Polysphere

After three weeks of hard work, I have decided that PolySphere is just going to be a maze game instead of my original plan for an Action-Adventure game because of the intensity of the programming of Artificial Intelligence and my increasing approach to my deadline.  I am planning on expanding the game to include several mazes the player has to get through.

Progress Since Last Update:

• Game finally has an ending level
• Rewrote level summaries
• Making more mazes for the game
• Made difficulty an actual factor, where harder difficulties have more fog

March 18th is going to be the next Debug Day and I have been trying to prepare my AI for it.  The AI is probably by far the most challenging part of programming my game.  I had a feedback session on Tuesday from teachers in my school and they were all very impressed with what I have done so far.  The game time currently is at ten minutes, but once I get AI working it should start taking players alot longer to get through the levels.  Below are a list of the features I have added for the test day next Monday and if I can get the AI working then I will be pushing an Alpha Version 1.02 Update and have them play this version instead.

Alpha Version 1.01

Added Features:

• Level 1-1 Maze Doubled in Size
• Opening Cutscene
• Narrator Voice in Tutorial Level
• Level 1-2 Beginning will load Preview of AI Characters

Bug Fixes:

• Mouse now Appears on Pause Menu
• Wall now blocks area of maze that previously glitched players back to the beginning

Planned Upcoming Features:

• Enemy AI
  • Few Enemies in Maze
  • Boss?
• Level 1-2 Complete
• High Scores Working and Saving
• Story Reorganized
• Credits Playing if Game is Beaten
• Sound in Options Menu

March 25th was the Alpha 1.0 test day and it was a success.  I got good feedback from several people on the levels.  The tester tested Alpha version 1.o of the game and this will be the standard version of the game.  I plan on adding a version change log on here, listing the changes I have made between each version of the game.

Alpha Version 1.0

Added Features:

• Tutorial Level
• Level 1-1 Maze

Bug Fixes:

• N/A

I was planning on adding some enemies into this build, however I have been having issues with the programming, so they have been placed on hold for the moment.  For Alpha 1.01, I am planning to add an opening cutscene, voices to the tutorial, and making the maze in level 1-1 more complex.  Upcoming features I need to add include like I said the AI, items in the maze the player can collect, and more hazards for the maze.

Progress since last update:

• Updated New Game Menu Screen
• Added polygon count to debug statistics
• When player dies, game can now go back to Main Menu and start a new game
• Planned GUIs
• Planned reorganization of features on New Game Screen, Options Menu, High Score Screen, and Help Menu
• Planned all tasks in Tutorial Level
• Made seperate PolySphere page on the website

Stuff to do this week:

• Add redesigned GUIs to all menus, along with correct mouse tracking
• Start making tasks and procedure for tutorial level
• Waiting for feedback from several people so I can work on next version of story document
• Current Goal is to release Alpha build, that can be played on any Windows PC in 3 weeks (Will only have a tutorial level playable)

I made decent progress this week, however most of what I got done is research and less code then in past weeks.

Updates from the past week:

• Received great feedback from several people on my progress and game ideas.
• Completed In-Game Display and tracking of HP, Score, and Current Item
• Changed several controls, including all debug stats, which are hidden unless Q key is pressed
• Added High Scores and Help and Controls in Options Menu (Currently Dont Work However)
• Added more names to credits
• Found out how to add video playback to my game (only issue is it opens in a separate window)
• Fixed issue with main menu mouse delay

What I Plan on working on next week:

• Saving Data files created using arrays, then implementing them to be used in saving the players stats and high scores
• Also like to add GUI to Options Menu(s)
• If that gets done, my next steps will will be rendering enemies and finishing the tutorial level

I have been busy lately and have been getting alot done lately.  Sorry for the lack of updates, I will try to get back on track with the start of the new year.  Here is a list of all the updates I have made since the end of October:

• Finished Main Menu Interface

• Currently Have Temporary Options Menu in the last stable build due to mouse tracking issues
• Designed All But One Terrain For Levels
• Worked on Sound
  • Found free sound files from the web
  • Added the free sound files into my game
• Added Credits into my game
• Added and improved tracking of fps (frames per second), x, y, and z coordinates
• Added level descriptions at the start of each level
• Wrote a Living Story Document
  • All Characters, Enemies, and Levels Are Now Planned
  • Focus, however, stays on programming and much of the story is subject to change

I now currently have about 1700 lines of code in my program.  I still have many things I plan to add to the program.  My next list of goals are below:

• 3D Models for Buildings, Possibly Enemies
• Enemy AI (Artificial Intelligence)
• Working on Universal Player Stat Tracking

• Possibly High Score/Leaderboard System
• Sound Effects on Menus
• Fix and Complete Options Menu