Development Blog for Project Vega

The good news just keeps coming! I’m following up release of 12 new screenshots with the only thing better (besides the release of a demo of course) – a video!

I’ve put together a video of gameplay footage from the 3 maps in our “let’s get this baby published” demo. It’s all direct capture and in full 720p HD! This should give you a very good taste of what Vega both looks like and plays like right now! You ought to notice several improvements over the QuakeCon demo including new and improved maps, cel-shading, powerups, a fully functional health, armor and ammo system… well, you get the picture.

I sincerely hope you all enjoy this! A ton of work has gone into this without a doubt.

Anyway, enough blabbing from me! Enjoy!

With the last map in our next demo complete, we’re finally ready to show it off! Here are 12 new screenshots from the 3 maps in the demo we’ll be showing to publishers!

Enjoy!

This past week I’ve been working on the second redone map for our publishing demo. It’s been coming along great, but along the way, I’ve hit a snag or two. A couple of areas… no matter what I tried, I couldn’t get them to look good! One of the areas in particular was a long hallway. No matter what I did to it – no matter what kind of ceiling/wall decoration I added, no matter how intricate…

… it still looked boring.

So I decided to do something different. I decided to break the hallway up into different sections, and shape it differently overall, while still keeping the same basic idea. I added a couple of inlets to a curved room with some steps, which ended up being a lot more interesting than a hallway. See for yourself:

I don’t know about you, but I think that looks a lot better!

So what’s the lesson here? Sometimes a design idea can be so flawed that no amount of detail, texturing, lighting, etc. can save it. All you can do it scrap it and start over. If you find yourself frustrated while trying to make something look nice, ask yourself if the underlying idea is fundamentally flawed. (Is it too simple? Too complicated? Is it not consistent with the rest of the map?) If it is, scrap it and start over, and quit banging your head against the wall trying to make something work that can’t! You’ll free yourself to come up with something much better, and save yourself lots of frustration.

EDIT: You can now click on the shots for a higher resolution version!

… is not the real name of this game.

So today I went to see the person who is now my lawyer to discuss several things, including getting the real name for the game codenamed “Project Vega” trademarked so it can be shared with the world. The real name for the game up until a couple hours ago had been “Strike”. I really liked that name – it was short, simple, descriptive, sounded cool, and had some interesting properties to it (Strike 2? Strike 3? Hah! Get it?!?!). However, certain other games already have a claim to that name, so it just plain wasn’t going to work. Hell, even throwing something before “Strike” (ex. Counter-strike… oh boy, aren’t I funny) was going to be a long shot.

As a result, I’m going to have to come up with something else. I’ll be doing a lot of brainstorming over the next few days to try to find something that both sounds cool, and is defensible. Did I mention I’m doing all of the mapping and programming? Yeah, that too. It’s going to be a busy couple of weeks, but I’m up for it! Thankfully everything is going well, even if it is a big work load.

So a few days ago, I posted some screenshots of a new map I’ve been working on. It’s come to my attention that there are some problems with the shots, including:

• They’re pretty dark
• Some of the texturing/architecture is pretty crappy
• It’s a lot better now!

Which begs the question: What’s the point in starting the new year off on the wrong foot, especially when it can be corrected? I sure can’t think of any good reason! So, to make up for those subpar shots I showed before, here are some (hopefully) better ones of the same map! It’s in a lot better shape than it was a couple of days ago: it has a new theme, several weak areas have been redone, and a lot more of it’s been detailed now (whereas only a few rooms had before).

Don’t believe me? See for yourself!

See you again in a few days after I correct all of the problems with this batch of shots!