So I've finally thrown out all the old code and I am now using a component based design, instead of the old "everithing in one class". I've also added animation and proper character movement. I really feel that I've accomplished something when I can walk around my own house. By the end of the week I plan to have physics up and running (so no more clipping). By the end of the month(December) I might have enemies and explosions working, that is what I've planned atleast :)

Unfortunately, at the moment, everything looks pretty much the same so you can tell if it is a new screenshot or a old one, so I wont bother posting any. I promise that I'll upload some when the physics is working.

Instead of Comic Sans, you might find another comic font that you can use. I don't know if Blambot allows you to include fonts, but their free fonts are pretty nice and can't be recognized from a hundred paces.

I always got frustrated with the everything in a file. One of the things I took from Java coding was the one class per file and keep it even when I do C++ or C# (my current language). Makes it easier when I know that if I want to find SomeClass, it is SomeClass.cs. :)

Quote: Original post by dmoonfire
Instead of Comic Sans, you might find another comic font that you can use. I don't know if Blambot allows you to include fonts, but their free fonts are pretty nice and can't be recognized from a hundred paces.

From the website: "...No Blambot font may be altered or redisributed without the express permission of Nate Piekos". So you can use them as long as you dont include the font file with your release.

I was going to skip the fonts(only hand-drawn images) or make my own, but you guys have sparked a interest so here is a font, I found just recently. It seems to be a pretty good western font with a good license. More can be found in the western or the comic category.

sirGustav,
Thanks for the link. We're working on a game based in 1880 (Jed, Ted and Fred). We'll need a western style font for User Interface....menu, etc.

Regards,
Chuck

I've added the PhysX Controller so the player can walk around in the level(affected by gravity) and collide(and slide) against walls and walk up hills. I've also integrated fmod in 3d, though atm there is only "step" sounds.

The playing of the sound is actually a sound component that listens to specific event(WalkStep) and plays a sound. The sound played is randomly choosen(Mersenne Twister RNG) from a list. I keep a list of the 3 recently played sounds aswell so sound A is never played in a row, and sequences as ABAB or ABCABC or impossible. Repetition is still possible if the sounds sound alike (and walking-step-sounds very much do).

Next up is barrels, dynamites and finally screens and perhaps a dev video :)

Come to think about it, "pony up some cash"(as in pay a debt) as a major story element probably won't be enough for the pony element :)

I actually tried to not making any crates, to set myself apart from the rest of the -time-until-crate games, and I was going for barrels instead(not crates at least :) ).
Getting the barrel into the game proved harder than I originally thought it would be. My first plan was to model it as a cylinder, but that idea was trashed really fast since I couldn't find any support for cylinders in the physics engine.
So I decided I would go and model the barrel and use the original mesh as collision. After several tries and fixing a few of my bugs, among forgetting to update the physics(oops) I was stuck. No matter what I did to the barrel just kept falling through the floor. I couldn't find any documentation on what kind of collisions physics supported, but I assumed there must be something wrong. Either with their code or mine, probably the latter.
Since I couldn't find the bug in my code I went the easy route (I am on a tight schedule and already behind at least a month from my original plan) and made crates. I feel really bad for making another game with crates, but after all - if the npc's in "assasins creed" are moving them around, why can't I have them, crates existed in the wild west right?
So after spending a few hours of tweaking gravity and density the creates bounce around nicely.

The creates fire of a local "I have collided" event and the sound component within picks up and plays a random bump sound. Just hearing the bumps in realtime while I push around crates (I can't pick them up) is inspiring and gives me a mental boost :)

Next up is dynamite throwing, explosions and the likes. I feel like this is going to take some time, and even if I don't finish on time this has sure been a rewarding, learning, and most important, fun experience.

[Edited by - sirGustav on January 16, 2008 10:28:46 PM]

I really hope you do finish. It is starting to look really good.

Thanks :)
I do however have 10 more features before I can call it complete, and only 10 weekends. It evens out, and I hope I actually can complete it before the contest ends, *fingers crossed* :)

I am still working on the dynamites, they are a hefty update, though the first element should be that right ;) Still some tweaking graphically and explosions(!) before I move onto the shooting from the hip part of the wild west :)