Ahem...... Hi
guys! Finally I'm through with exams and I can resume work on my game. I
know I said I'd post last week (Sunday the 15th) but I had a paper
postponed and couldn't write any posts yet. For over a month now, I
haven't done any work on the game at all, so progress is right where I
left it in the last blog post. I did do the research I said I would do
on using Microsoft's XNA Game Studio to make my game, instead of Atari's
3D game Studio. If I work with XNA, I would be able to make the same
game for Windows Phone, Windows PC and the XBox360 all with the same
lines of code. Almost the same lines of code, with slight adjustments to
adjust to things like the touchscreen on phones which isn't available
on PC and XBox360, or the pad vibration features on the XBox360 which
isn't on the other two platforms.
I've decided to stick with 3D Game Studio because while it isn't as powerful as XNA, it is much easier to use (emphasis on the much), and I am trying to make a low budget game after all. The thing is XNA isn't a game engine, it's more like a game engine designer. Using XNA, one can make his own template to base his games on. I don't want to bore you with technical jargon, so let me just explain with one example. In Gamestudio, I can use one of the default camera's already present or I can make my own. You know, like the zoomed out camera in soccer games, the first person camera in most shooting games or the third person camera in most adventure games. In XNA however, I would have to create my own camera. Things like this mean that there is a higher level of customization possible in XNA but it will take much longer for me to make a game with XNA. I'll work with XNA when I'm working with a team, but for this solo project, I'ma stick to Gamestudio.
So this week, I'll reveal one more character and then from next week, I'll start posting screenshots and videos of the gameplay. My younger brother just got back for his summer holidays. He's still in high school and he's the one that's creating all the 3D models that will be used in the game. By "model", I'm referring to a solid object within the game, such as the characters, doors, vegetation, obstacles, etc. I can do the sprites (flat, 2D objects) by myself because they require much less time. So really, work on the game will resume after the time of this writing. I've lost six weeks of work so I'm really pumped about continuing!
