Progress

Recently there's been a bit of a spike of activity in my life. First off is joining the Malevolence: The Sword of Ahkranox development team as a writer. Generally speaking I like to view myself as a programmer but I also have a bit of a soft spot for writing as well. I've been a part of the team for about a month and I'm yet to produce anything but I have been keeping notes of ideas and should be sending off my first story for the game within weeks.

Aside from the Malevolence team I've also started to really focus on programming, more specifically C#. I'm no master of the language at this point but I've have written up a design document that clearly lays out plans for a 2D soccer game that is yet to be named. so far I've been calling it "Codename FF", the FF stands for FranticFootball but I don't much like that as a title. The idea surrounding the game is taken in large part from the Atari/Amiga classic Sensible Soccer. It's not a total clone of the game however, I have added some of my own flare that I shall disclose just as soon as development commences. The plan is to first release a PC version then leave my options open for a XBLA release. This port should be made easier due to the use of the XNA game library that Microsoft has released as freeware. I'm not going to get ahead of myself Malevolence is my first priority after I've done a bit of work with that I'll focus on making the soccer game.

On a sidenote XNA might also be the way that TE3 works out.

Biting the proverbial bullet

After some serious thought on the matter and failing to get any decent opportunities in any sort of workplace my focus has changed somewhat on the area of programming. Around here there is a much bigger call for web developers rather then game developers. One day soon I hope to leave this place and head off to do my own thing, but for now I guess buckling down and learning PHP, JS, AS3 and probably C# for the lulz is going to have to do for a while at least. that does however mean that most of the projects I have on at the moment are going to have to be held off for a while, which is somewhat annoying to me for many reasons but mainly because I think that my idea for a cube based engine would've been cool.

Anyway time to hit the books and actually do something useful with myself...

Thoughts of RAGE!

No, I'm not angry just talking about id's newest game RAGE. I've been playing it for a few hours now and my thoughts on the game are generally positive. With the exception of a few minor things the game looks brilliant and the overall gameplay is just as good. The only thing I have a found to be a minor annoyance is all the driving that you do about the place but luckily this is really on for going from place to place and racing so you're able to make your journeys safer and (a little) easier. If you're looking for the run and gun action that is in DOOM and QUAKE you're going to be sorely disappointed if you do that here you'll die... Very quickly.

As a brand new game I took to this like any other new game but with high expectations from the creators of classics like Doom and Quake it's safe to say that I'm very pleased.

In retrospect... (An F grade for retro)

The previous project of which I was acquainted has now officially announced that the project is going ahead under the name Project Retrograde, which is the same name as the engine I was creating for it because the engine name spawned off the project name albeit in an obscure way. I wish the team the best of luck for the future release of their title. However I do feel like writing something on what I thought of the title before I left. So here it goes...

It's no great secrest that I left the Retrograde team of my own accord in a somewhat misgiving way of which I wish to apologise to all involved but more specifically VortexCortex. I now wish that I hadn't been such a prat and just came out with "I need to leave for my own reasons.", but you live and learn maybe one day I can talk to VortexCortex properly and apologize for everything. However that's about as depressing as it got so it's all up hill from here.

I was apart of the project for quite a few months and was very excited at the prospects for the game. Initially it was Mechadon, Myself and Jimmy91 who added little pieces here and there for good measure. But for the most part it was Mech and I bantering about all these cool features that we could have, of which I shall not divulge here. However key points where map editing and voxels. I had fun adding to the design doc with just Mech and I. The great thing is that while Mech was the head honcho he was always open to suggestion. Thinking back I'm sure I could've thrown him the idea of having flying chickens as an enemy and we would've considered it. I thoroughly enjoyed those months. When it was announced that we had VortexCortex on the team I didn't really know what to think. At the time I felt very pushed out of the group, I now know however that everyone was simply getting serious about it all.

Anyone that knows me at all knows that seriousness isn't my forte I like thinking that a team of developers should b more like the early id Software days which were essentially just exploration, fun and mucking about with ideas. It quickly dawned on me that the serious direction these guys were taking through no fault of there own really didn't appeal to me. Shortly thereafter we moved headquarters to the website they currently maintain where I found I felt very little compared to VortexCortex, I simply felt redundant due to his greater knowledge that obviously came with some great experience. I dealt with my feelings for a while but it eventually got too much so I decided to come up a bogus excuse to leave. This turned out be about the worst thing I could've done to myself. As a result, and rightly so, I lost the trust of VortexCortex and the rest of the group.

In retrospect now I probably would've stuck with the project, it was a great idea and I was a part of it. I admit that I feel a bit of a fool for letting something like that get to me so much. I would've like to learn form VortexCortex and I can say with a great amount of pride that I learned a lot from Mech. But to wrap this little paragraph up on a high note I think we've all got a great new game to look forward to.

If VortexCortex, Mech or anyone from the team is reading this I wish to apologize properly for my actions and I wish you all the best of luck with development!

Writing & a name change

First off, as I'm beginning to write this 3D engine it's relatively important to me that I save time in the long run and decide on a proper name for it. The reason for this is due to things like namespaces, classes and documentation all of which I'm beginning to write. It's important to state here and now that the engine isn't a voxel engine. At the moment, while I think voxels will eventually take over the world of graphics over polygons, having the whole world inhabited by voxels isn't suited to this sort of game. Instead the majority of the world will be polygons while only a few features will actually be voxels. These features will include items such as pickups, enemies, environmental details (Crates, Barrels, False Walls, etc...) and a few extras like enemy gibs.

So to reflect the idea that this is focused on the cube editing aspect of it's design rather then the support for voxel models I think the name "CubeBase" is perfect for the name.

Back up and with new ideas and engines

I'm currently in the middle of designing what I call TE3 or Tomb Engine Cubed. It follows much the same premise of the other idea I had working for that project a few months back but it's far better thought out and it's going to work around my own game design. If anyone from that original project happens to read this don't worry I haven't and will never divulge information on the subject of the project.
This new engine is grid based and is pretty well populated with cubes that you can edit to your hearts content, it's a very similar premise to Sauerbraten but with some minor and major differences. Over the coming weeks and months I'' be reading into the ideas of Voxels and Octrees to be able to make the world easy to edit and super fast. The biggest difference between this project and the previous one is that this will be 100% hardware accelerated and will be relying on OpenGL to run it all.
The idea for gameplay is very loose and will largely be based on things such as Doom, Quake and Painkiller. I'll be working over a loose story and key gameplay ideals in the months ahead as well as posting periodic updates of what has been happening and what any new plans are. Also in this time I'll be working on little side project to properly get a grip on the various libraries that I have chosen to use. First up is a 2D light-gun shooter in the same vein as the Point-Blank arcade game series.

Updates

I've taken a little break from programming with voxels and general 3D anything for the time being because I'm pretty busy elsewhere in my life. However to kill the time when I'm not busy I'm working on a much smaller game that plays much like the Pokemon series and is set in Medieval England. There isn't all that much to tell right now but things will be posted in the near future. So sit tight.