18. 06. 2002 - Bad weather...
Well, of course we don't have bad weather around here, and if we would, you would not give a damn anyway. Thus there has to be something else with this title. Actually, it should give you an inkling of what todays update is about: Weather effects. You can spare your breath telling me to stop doing semi-funni titleing, for I know that pretty well. All this crap talking is just to make today's update appear longer and therefore more important. Ok, so we added a little rain and storm. Great. Besides, Chris is aching with his lens flares and I am still desperate about getting the smooth-turning right (though I probably won't till presentation). Also, I finally included some new unit models to the game, and different kinds of ammunition.
Besides updating the manual section and adding info about custom configuration, I also added an effects list, which is of little importance or interest except it's necessary to have one for the presentation.
16. 06. 2002 - Just some random update
Object placement and triggers, which Chris is currentliy working on, now makes the whole thing look like a level of a game rather than some flat scene with a bunch o' baddies in it. We are also preparing to record the dialogues for our presentation level. As we try to include new things, it is becomeing more and more apparent, however, that at some point after the presentation we have to do a recoding of most parts of the engine to create a consistent program in which all parts work together well, rather than aching for hours about how to add that new feature into the chaotic thing which is our current engine without messing up the whole thing.
I also included a most valueable manual section today.
11. 06. 2002 - Two updates a day ?!?
I sat down and took a couple of new screenshots (well, there are only three of them, to be exact). They can be found at the screenshot section (big surprise). I also remembered we actually wanted to put up a guestbook that nobody is ever going to use, so I'll tell Chris about it, he said he programmed one once.
11. 06. 2002 - Work (slowly) progressing
It's less than two weeks now for us to finish the second presentation version. Time to get to work again (took it easy for a time now). Unfortunately, we will also be occupied by exams in other courses. Well, the engine now features billboards (sprites) for explosions and stuff, objects can be ncluded in the levels and you are feeling a little more like driving a vehicle than walking around (as in the previous version). We will also put up a few new screenshots soon, since the looks have also improved (multitexturing, for example, has been implemented). News updates will be getting more regular now, especially during the next week (when we will be panickly working to get things done until the presentation).
14. 05. 2002 - First version available for download
Get a first glance of our game - head over to our download section! Though it is far from the intended final version, having little "feeling" to it other than being yet another first person shooter, and no story elements or scripting (we haven't even started our level editor yet), you can at least see that we are, in fact, making some progress, and that it doesn't look too crappy either.
If your health drops to zero, you don't die yet (because it could have given a sudden and unwanted end to our presentation). You can hit the '+' button to regain some health and continue the fight. We will probaby add something like a gameplay section to this homepage in the near future, where you will find, among other things, listings of the game controls (the more important ones are standard and easy to figure out anyway, just mouse movement and fire and "w-a-s-d"-movement, exit with ESC, you won't need the rest)
13. 05. 2002 - Finishing presentation version
Against all odds (considering our programming expertise), we got rid not only of the Win 2000 bug but also of some other, minor issues and did some final tuning of the visuals by adding and fine-tuning a few effects. Also, performance was improved for slower machines.
We've also finally updated our screenshots section with shots from the current version of the game.
12. 05. 2002 - Getting ready for presentation
Since we are scheduled for a first presentation of our game on the 14th, the first release of our game demo is soon to come. Gameplay hasn't improved much, but there has been work on the visual side to impress our audience at the presentation and, hopefully, you as well. The game really looks great by now, for such an early version, and you can't even shoot through walls any more! However, since our engine is in building and far from optimization stage, it may really run crappy on older machines (such as mine, a 450 MHz with a crappy 3D card). However, on an "average machine" like a 1000 MHz with GeForce2 (on which I could test the game since my brother happens to own one), it runs just great.
There is still a little bug on Windows 2000/NT/XP that causes the game to crash rather often, but we will hopefully have corrected this until the presentation (which IS on a 2000 machine, after all).
The first downloadable version of our game will probably be out as soon as Tuesday night.
We will probably update our screenshots section until then, too.
05. 05. 2002 - First update
We have finally updated the homepage. Also, since two days ago we reached the first milestone deadline, there is a first version of the game that allows the player to move through a basic terrain and have some simple fights with a couple of enemies. It hasn't any "Mech-feeling" yet, and doesn't really reflect how combat will look like in the end (for example, you won't be able to shoot through walls in the final version... hopefully!)
We will keep updating this page on a regular basis, but since our focus is on developing the game rather than a homepage a few days may pass between each update. Also, there isn't important news every day. But check back every few days, there might be no reason for it but we'd like it.