Welcome back folks!
After a way too long break I'm back on IGS development right for the holidays!
I've been hard at work on the basics of the alpha 2. The crazy thing about alpha 2 is that it's a complete rewrite of the game we had so far. Now using the super strong Unity3D game engine, we had to rewrite everything in C#, re-import every sprites and assets and get a second chance on designing the game.
Game Design Changes
Initial design had a few major flaws, I tried to shoot for the stars and I ended up shooting in every direction without achieving any progress. Now I went back to notebook sketches, re-designed the entire game so it can deliver the good old kind of simulation game we all love.
One of the biggest change in how the game will play is the hybrid approach we have with the gameplay. Instead of selecting characters and right click to do an action, which would be a lot repetitive when having a big 100+ employees office. To fix this problem, the player will only control his own character. So let's say my character name is Tommy, I have a 20 employees studio. I'll have to move Tommy to interact with the environment or other employees but employees will be AI controlled so you can only focus on your projects, your own character and your growth in the game.
Development Updates
Game engine is now pretty stable, lately the focus has been on the introduction and on the user interface. I scripted the whole introduction, with a very short user tutorial so alpha 2 testers get to know how the new game design work. Otherwise big progress has been made on the user interface engine, greatly simplified code-wise.
Another good chunk of code I got down is the dialogue system. Built with callback support, it'll be super easy to script your own interactive dialogues whenever we get mod support down in alpha 75! ;-)
What's Next?
Next, we'll be working on the interactivity with the objects and the environment around your character. Cool things like a neat little HUD system to display actions available to play with.
We'll also be sending more picture request to those who donated for the Get Yourself In The Game offer so expect new faces in the game soon!
