Tons of stuffs...

We havent posted for a few days as we have been beavering away at getting Leviathan to a much more complete state. We have been hard at work on loads of sections of the game, these are as follows:

1) Main terminals - there was a small glitch in the system this has now been fixed. Its amazing how these things occur but they appear every now and again ;) Im sure glad I found it rather than when it was released.

2) Furniture placement - there was an error in placing the furniture, yup another one. I have now moved the code to another area of the rendering system this should give us a theoretical speed increase of about 10% as one of the rendering loops has been removed.

3) Health terminals - these have been added to the game engine now and can be used by the player (for a price of 10 credits for 1 point of health), they also run out of charge and have to recharge over time the animation for that was added today :)

4) Blood - instead of the old system where it was just removed (looked cheap) the alien blood now fades out and looks more professional. Its little things like that which adds polish to a game.

5) Aliens - these little guys no longer run into walls like depressed lemmings, now they will keep away from them depending on their size, so smaller aliens will get closer to the wall than the bigger ones (or the MUCH bigger ones) :). I have also found time to give them a AI system and speed system so the smaller aliens whizz around the level and the bigger ones are a bit slower. On the AI front the current crop of aliens are just 'foragers' they will look for food, other classes are hunters and some others that will be disclosed at a later date. Hunters are exactly that they will hunt the player or any hostile entity.

6) HUD - I have added Emm's amazing new hud and let me tell you this thing makes the game look soooooo much more professional, we could be talking about a bitmap brothers game given the quality :). I have also moved the minimap to the relevant place on the hud and setup player ones systems so they work correctly. I have yet to do player 2's they are on tomorrows list.

7)Kills - alien kills just net you experience now, for credits you have to search. Searching will also net you ammo which also now runs out so be careful this isnt a blast everything game you have to be tactical.

8)Breakthrough - aliens now can break through the floor, this is made even more perilous when they break through nearby :). I have yet to locate a suitable sound effect to represent this but I am looking for one.

9) Duct fans - they now have a noise all to themselves :), this sets them off perfectly :)

10)Joystick controls on main menu - you can now use joystick on the main menu the main reason for this is portability we can use the control method on other platforms that dont have a mouse for example XBox 360 :D

As you can see we have been very busy with getting the game to a more complete state we still have a way to go but once we get there the game will definitely shine with the best of them.

More soon...

Getting more complete...

Well as time passes the game is coming together rather nicely, I still have to add some of the stuff Emm has sent me but we have been working on some of the effects that will be in the game over the past day or so which is good. Still I have found time to get the main menu system almost complete there is still some stuff to add to it but the system now works as required.

Today I have been finalising the player 2 controls so both players can be in the game, there was a rather annoying bug in the system that took ages to trace but that has been fixed now. Also I have been looking at a Chaos Engine style camera so none of the players can go off of the screen, although they still can go off the screen at the moment which will be fixed before the next build goes to Emm it does look quite nice :D. I still also have to sort the offset system so it smooths out more rather than moving around jerkily.

Things I still have to do is add the Tick to the game I still have to work out how this performs in the game, also add in Player 2's AI if you play a one player game. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of my favorite subjects there is nothing better than creating an AI that behaves and acts like a human being, my last published creation Space Combat/WarZone (the game was released as Space Combat although I called it WarZone dont ask I dont have a idea on this either) still has people trying to beat the AI who routinely runs around the levels in groups, using grenades, explosive barrels and other things although I havent programmed them too.

For me coding AI is not boxing them in with ludicrous rules or scripting the hell out of everything its just making them behave using the same rules as the player. For example a player wants to go up a floor to the next level, they would locate a stairway and then make their way to it, all I do for my AI is use pathfinding to locate the nearest stairway and then allow them to follow the path to it. If they see enemy characters on the way they have a choice either attack or continue along the path. Its these little lines of code that make the computer players come alive, because they have the same restrictions you have it gives them a more 'human' feel.

More soon...