Defining Awesome

I have a little treat for you.

I’ve been making this little application for the past few weeks. It is a test for the new physics (Box2D) in Link-Dead/Berserker as well as a test for the player movement. The graphics are really simple, just lines, so I have to present an explanation.

 This test shows how the movement system will work. It is pretty much like in platformers. This is the best way I could think of to make players move around a 2D map without flying like in Soldat.

If you create the ragdoll you can drag it with the mouse. You can’t resurrect the ragdoll so you have to restart the program to play again.

The known bugs are
- floating onto the platform/stairs
- some ragdoll collision issues

 Download

Some new amazing concept art from Sigvatr. This is a soldier. Click for bigger image in HD.

Today I integrated Box2D ragdoll physics with my Character Builder. I had 3 options to do this:

1. Have a separate system for the animation ragdoll and physics ragdoll
2. Have the animation ragdoll and physics ragdoll tied together
3. Have one system for physics and animation

I decided to go for option 2, because I already have two systems and this was the easiest way to integrate it. Basically it works as if the physics ragdoll was tied with ropes to the animation ragdoll. You can see this on the video. The green lines are for the animation ragdoll and the blue is the physics ragdoll. Animating this is super easy – you just drag the blue limbs. Click for more to see the video. read more »

I want to try making really short reports about the progress on building the new game. I’m planning this for some time now, but I need to write what we were doing and what was done up to this point. So in an extreme short version, in no particular order, this is the current state of the Link-Dead/Berserker engine and game.

1. Replacing Newton Game Dynamics engine with Box2D
2. Using Irrlicht for all game graphics and GUI (custom DLL stripped from 3D functionality)
3. Made a workable state pumping model for playing over the network
   - it works but there are some bandwidth problems I need to fix to make it really playable
   - using RakNet but I’m thinking of replacing it with something simpler
4. Thinking about replacing the sound engine (currently FreeSL/OpenAL)
5. All characters and animations are being remade
6. There will be new ragdolls based on Box2D (previously it was my own system)
7. Sigvatr is working on map designs and level graphics for weeks now
8. Synsynth has made a demo version of Link-Dead music
9. Nearly all sounds are done for Berserker
10. Working a lot on engine optimizations, rearranging, code rewriting, simplifying
    - this takes a lot of time and is something I need to do now because the engine has become really big and complex
11. The game will be shipped with a graphical GUI for editing/creating menus
    - invented an awesome way to connect GUI elements with configs/scripts and making it work without writing any code
12. Lots of visioning and discussing about the game mechanics and feel with Sigvatr and Me.

That’s what we were working on in the past couple months. It doesn’t seem much when it is written but I can’t really show you anything because most of what is being done is internal engine stuff. The graphics that Sigvatr is painting is top secret and we won’t publish them until we have something real and working in the game.
That being written I’ll see how writing progress in a very brief way like this works for me. I want to keep you guys updated but on the other hand development logs and blogs have become a distraction. My main reason for all of this is to create awesome games. Always was.