Stage IV: Parts coming together

So I figured a Stage IV update is in order…

It’s officially “in production” as of now. As I’d sorta imagined, it’s a small team. Actually, it’s just two people, so that’s not really a team, is it? It’s a dynamic duo! I’m doing the game engine (as in, gameplay only… XNA is handling graphics and update logic and such) and writing, and Sarah Brown (worked on Gene Therapy and was my Graphics I partner) is in charge of photographs, music, and other non-text content. Later in the semester, we’ll have some interface help from another student if he has time.

So, yeah it’s a small team, but I think the game doesn’t need anything more… again, I’m really not so hot on the whole solo programmer bit, but Sarah can’t be expected to do more for it than what she’s already committed. It’ll be interesting: we’re thinking about how we’ll recruit some actors/actresses for the different parts, how we’ll do shoots, etc. It’s funny: there’s a lot of things that you don’t need to worry about for Stage IV that other games have (collision detection, 3D graphics, enemy AI, etc), but there’s a lot of new work that I’ve never thought of before instead (photo shoots, working with actors, dynamic music, creating narrative coherence). I’m a little concerned that my first experience with all this stuff will be on a game that’s very near and dear to me, but I suppose… well… *shrugs*… dunno what I suppose.

If I’d not noted earlier, I effected a top-to-bottom revamping of the gameplay code when the semester started… I didn’t like the very limited prototype structure I made over the summer. This makes sense… it was after all just a prototype. So now, the new code is nearing the original level of functionality that I was at before, at least now I have a more flexible event-system. Now, the code can accept any type of Event and can run multiple events at once via an Event Manager. Sorta similar to multithreaded programs or AI tasks… sorta. Actually, I built the system first, then realized that it was a lot like a task system for AI in games after some reading. Different purposes, but sorta similar structure.

And, since I’m having oh-so-much fun with Windows GUI creation, figured I’d put up a pic of the latest editor:

Not done, for sure… but it’s getting there. At least for basic text input.

Oh, and it should be noted that I DO intend to come to create the WHOLE game by May at this point. Earlier I was predicting just a demo scene or two… but we’ll see how things go.