Hey folks,
It’s been a long while since my last post! Sorry about that. I was going to post last week, but ended up getting sick with a nasty cold and I’ve been playing catch up ever since. On that note, I just wanted to announce that this blog will be going to a monthly format, at least while school is in session. This semester has simply been far too busy to produce a quality post every week, and I’d like to have an established time where each of you can reliably find content. That doesn’t mean there won’t be posts more frequently than that, but I want to establish the fact that it will be at least once a month.
Now that that’s all settled, let’s dive right in:
First off, I keep saying how busy I am with school, but I haven’t posted an update to my game in a while, so let me show you what Team Fisticuffs has gotten done in the last few weeks.
First off, you’ll notice we actually have a title menu now! We’re still working on improving the menus themselves, but you do get a good picture of our team logo. We’ve implemented mouse input, so buttons (like the big start icon) work when clicked.
Of course, the action really starts when the game level loads – not only do we have randomized terrain generation now, we have 4-player multiplayer! Whoo!
Each player gets a 10 second turn (plus a 3 second grace period in between turns). They’ll have to move, aim, power up and shoot within that time, otherwise the game automatically takes a shot for them (based on their power and angle).
Right now, we have 4 weapons fully active. The standard shot and the missile (a larger blast) are pretty standard fare. But the other two weapons are the ones I’m really happy with. You’ll notice them in the video: the ‘bouncing betty’ bounces over terrain and only blows up after a certain amount of time or when it hits a player. The drill shot, which doesn’t have an icon yet, bores through terrain for a short while before blowing up. It’s extremely useful when there is a wall between two players.
We’ve also added in knockback and particle effects to give the game some fun feedback when a weapon connects, as well as give players a chance to blow their opponents off an edge. Alpha presentations are this week, so I’m looking forward to showing off our gameplay.
In other news, I haven’t had a chance to get as much writing in as I would like, but I was featured in an article for Belleair Living, which was pretty neat. And thanks to everyone who sent me a copy of it, as well. I really appreciated it!
Now I just need to get my third book out the door for all of you! As a quick aside, one of my major projects for the summer will be finishing up the editing on Book 3 for a Fall release. That said, I can assure you I won’t be rushing to get it out before Christmas if it looks like it won’t make the Fall!
Other than than, it’s been pretty quiet. The last few weeks have been consumed with projects and midterms, though I did get the chance to see the Lego Movie with some friends from school. It’s definitely entertaining, even for adults, and I recommend it to anyone on the fence whether to see it.
Next week is spring break, and I’ll be headed to San Francisco for the Game Developer’s Conference, so I should have some nifty updates about that. That about wraps it ups here. Thanks for all the support, and see you next time!
Jon
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