An update of sorts

In the grand scheme of things, there are still a number of things we need to do. However, more importantly, there are also a number of things we don’t have to do anymore!

One of these two groups is larger than the other, sadly.

What we have

Let’s focus on the positive at first: we have a tank. And it can move. That’s a solid basis if I ever saw one.

 It has the desired 360 degrees of turning freedom and it can move forwards and backwards. And, though we’re still working on the visual aspect of the product, the threads of the vehicle are animated.

Secondly, we have a gun, and it can move. For now, it is a wonky five-minute placeholder which points at the mouse cursor, but a turret is a turret, regardless of graphical fidelity. Shooting is implemented as well, so once we have bullets, we can shoot them. But I’ll get to that later.

Furthermore, our menus are working. Partly. We have functioning Exit and Single Payer buttons, and it is only a matter of time before we ascend to the heights of Options as well.

What we’re working on

Tiles. Though black is obviously a beautiful colour, which is featured extensively in my wardrobe, it does not make for the most riveting of gameplay. Though the placeholder tiles are made and ready for deployment, there is still exactly that problem. Deployment.

Even as I write this, one of our dedicated team members is still furiously coding to make this work, despite what very well may be food poisoning. We don’t do breaks at Pixel Pudding.

Let me get another cup of tea.

Where was I? Oh yes.

As I mentioned before, one of our issues is still the bullets. Not a big deal, obviously, but not something that we’ve tackled yet. It could be the case that Pixel Pudding is comprised of subconscious pacifists, who put off the addition of violence to the last possible moment. Or perhaps we just forgot and we’ll do it tomorrow. I’m sure there is a valid excuse. I mean, I’ve had a pretty eventful week myself, filled with food, family, art and love, among other things, so I can easily imagine the others were preoccupied as well.

This is something that needs to be done, however. Tanks and bullets are kind of a thing.

There is still the small matter of design, enemy and player types and art in general. Though this is part of game design, it is a necessary part of gameplay, and we want to make the game feel right. So, with three creative minds doodling away during daydreams, lectures and train trips, we are slowly designing different types of tanks. For now, the emphasis definitely lies on slowly.

What we don’t have

And then there are the things we haven’t yet touched with a ten-foot pole.

And they’re big ones.

Firstly, multiplayer. Obviously, you need something that actually functions  before you can expand it, so without even a moving tank, we could hardly start working on something as complicated as network support. We have, however, taken time to research this subject, and we’ve come to the conclusion we’ll probably need to do a bit more research. Once we have actual bullets, and levels, we’ll see where we can fit this in our schedule.

Then, AI. There has already been talk on this. Our original plan was to include a multiplayer with AI that could take over players whenever they would, inevitably, drop connectivity.

We may not actually do this.

We’ll try (gods, we’ll try), but it is not as high on our priority lists anymore.

There is still the singleplayer, but again, a functioning multiplayer is more impressive than a functioning singleplayer, so again, there’s some prioritising going on here that may not be good news for AI. The singleplayer AI probably is more basic than the multiplayer, as the multiplayer is objective-based and calls for a certain level of reactive actions, whereas the singleplayer mostly involves shooting at the nearest target.

It’s a difference in nuance.

There also is still a bunch of things we haven’t had the time to do yet, such as a moving camera, the conception of a statue unit, the programming of the different tiles, etc. but those are relatively minor things, that will pop up naturally over the course of our experience and will most likely be largely busy-work, that will take time, but little effort. As opposed to the Herculean task that is comprehending network support.

We may have a candidate for our first ticket.