Spent the whole day tweaking and testing 'The Escape', our new Reloaded Sample Level and it's playing pretty good. The biggest change amongst the many tweaks was a nice balancing of the ragdoll and explosion forces so that the characters can be thrown into the air, but not too crazily, and also react in cool ways to being shot in different places. My favorite is a head shot with a high force weapon, which literally takes the character off his feet for some spectacular game play moments.
Here is our current title page artwork, and the graphical elements to make it real will be done Wednesday, which is the final day for 'tweaks' before internal testing begins in earnest. With a little more time we could have added a cool Uzi wielding enemy to the mix, but we think it's already pretty tough to beat the level and it's always good to keep something back for the next demo, so he will sit in the green room until called.
The plan for THU/FRI is to return mostly to the main software build and ensure everything we've done in the demo gets into the build as I am sure some of you will be eager to get your hands on the improvements disclosed in this blog over the last few weeks :)
Despite the big dark cloud in the sky, I think I will wrap up and take my walk before some welcome food. I went a bit crazy on the on-line shopping site and bought lots of different kinds of healthy nuts, so it will be fun going through them. I also bought a bottle of red wine, as that's good for you too!
All sounds great, but when will the build be available for competition winners? I am concerned that I might not be able to fully complete my competition level without the AI fixes in the new build. I am going on a vacation on the 14th, which has been planned for a long time. This is cutting it really close...
ReplyDeleteIt is unlikely you will have any time with the new build if you are leaving on the 14th. There might be the possibility of getting access to an early build just for competition finalists, but you will need to be prepared for a 'broken' version (as it's internal) and you will need to send an email to rick@thegamecreators.com and convince him it's a good idea. Too many times I've been chastised for releasing 'unfinished' material of all shapes and sizes so these days I defer release decisions to the new QA process.
ReplyDeleteThe build looks awesome Lee. Does the title page hide the initialization of the engine yet?
ReplyDeleteIts all coming to light now and I think we are well on our way!