Defining Awesome

I’m happy to announce that Link-Dead is one of the first few games available on the digital game download platform called Desura. Desura is something like Steam except that it kicks Steam’s ass because it is:
– indie-friendly (made by the creators of ModDB & IndieDB)
– community driven
– mods and downloadable content support

Pay-what-you-want pricing is not currently available so I fixed the price to 4.99EU/$. I decided this amount because it is the average donation I get for Link-Dead. So go support Link-Dead, support Desura and have some awesome times playing it!

I finally found some time to fix the bots that were working in the LD Deathmatch Test so you can expect bots in the next release which should be really soon. Don’t expect anything spectacular cause they do a lot of stupid things but still they can do pretty smart moves which I am proud of.

I tought about Field-Of-View for a while and decided to give it a shot. For now this will be a server-side option and we will see how much fun is it. The implementation was easy cause I had it already coded. Just had to fix a couple bugs and add a shader to render the out-of-view map parts. Here’s a couple versions of the shader. I think the last one will be in the game.

.. And yes, that’s a new map I’m making.

Added map file compression and texture bundling in one file. All gfx of the map are in one file. This makes it overall larger but is easier for deployment. I still have to decide if I want it like this or not.

Added file downloading from server. Works asynchronously. Can be used even during the game. Uses throttling for optimal bandwidth usage.

Montage of raw gameplay footage from the alpha version of Link-Dead. Available in HD quality.
Get the game here: www.link-dead.net

http://soldat2d.ru/showarticles.php?id=19

I invented a way to synchronize physics code over network using very little bandwidth. I’m implementing it now to see if it will work. This might be used for a variety of map objects, like guns, clips, rubble, boxes, ragdolls and finally doors and elevators which could possibly be destroyed; fall and kill somebody beneath it. Hope this idea works.

I updated my Network Code Research mindmap. It includes now a presentation link from Gaffer On Networking. It is an excellent read especially to see how much the internet sucks for online gaming. The data Gaffer provides corresponds with my experience that I gained just by diving into the waters and trying my best at making multiplayer work good in my games. Here are the 4 bullet points:

read more »

I copied a big chunk of my design document and placed it on the Link-Dead page in a place called Codex Link-Dead, which is a wiki dedicated to everything LD. You can read all my weapon and item plans. Don’t forget to also visit the screenshots gallery. And last but not least, there’s only 24 hours left to vote for Link-Dead for Indie of the Year 2010, go vote if you haven’t yet!