It’s been a while and there has been no news for quite some time. In fact, there has been no news since I set everything up. It would be reasonable to believe that the project died and I didn’t bother to update. To be totally honest, that is very close to the truth. BUT FIRST COMMAND IS NOT DEAD! After planning out the basics of first command I started trying to build a team. I got so bogged down trying to find people willing to work for free that were also capable of doing what I wanted that I basically stopped working on the game itself. With very little progress for a great deal of time, I lost steam and then interest and decided to pursue other projects for a while.
But First Command always lingered, waiting for the day when I would come back to it. Now that day has arrived and there have been some pretty major changes. Ok actually one major change really. I have decided to move from UDK to the Unity engine. Why? Primarily because unity is easier. Unreal is a great engine, but it packs a pretty hefty learning curve in with all of its power. Additionally UDK is really designed for 3D games, very, very pretty 3D games. Unreal is all about making it easy to create AAA visuals, and that takes a toll on hardware. The game I am making is a top down 2D game. I don’t need the power, and I don’t need the hardware overhead that comes with it. Unity is of course also a 3D engine, but its pipeline just makes it easier to start simple and stay there.
So with all that said I have hopped back on the project and I have the game built back up to about where the tech demo was, but with better art and tighter controls. In fact at the point of writing this the player can now get in the fighter, shoot, and be destroyed by a simple enemy fighter AI that can also shoot and be destroyed. A new tech demo will probably come along once I have some sounds to go along with it so you don’t have to hear my “pew pew bowershh” that inevitably slip out while I am playing a game without sound.
