Weekly Update #2
Design
Once again, there hasn't been much done on design this week. What we have done is that we've talked over how controlling units on the board will work, like if we should have a context sensitive cursor and dropdown menus and alike. WHile we haven't come to a conclusion yet, we have some ideas and we'll try out too see what fits this game the best!
Programming
Since the last weekly update alot of programming has gotten done. Too bad that the things that have been done are things that were already implemented into the game. That means that alot of code has been rewritten if anyone was wondering what I was talking about. The cursor, select tile and the destination tile are the only things that are visibly new in the game. The pathfinding in the game has been improved a little. For now it works as we want it to do. In the future we are going to fiddle with the algorithm to make the units walk along prettier paths, everyone loves pretty things! Half of how things work has probably been rewritten in the last couple of days. This as a consequence to me ( Kristian ) reading an AI book and finding some stuff that is applicable pretty much everywhere in the game. This resulting in much of the week going to rewriting alot of code. Yes, premature optimization is the root of all evil. But some things are worth taking the time to improve before they become too complex. As a treat for you guys we’ve decided to post a video containing the progress of the game so far. It shows off the pathfinding, some graphics and the new cursor stuff. The video is running a bit slow but that is because of the video capturing software.
A video showcasing the current version of the pathfinding! The lag is from the game, but from the screen cap software.
Graphics
While a post about the graphics was made earlier this week, there haven't actually been that much job done in the last few days. We've made a mockup of lighting effects that we hope to implement into the game, as it'll not only make the game look better in general, but will also make the atmosphere better. The system we plan on using for the lighting is so far very basic, and will pretty much just be a circle of light that can't go over walls. Depending on our needs and the time we've got, we might make the system more advanced when we implement it into the game, but for now, that's what's planned.
Mockup of the lighting system (click for full size). Obviously there'll be more light sources and the units themselves will be more visible when we implement it into the game.Sound/Music
While there has been no work done on the sound front, I have done some work on the music. I've made the songs a couple of minutes longer, and I've changed some of the instruments in the song to make it more 80's and more atmospheric. While I won't show anything new today, I hope to get enough done on the song to give you a preview version next week.
I don't get it. No matter how many times I watch.
The video in this post? It's just a showcase of how the current pathfinding works (the fact that the units snap to the grid and doesn't walk through any walls or other units), which is a bit more complicated than it looks. So it's not really an impressive video, rather just a small demonstration. This is just a weekly update, after all - If it was something big we'd make a separate post for it.