Some Quick Plugs...

I don't plug other indie games nearly enough. There are a lot of gems out there that deserve to be played.

My first quick plug of the evening is Worminator 3.

This platformer is definately a great throwback to Duke Nukem, Commander Keen, and Worms. It's one of the many indie games that consume a bit of valuable work time here at K.G.H.Q.

Check it out: http://worminator.classicgaming.gamespy.com/

My second plug is, of course, for David Karlgren's Cyberpunk-RPG Project.

His first game Action Cyborg was really fun (still is!) and his latest project is looking just as promising.

Have a look: http://www.terrorpunksyndicate.org/cyberpunk-rpg/

I also wanted to plug a great series of videos on YouTube by GyroVorbis. It's called Adventures in Game Development. They show how human and easy going the indie game development process really is.

Subscribe!: http://www.youtube.com/GyroVorbis

If you would like to have your game plugged in the next plug-a-thon, send me an email to: kevlargames (AT) hotmail (DOT) com

I'll write up a one or two sentence description of your game or game related web-stuff and post a link. If it really impresses me (like John Karlgren's ongoing project), I'll post the link in the "Links" section.

Well, I'm off to bed!

Cheers!

Updates, etc...

Hey folks! Been a while since the last real update and I think those of you who actually read this blog deserve a new post :)

Cybertronic Armageddon...

Since my last post, a lot the rendering had to be re-written for the sole purpose of speed. We had it running on multiple machines and achieved 32 fps on my main rig. Pretty good, eh? Well, it dropped to a sluggish 5-6 fps on one of our designer's rig. (At his request, his name will not be mentioned)

So I cleaned up a lot of the code and cut out a lot of unnecessary gunk. Then it ran at around 26 fps on his machine and remained at around 32 on mine.

Currently, I'm writing a pretty hefty bit of code that takes all of our resources and packs them into a WAD/Pak-like format. (If you're not familiar, the WAD format was used in Doom-Quake 1 and the Pak format has been used in many many games in the past decade)

As for any sort of release, we're gonna go with "When it's done!" for right now.

SWORDS...

Ah yes, SWORDS. My own project.

Since my last post, I've gotten tons and tons of work done on SWORDS.

For starters, it's actually playable! It's no longer a glorified scrolling-engine! Whoo! For now, the enemies are just poorly drawn tanks and little unanimated stick man who explode into many little chunkies :) Good use for my particle system, yeah?

I'd love to talk to you about new technical things in SWORDS, but it's mostly just been pretty simple functions going in here in there. And yes, I'll admit, I've been playing the game more than working on it. But's only because I'm having so much fun with this game now that it's actually playable! And really, when you play your game more than work on it, that's a very good sign that other people will enjoy too.

Another cool thing I've been working on for SWORDS is the music element. My vision is to have some pretty heavy riffage going on at a lower volume during the normal gameplay and when things get really hairy, up the volume a bit and really unleash the fury (in the words of Yngwie Malmsteen).

I'm also setting a "When it's done!" date for SWORDS. As you know, I'm awful at giving release dates for my projects and I'd hate to promise anything.

A quick word about the projects on the backburner before I sign off and get back to work...

As of right now, they're not being worked on much at all and as much as I'd love to be able to do work on those games too, I just dont have time between working on Cybertronic Armageddon and SWORDS. So the official word is that they will remain mostly untouched until my other projects are finished and out the door.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned!

The Day That Never Comes

I was completely taken by storm! Metallica has successfully done something for me no other song since Enter Sandman has done - Make my hair stand up on end!

Lars Ulrich (drummer) said in a past interview that the album was "the missing link between ...And Justice for All and Metallica (Black Album)"

Based on what I've heard from audio clips and the new single, the album is going to be better!

Check it out!: mms://wm.elektra.com/metallica/metallica_com/2008/de/Track04.asf

1h and 14m Left!

"'Til what?," you may ask...

Metallica's first single from their latest album: Death Magnetic

I'm so pumped for this that I felt like I had to post about it before it even happened. I will, of course, be posting about it afterwards too! :)

\m/

Cybertronic Armageddon and More

Now that the RPG project is in full swing, everybody has agreed on a name for this creation of ours:

Cybertronic Armageddon

We all agreed that it would be best if the title revealed the overall theme of the game. We also agreed that the game will be released as freeware as opposed to the original plan to have a shareware-esque system.

Unfortunately, a bit of the engine was lost in the crash. So I guess I'll be spending the next week or so rewriting it.

Well, that's the update for today, folks.

Happy 4th!

Until the Next Post...

... This should tide you over.









I'm still getting everything setup on the newly restored computer. When I get back to work, I'll update you.

Not Dead...

Don't pack up your bags and move on to the next blog just yet! I'm actually not dead. I've just been having a few computer problems.

It started with the infamous UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME message accompanied by everbodys' favorite Blue Screen of Death. After swapping out hard drives countless times, I got every file backed up. How well they all survived remains to be seen.

After jacking around with all of that, I attempted a system restore:

"System restore has failed because a mass storage device was not detected."

It turns out that I had the wrong restore disc. I own a Gateway and apparently the restore disc was for Dell computers only. Gee, do you think it might have been helpful if the label would have said that? So anyway, I called Gateway and asked about their restore disc. They were going to charge me $20 and shipping. I had to explain that the disc wasn't packaged with the computer (like they should be.) After about an hour of telling them exactly what happened, they finally told me they would send it out for free but I would still need to pay shipping. That's fine. I'll gladly pay shipping. But I wasn't going to pay for a disc that was supposed to come for free.

So I get the disc in the mail and go through the whole bit. Now I'm here writing this. Nothing is wrong so far. We'll see how this goes.

LED v.01

Quick update and a screenshot for you!

This is the first running version of what will eventually be KevEngine 2's primary level editor, a program that I have dubbed "LED"

Until now, I haven't had a good, easy way to make maps for SWORDS and the new RPG (both of which run on versions of KevEngine 2) If you read the forums at all, you know that I've been researching new approaches to programming. I've been studying everything from the Wolfenstein 3D source code to programming essays scattered about the web. What you're seeing is a bit of that research actually put to good use!

When the editor is finished, I plan to rewrite a good chunk of KevEngine 2 to work with the new map format.

Updates...

A lot has been going on this month...

SWORDS is looking good. I'm getting close to the point where it actually becomes a game and not just an engine demo :) After changing the physics code a couple times, I finally settled on a system that suits the game perfectly. To speed up the process, a friend of mine has agreed to help with the graphics (I definately need help in that area :) I still have yet to see any completed work, but I'm confident that he'll deliver.

Of course the older projects are sitting around, too. I know when they should've gotten completed, but it's looking like it'll probably be awhile. I'm still just as juiced about those games as I am my new ones (Hint, hint), but there are things I need to finish before I can go back to those projects...

Now you might be thinking, "What's with the bold-faced 's' and the 'Hint, hint'?". I'll explain!

I've been recruited to work on an all new RPG set in a futuristic alternate-reality. More details on another day ;)

Before I get any emails saying, "Dude, you're already working on a game. It's going to wind up like your older projects!", don't worry. There's a whole team of people working on the artistic/musical/concept aspects of the game. My only position is lead programmer. I'm still spending most of my time on the projects back here at Kevlar Games HQ.

Well, that about covers it, really.

Thanks again for the support!

Cheers!

FAO Rome.Ro Users

Some of you people need serious psychiatric help. All you're doing is making yourselves look like low-life dirtbags when you go on somebody's ShoutBox and pick apart everything someone says on their blog. I'm done posting in that. The only thing that does is bring the scumbags of this world out of their cowardly shells to harass someone who did nothing to deserve it. Just remember that what goes around comes around, so those who have been rude for no reason in the past will get theirs. From now on, any post in Romero's ShoutBox under the name 'Bloodspiller' is fake.

Lots of Progress!

Since I last updated with my progress on SWORDS, I've gotten a whole lot done!

Here's what's new:

-Perfected collision detection and thanks to Andrew77, I found some great new algorithms to do it efficiently.

-Added a debug console for various tweaking and catching bugs. I caught a handful of bugs in various algorithms (eg. collision).

-Researched more network programming and typed up a small design document for the technical workings of multiplayer. I'm now turning those ideas into code.

-Began programming the weapon functions.

-Re-designed some of the graphics to make it look a little less ugly until I get a real artist to work on it.

-Began coming up with some guitar riffs for a theme song.

That's about it, but trust me, it's a lot more than you'd think!