With 19:15 left on the clock Tuesday night, it was evident that teams were starting to fill the strain of constant coding. Josh Butterworth and Andre Furtado both managed to produce some form of playable build, while the two-man teams were struggling to implement a few basic features.
But I have to say I'm awfully impressed with the progress they have made. I know that statement is feeding directly into Microsoft’s marketing ploy -– confirmed during a brief encounter with Rich Wickham, director of Microsoft's gaming business -- but XNA is apparently really easy to use. All you need is a basic programming background.
Anyways, to combat the art problem, shown in the last update, the teams are getting resourceful. Thanks to a blog post by Andre Furtado, the teams have started to tap into the XNA community for art assets. Josh Butterworth managed to contact his Dream-Build-Play artist, which has given his game a Geometry Wars flare. And Simian Escape will be getting artwork from community members.
Hit the jump for project updates.
Dungeon Quest
After working until midnight, the Germans decided to get an early start at 8 am this morning. As you can see, the early hours paid off from a technical perspective. Benjamin Nitschke and
Christoph Rienaecker spent most of the day perfecting ambient lighting and correcting a few coding problems. When they imported the cave (built on XP) into Benny's Vista machine, the collision detection mesh didn't work. It took two hours to export and get everything functional again.
But the camera works and the lighting is now almost done. Benny has also been working ahead by inserting dummy quest items (keys, weapons and treasure chests) that will later be switched out with Christoph's art. Meanwhile, Rienaecker is busy designing the character art, which right now consists solely of a wire framework. Benny claims he's not worried about making the Thursday deadline, but he also plans on working until 3 am.
To read Benjamin's account, check out his blog.
AbduX
I actually had the chance to give Andre Furtado’s AbduX a spin today.
It’s coming along quite nicely. Sure, the graphics look like they’re designed by a grade schooler, but the screams and bobbing hair dos make for a hilarious, campy vibe. He’d like to incorporate “cooler”
graphics, but Andre says he’d be happy if his project simply illustrates that you can make a fun game with XNA – even if you don’t know anything about art.
Beyond adding graphical improvements, Andre has perfected control of the saucer. Now you can actually abduct the fleeing masses and relish in their delighted shrieks. But it takes a bit of time to get used to piloting the UFO as its quite sluggish until you build up proper acceleration.
When he stopped coding for the day, Andre had implemented his scoring system (hence the MegabduX) and basic user interface. As you zoom around, abducting humans, your beam's energy depletes. Too much happy zapping means you'll be out of juice when you need to stop a human from entering a bunker -- possibly ending your game. More importantly, humans actually run towards the bunkers and escape once they reach them.
Final Stand
Josh Butterworth’s Geometry Wars like shooter, tentatively titled
Final Stand, is showing the most recognizable improvement -- thanks mostly to art support from his Dream-Build-Play teammate. Josh has managed to start testing out new weapons. The main gun is a pistol, but players will be able to pick up a rifle (ricocheting ammo)
shotgun and missiles.
He also got the multi-player up and running. At that moment, he says, he realized he was really close to having a complete game. Josh has also decided to add an object to the middle of the map that players have to protect -- if it is destroyed, game over. He says this gives him the 'siege' feel he was looking for, and it means he doesn't have to figure out how to keep enemies from clustering in the center.
While the game is basically playable, he still has a lot of work ahead of him. For one, the enemies tend to get stuck in the sharp corners of the map, so he needs to refine the A.I. But his biggest challenge will be making the difficulty ramp up appropriately. You know, so the game is actually fun to play.
Simian Escape
The Minnesota boys have also overhauled their graphical look – but that’s because their last build was a bit too reminiscent of Garage Games' stock art.
Now with some free images, they’re putting the finishing touches on the basic gameplay and hope to switch out their generic art with sprites from the community.
Currently, the game consists of a randomly generated map populated with trees, mushrooms and tigers. As the Ape-man hero traverses the terrain, he has to pick up fruit in order to increase his score and maintain his stamina.
Jonathon Stevens and Patrick Glanville also plan to add basic brawling attacks. However, they do, accidentally, have bouncing trees that gobble up the on-screen fruit.
They pair has built basic enemy AI and added some spawning logic so tigers will appear more frequently as you progress through the game. With the basic interface and game play in place, Jonathon says they're confident they'll have the game ready by tomorrow night.
