Daydreaming

Kickstarter: Advanced Invaders

Now that the warehouse is up and running, it’s time for the first game project to be developed within its halls — Advanced Invaders. And right now, it is a live kickstarter project no less. Crowdfunding… something from which I believed I was light years away. You can find all about the project here:

Kickstarter page

It is “Space Invaders on steroids”, with many updates compared to its ancient role-model and with a campaign, that has a beginning and an end in the spirit of classic arcade games. It is aimed for both Windows/Linux and Android.

Some of the notable features are:

  • Main game with progression map and 5 + 1 action-packed levels, all around the Solar system. One level in the main game will be very special, much different than the rest, and more-or-less a different type of game.
  • One unlockable game mode, once the main game has been beaten.
  • Difficulty level in the spirit of retro arcade machines… one thing is certain, this game will not be holding your hand.
  • Four types of standard enemies, each with its own unique attitude and destructive arsenal, and two big bad bosses.
  • Four different types of weapon in player’s arsenal and a few unique to the aliens, not available to the player.

If the kickstarter succeeds, it will be an open-source game. Code will go under the BSD license and those few art assets of mine under CC-BY (since vast majority of art/audio assets that I use or plan to use in the game is under CC-BY anyway). Because of this, anyone will be able to use this game as one complete example to study Unity. Unity’s official example 2D game is great, and it helped me a lot while I was making first steps, but it was nowhere near a “complete” 2D game. Thus, I dare to believe that this game will be useful to folks interested in developing games in Unity.

Another reason why I am excited by possible success of this kickstater is that, ever since crowdfunding became a thing, I looked up to it as part of solution for the “mainstream terror”. And to some degree it has proven to be. For example, we would likely not get Pillars of Eternity without it. Now this modest studio-warehouse, Just Gameware, has a chance to be part of this way in making PC games. Plus I am interested in adding an open-source element to it and see how that will go.

While the Limit Load project was progressing on its own pace, I went on investigating the ever so popular Unity game engine and… my jaw hit the floor, no exaggeration there. But I will stop here with this fascination leakage. One thing is certain, I am definitely going to stick with Unity for future games. I don’t think I can imagine PC/Android game that is interesting to me, and that cannot be made in Unity in its full glory. Of course this doesn’t mean that I will abandon Limit Load, I will keep working with Panda3D, along the main code guy there, for the sake of that project. In fact, I already finished a lot of stuff there, and have been waiting for code guy to catch up, in order for it to start working.

The Warehouse

$ begin_eval.bat_

The front gate and master board………… passed.
Warehouse reception………… passed.
Storage room………… passed.
Junk depot………… failed. [mental note, unstuck those doors already]
Neon lights………… failed. [no matter, screens provide enough light]
Dev screens with haunting lights, shining in the dark………… passed. [gotta say, looks prettier at night… maybe the warehouse should be open only at night]
Prime server………… passed.
Dev tools & templates, scattered all around………… passed.
Player tools, mouse/keyboard/joystick………… passed.
Operational joypad………… failed. [awww…]
Water sinks………… passed.
Rusty beams on the floor, good for tripping over………… passed.
Ceiling windows………… passed.
No open wires around………… passed. [at least no visible ones…]
Fire extinguishers………… failed. [will use the hose if needed]
All types of administrative bureaucratic sticky crap visible on the walls………… passed.
A secret stash for tax evas– CENSORED!

Status evaluation………… passed.

Just Gameware warehouse is up and running!