Gameplay concept.

I think it's important to write down specifically what you want to create. Because in the long run it's surprisingly easy to forget what you were actually trying to do.

So, basically, the game we are trying to make should have something in the lines of:

-No grinding. We should try to avoid boring and overall numb activities. Gameplay should be dynamic and provide variety. If we manage to make a smart enough AI, there should be an option to assign most simple tasks to NPCs.

-Complex gameplay mechanics. It should not be in any way simple to master. Newtonian physics, air friction, resource management, a variety of tools and materials. A fully working ecosystem in-game would be great.

-An element of freshness and discovery. Reading wikis should not be mandatory. For a game to not feel like some tool with a manual, basic controls and elements should be simple and readily available at the start of the game. Figuring out how to use these tools should be a part of the experience, not a chore.

-Providing a tough challenge. For both tacticians and engineers. Travelling vast distances through the vacuum of space. Stealing resources from enemy factions. A heavy requirement for strategic thought should be in place, inexperienced players will not make it out of the starting area.

-No victory/loss/munchkin conditions. Amassing unimaginable power and crushing your foes with an iron fist is nice, but there is a lot more to games(and life) than silly win/lose situations. The main currency in the game should be knowledge of its mechanics, and an experienced player should be able to rebuild from zero in a matter of hours and evade any conflicts he doesn't consider necessary. Especially with players and NPCs that go out of their way for no other reason than to annoy someone.


Obviously, most of these points contradict each other and can go horribly, horribly wrong. We shall see.

Mesh editing!

Finally, I've managed to write a fast enough algorithm to regenerate the mesh real-time. Woohoo! What that means is we basically have deformable landscape(or whatever that is on the screenshots - you can bite a piece out of it now, yay!)

Here are a few screens of me eating holes through stuff. Hopefully, Anry will tape a video soon. He's working on some awesome music tracks right now btw.

Testing physics

Ok, the object physics is done. Mostly. Still have them clipping through each other at low speeds when too many contact points are checked. Anyway, it looks great in most cases except when the annoying camera starts going through solid objects. Have to remember to fix that.

Basically, we can finally start doing some gameplay coding now.

Collision

Today I've finally got a decent collision for one slimeball. It flies around like an edgy green ping pong ball and collides with things quite adequately. Now to optimize the calculations and implement them for more complicated shapes! And not forget angular momentum this time.

It's nerdy physics time!

Imagine collision for this thing. From scratch. Because you're too lazy to figure out how to make it work in PhysX or Havok. I've been having nightmares of bloodthirsty teddy bears from hell because of this!

On the plus side - there's quite some progress with the game's concept.

Adding detail

Okay, we have something that resembles textures now. So I started to work on the generation code for plants. Or something similar. Whatever it is, it's supposed to grow so it needs a functional structure. So far, I've come up with a layout involving a core and something resembling huge deformed mushrooms growing from it.









Now, some polish on the shaders and textures could be nice, but I think it's going in the right direction. Hopefully, I'll finish the generator settings by the time Anry will have time to move area loading into a separate thread.

Textures!

Somehow, I've managed to get the locations loading properly and decided that we need new textures as the old ones were kinda made in MS paint.







Looks... weird. But I like it.