Hey all. I figured I'd give a long-overdue status report of SkyCars v1.10 progress:
Why is it taking so long? I've been on a few vacations lately. But mainly, there are so many new features that I'm adding to the next release of SkyCars. I'll outline a few of them with the aid of screenshots.
Here we see a typical Earth level. The differences from previous versions are (1) the in-game menu / pauser and (2) The new ring type. This ring will give you points which now play an important role in the game.
Why? So that you can earn new cars! Each will have it's own strengths and weaknesses in different situations. Select your car in the ship hangar.
The improved engine introduces a multitude of new block types to make the game more interesting. Here we see some metallic blocks and nifty decorations. Also, notice how high up that platform above is. There are now 8 height levels instead of the original 4, so the gameplay is more diverse. The block to the front of the lower platform is a jump block that launches the player into the air!
Here's another nifty shot of the metallic blocks being used in Earth 3.
The new level format allows for some cool effects. Blocks can now be easily rendered normally, with black-removed transparency, ghosted, or dark ghosted. This will all be easily accessable in the new version of SkyEdit. Speaking of which, a converter will be released so that your custom levels don't go to waste.
ETA is in about 3 weeks. I've told some people that it may be earlier, but I don't want to get hopes up and then fail to meet this deadline.
Some additional things to check out in the future will be Ag3ntSm1th's RLG (Random Level Generator), a very cool piece of code that keeps the game more interesting; and the growing database of user-made levels, including some spicy conversions of classic SkyRoads (Bluemoon's game) tracks.
Keep those eyes peeled!
