalled its original Windows XP.
Then I started to wonder how I could move my game project folders into the laptop, because I couldn’t find my USB memory stick. Dropbox is the solution, I thought. So I moved the project files to Dropbox and downloaded them into my laptop. Everything seemed okay.
Until the laptop wanted to reboot itself thanks to some Windows updates. It shut down, started again and went happily to the Windows loading screen. After that everything went wrong.
It shut down again. Started, shut down again. Started, shut down again. Until I pulled the plug out of the wall (it shut the computer down immediately, since the battery has been dead for five years (the only place to get a new one is some Danish eBay-equivalent, where it costs 120€. Maybe I’ll just buy a new laptop. Or a tablet.)). Then there was only silence.
I had to reinstall Windows once again. When I tried to download the project files again from Dropbox I noticed they weren’t there any more. This was because dragging them out of the folder didn’t copy them, but move them instead.
I checked the Pineapple (My main computer. Yes, it has a name) for the files. They weren’t there either. You can guess my reaction. I always assume that files are copied, not moved when they are sent to the Internet. That’s an unofficial standard, isn’t it?
I panicked and downloaded some piece of file restoration software to save my lost files, because they weren’t in the recycle bin (moved files should also be backuped there, Windows!). It could only find some three-year old stuff. All hope was lost.
Then I checked the Dropbox website and jumped in the air in joy. There was a “recover a deleted file” button. I clicked it and it restored the folder. My day (along with all my projects) was saved. After that Dropbox told me that no more files could be recovered. Well, that was fine for me. My projects were safe.
I hope this short (?) story will teach you, my dear readers, or at least those who don’t already know it, the importance of backup copies.
Oh, those two new projects I mentioned? More about them tomorrow. This post became so long and it’s already quite late (almost 1 am, lol).
To prevent this post becoming gray and monotonous, here’s a picture:
By the way, does anybody know how to make an alphabetical list with HTML?
Well, it has now been 40 days (Really, that much???) from “Sorry about that”. In it I claimed the dwarfy story may begin within a few weeks. It hasn’t.
I have been quite occupied with several things: school, Fallout: New Vegas, Far Cry 2, Frozen Synapse (slightly), Company of Heroes etc. In addition, Toady One The Great is taking his sweet time making the newest update for Dwarf Fortress, which I want to begin the new fort in. Alternatively, I may simply download Dwarf Fortress 23a and use it.
Also, Noun and I have still not completed the Portal 2 co-op.
Patience, gentlemen. I will not make another attempt to estimate how long it will take for it to begin.
And lastly, say “Hi” to Snowie.
300 days. 300 days since Sorry about that, and “a few weeks until the release”. 42 weeks and 6 days. That is around 14 times longer than I thought. 322 days from the previous release. Now… It is finally out. Dwarf Fortress 0.34.01 has been released. I won’t start the [...]
Guess what. For the last few days I’ve been working on Landmine Crusade. It was about time, the last edit to the source was from 1,5 months ago. First thing I did was fixing the bug that had dispirited me back then. I had made a great combat AI for [...]
Time for another minigame with a weird theme. This one is called A Lesson in Chemistry. It’s sort of a sequel to ALiPhysics. That means I drew the graphics during a chemistry lesson. See, I do stuff like this when I should be studying. Well, anyway, download it here: And [...]
So. It’s New Year’s Eve. And I thought that I should write a post, because everyone seems to write something on this day. The subject of this post? Nope, not Landmine Crusade. I promised an open beta a while ago but I sort of have a writer’s block (game dev’s [...]
How are you, ladies and gentlemen? Merry almost-Christmas. This time I finally took part in Ludum Dare game making competition. My game is called Ego Sum, after a long-dead project. I can’t remember why it died, though. Anyway, you can find the game here. The game tells the story of [...]
…Wait a second, not a single post after the beginning of October. I’m fixing that right now. Well, what should I write about. Probably Landmine Crusade, because I’m sure that’s the only reason you readers are here. Well, I’ve once again been both busy with schoolwork and lazy, which may [...]
We had a physics lesson in the morning. And for some reason I drew a worm on the cover of my notebook. And then scanned it. And scanned also my homework. And made a game out of them. The goal of the game is to survive. To survive as long [...]
Time, Dear reader? Is it really that time again? It seems as if you only just arrived. Chances are that is exactly what happened. Unless by the time anyone reads this multiple other posts have been made. It has now been 40 days since part IV, meaning a total of [...]
Hi, everybody. It’s been a bit quiet lately, that’s because I’ve been quite busy with all sorts of important stuff. But fear not, my friend. I’ve made some significant improvements to Landmine Crusade, even though I’ve not written about them. I added a Metroid-style visor that can be used to [...]
Worst title in a long time. Anyway, I uploaded a new test video of Landmine Crusade. The AI has improved a lot, there is now a HUD and resolution options, new (but still not final) graphics, sounds and music, bug fixes, 3d buildings, a working level transition, cutscenes, primary and [...]
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