I got to a point where I felt bad in my guts when looking at the little soldiers dying. I won’t spoil the surprise so wait to see it in the game. That will do for now. I’m refocusing now on network code finally. I want to play this game online ASAP!
Btw. Feeling stuff in my body is my usual method of gameplay design. If something is good it just feels good. If I want a certain response for the player I have to feel it for myself first.
I want the gore in Link-Dead to get to a point were it is disturbing and makes you feel sick and sorry for the little bastards dying in agony. I want you to think twice before killing someone in the game and to think 10 times before thinking of participating in a real life war. Play games not war. To give you a glimpse of what is to be expected here is a function I am making today CSoldier::VomitBlood();
I’m making big progress. I’ve written the main part of the meta-game processing. This means rules defining the gameplay. All the rules are written in basic config files and can be exchanged and modified at will. You will be able to create a capture the flag or domination mode super easy with this.
Here is the rules config files hierarchy:
RULES file – main rules file in which you can define the teams, points you get, damage modifiers, respawn types and others
TEAM files – separate team definition files; there can be 1 or as many teams as you want; you can set the team name, colors, base and target items (like flag in CTF)
CLASS files – separate class definition files for each team; as many classes as you want; each class can use a different actor file (skeleton and animations) and skins.
INVENTORY LIST file – list of available weapons and items for each class; it is done in separate files because they can be easily exchanged and reused in different game modes
ACTOR file – the file for the item which defines how the item is built and setup; it is used for weapons, grenades, bombs and other items; this is were gun appearance details and characteristics are held
SUB-ACTOR file – file for a subitem of the ACTOR; used for example for different ammo and bullets in guns
First ever Link-Dead fan page! (in Polish).
Pierwsza w historii strona fanowska Link-Dead!
Current features of the Link-Dead map editor:
– WYSIWIG tile editor
– instant play testing, returning back to editor & editing while playing
– ambient light editing
– adding, removing textures, tile mask sheets and parallax backgrounds
– adding noise functions
– background/foreground editing
– pixel rendering using external script file
– collision data editing
– respawn points adding
Todo:
– adding animated sprites
– adding dynamic lights
– object adding (doors, elevators, …)
This is how I’m working nowadays on creating maps and the map editor code. I take a real picture and try to recreate it by using procedural generating, texture blending techniques and scripts.
Example: This is the source picture.
