3rd May 2004: Project Update
Well, I've been working very hard on this, being day six of seven and all... lol trying to fix as many bugs and glitches as possible. Many 50% finished features won't make it into the demo, but a finished game should take about a month including to get it to the point I'd feel happy releasing it fully. As a full game I'd like to release it in Moddable form, with a level editor, very many levels, long story mode, and perhaps multiplayer, build up a good online comunity so its always expanding. That would make me feel like I've released a finished product worth buying
Wednesday's demo will hopefully be fully playable, with three largish maps, and basic death match, capture the flag and arcade mode intact. The demo will only contain three weapons, 3 enemy types and one playable character to leave some surprises for those who buy the full game, I think that is fair?
Added Today:
* Most bugs & glitches fixed
* Power-ups added
* Crates, barrels etc. added
* 3 largish levels completed, many more started
* Much optimisation and cleaning of code
* Front and back end about 50% complete
* Started a scripting "language" for cut scenes.
* Basic Level editor started
* "Proper" website started
3rd May 2004: Feedback
MikeS "I bet this could make it in the TGC newsletter."
Oooh I'd love that
Maybe more approprite once the full game is released, but a demo to show what can be accomplished in a week might be a good angle too!
Matic "this is making me as a 3d modeller interestet in coding and buy DBP to lern how to code games. thx for Inspiring me."
Wow, inspiring, moi? lol Seriously though, if you are a good modeller, then to me thats the tricky part. Coding games in Darkbasic is quite fast once you get the hang of it. I find BASIC languages make a lot more sense than others when it comes to writing games. The thing that takes the time witha full project is th modelling and mapping. (In my humble opinion anyways, I'm sure everybody's different) I would always encorage anyone interested in learning about maing games to use DBPro, its really very flexible and fast to learn.
Code2Kill "What level ed are you using"
My own. But it basically just bricks together elements made in Milkshape and Cartography shop. I like both those products as they are cheap and well supported. For Lightmaps I am using a mixture of my own labourious methods, but also use Gile[s] for testing ideas.
For an easy quick & cool DBPro level a good method is
1. Cartography Shop -> x
2. x -> Gile[s]
3. Giles -> DBO
Not exactly the method I use, as I like to feel more in control, but I will often test ideas out or use that as a starting point.
Code2Kill "How long have you been using DBP"
Since Patch 3.1, I found it unusable before then. before that though I was using DBE and before that DBC so I've been with DarkBasic since basically the beginning
Code2Kill "With time would you consider using your own models."
Absolutely, I often do! But for me, modelling is the thing that takes longest, as I am very critical of my own work. A decent main humanoid character, fully textured and animated would take me a good, full 2 or even 3 days. For a project such as this I can't afford that, as I set myself a short dead line. I'll do a few more of these "Game in a Week, release in a month" type things, and see whether I can make a viable living from them. Once I have enough money saved to support my wife and kids for the development time, I'll do a longer project all of my own, perhaps and RPG or the fabled DBP MMORPG
Code2Kill "How'd you do that cinematic intro."
Perhaps I should have specified that it's a cut-scene not CG FMV. FMV in a game is a pet-hate of mine, it spoils the flow and look of a game to be switching resolutions and graphical quality all the time. So when I say "cinematics" I mean scenes being real time generated by DBPro but with fixed camera positions and paths.
Cinematic to me means making the game experience feel more like a film, with a proper atmosphere, lighting and direction. Unfortunately I am yet to find an FMV sequence which didn't then make the ingame graphics look poor or startlingly different by comparison. And by the time the real-time graphics are cool enough to co-exist with FMV, what's the point in FMV? Perhaps the best recent example of brilliant cut-scenes but poor FMV intergration was CodeVeronica on Dreamcast. The in game graphics were so much more stylish
DBPro is more than capable of producing cool cinematically scripted, lit and directed cut-scenes by itself realtime, with the help of decent models, textures and a good director, so this is my prefered method. That said, I do sometimes use FMV for making animated short cartoons, and for this, I use 3dsmax5.
Thanks again for the continuing flow of positive comments, you are all very kind, I feel kinda humbled. Its only a generic FPS after-all.
This kind of enthusiasm is spurring me on though. I feel that perhaps this game will be in a constant state of semi development, perhaps with a constant flow of updates, levels features, mods etc. appearing on a website for registered users? AS long as people wanted more content I could add more, it could grow into the worlds largest game if I can finance expanding it!
Anyways I'm off to bed, need to get some rest in, tomorrow will be a long day trying to get everything up to scratch for a playable demo!
The forum user formerly known as...?
