TCHOW is Travelling (until August 1st)

This week, TCHOW World Headquarters will be driving up to Portland, Maine (helping a friend move). I expect it to be hard to code in a moving van with a dog sitting on my lap. As such, updates over the upcoming days may be somewhat sporadic and lacking in game progress.

I do have a few things I've been hoping to post about -- perhaps more prose-heavy and tangentially related to Rktcr than the recent slew of posts -- so this news page won't be entirely silent over the coming days. I'm also thinking of trying to write a 7dRTS; but... well, we'll see.

Also, why not give Rktcr Demo 2 a try, and comment/email/tweet at me?

Rktcr Demo2

Next week, I'm going to be on the road helping a friend move. Since this takes me away from my Windows and Linux build machines, it seemed like a good time to do another demo release of Rktcr.

So go get it over here.

What's new?

Well, I did fix a physics glitch, so some paths may be invalidated. Other than that, it's horde of little refinements. Portals now glisten, there are more skins and costumes for vehicles and characters, backgrounds and edge-of-level are handled differently, and some par times have been improved.

I also decided to package all of the basic challenge levels with the demo. This is -- in part -- a stopgap measure that (I hope) will ease the learning curve. It also means that there's an even more ridiculous amount of gameplay in there now.

Oh, and the Linux build is switched to 64-bit. I don't think this should matter, but if it does, please comment.

Note: if you happen to be a journalist or a Let's-Play-er, and I haven't already done so, e-mail me and I'll be happy to link you to the full pre2 build [contains more levels and worlds].

A Dash of Levels and a Pinch of Scrambling

Today, I'm continuing my recent spate of loose-end-tying in Rktcr with some code tweaks, graphics adjustments, and new challenge levels.

Challenge Levels

I finished up a few challenge level ideas I had been playing with. I don't want to say too much about these, lest I clue the solutions, but these are definitely worthy of their "tricky" label.

The flat blue background of the challenges was starting to look ugly, so I added a crumpled paper texture (an actual scan of an actual sheet of my scrap paper, in fact). I don't think it's quite right yet (I should pull some sort of normal map out of that paper photo), but at least it breaks up the monotony of the background a bit.

Car Scrambling

Since there are now five possible car sprites, I decided to add part scrambling. This allows for exponentially more unique vehicle appearances.

Three New Rktcr Vehicles

Today was another day of drawing things for Rktcr. In part, this was because my remote git server was down due to a power outage, so I wanted to stay away from (mysterious prototype) and Rainbow, both of which I had most recently worked with on my laptop. Mostly, though, it was because Rktcr really did need some vehicle variety.

So here's what I got into the game today:

This vehicle skin was inspired by locomotives; the counterweight design in the wheels was to mitigate the "hammering" of the track caused by the drive piston motion. I think I struck a decent balance between ornamentation and staying true to Rktcr's flat style, though the front triangle seems a bit lacking. I might also decide to come back and tint the wheels. I tried a few tints while drawing and nothing looked quite right.

Next, I decided to head to the future. This vehicle was inspired by a whole slew of visual influences, from plates-over-machinery robot design to the circle-segment elements of the Remember Me logo. I think it came out rather well; though I find that the wheels and body can sometimes blend together.

Finally, I tried to channel a sort of present day performance car aesthetic -- some body panels for aerodynamics, but over a light tubular frame. And, of course, ridiculous low-profile tires and custom rims to round out the look. I'm honestly not sure what that exhaust system would be used for, but I liked the asymmetry.

New Rktcr Challenge Level: Shape

Added a Rktcr basic challenge level this morning:

It's not complicated, but playtests have indicated that more not complicated levels might be a very good thing.

Physics Objects on the Boundary of Death

...at least that's what the overly dramatic line in my TODO.txt said.

It's hot today and I'm feeling less than entirely energetic, but I wanted to make at least some progress on Rktcr before taking my laptop off to air-conditioned environs to wait out the afternoon.

So I finally fixed up the level vignetting so that objects falling out of the level border are masked out. (Before is on the left.) The code to do this is a complete hack, but I was feeling lazy and wanted to avoid writing convex/half-plane clipping code, so I ended up opting for a bit of extra overdraw and calling it good enough.

This ticks off another of the myriad little things that need to get done in Rktcr, and brings the game a (tiny) bit closer to release.

Glimmers in Rktcr and Motivation

Recently, I've been making factual posts -- talking a lot about what I'm doing and why I'm doing it from a design or implementation perspective. Today, I'm making a short post to talk about the other side of things: motivation and direction.

I've heard indie developers (also fellow graphics researchers) complain about lack of motivation. This is not a problem for me; I always want to make progress, and I'm almost pathologically optimistic about outcomes. That said, I often feel the crushing weight of the whole TCHOW experiment; of not having a job, of not having any backup (if I don't do things, they don't get done), and of not having any hard deadlines (except when my self-funding runs out in ~13 months).

I know that for some folks out there these all sound like really good things. But, let me tell you, they aren't. They simply add planning time to one's already overburdened schedule.

And that leads to the big problem for me: not motivation, but direction. I start each day with plenty of creative energy, but it's never clear where I should be expending it. Do I work on Rktcr? Rainbow? One of the many prototypes I've been meaning to build? Do I put my effort into code? Art? Sound?

I don't really know the answer to that. So I just try to do something (or several somethings) each day, so that every week Rktcr and Rainbow and TCHOW games in general move closer to being done.

Today, that little thing was some glimmers for the portals in Rktcr, because they are sometimes hard to spot otherwise. It's a little bit of eye-candy, and it addresses a rough spot for new players.