User blog:C3PO the Dragon Slayer/Avian Hunt: September 22,2007

September 22, 2007
Things so far have been going well on Avian Hunt. Many sprites have been created, several concepts have been tested, and a lot of research has been done on the capabilities of Game Maker and how to apply them.

The current version of Avian Hunt looks nothing like what the final will be, however. Right now, all I have is a base and a squadron (the two most basic parts of a player's army in Avian Hunt) and the drawer of the HUD (the HUD is fully-functional, the base's menus work, but they don't do anything besides take you to different menus, and the squadron object is currently having a code written to identify the units it consists of and the properties of those units). This is exactly what I had hoped to be accomplished by the end of September, so I'm actually ahead of schedule.

I have decided to create a new test engine that better handles menus and makes them more user-friendly. The view width will now be 800x600, instead of 640X480, to allow for the maximum graphics potential on the best computers without leaving the lower-resolution screens to be abandoned and incompatible. For a little fun fact, Battlefront II for the PC is at 800x600 resolution, meaning the graphics potential for Avian Hunt is equal to that of Battlefront II (and Battlefront II does not live up to its full potential!).

Throughout October, I will be making bases and squadrons compatible with one another, and bases will be able to smoothly generate custom squadrons of different civilian craft. I will then port the code and modify it for a shipyard object, which will produce military craft. I'll also allow for rooms larger than the view width, which scroll when the mouse hits the edge of the screen. Time providing, I might also get the freighters to do their stuff so you can not only make new ships with bases, but have ships make new bases!

I'm redesigning the menus that appear when you click on a base to allow room for viewing the status of items, shields, etc. I'll also be converting some of the object-oriented data into GML, so it will be easier to navigate the object menus of Game Maker.

So far, the only work that's been done on the 3D portion of Avian Hunt is experimenting with a 3D environment and a short polygon drawing test (the base of an Imperial Star Destroyer). I don't plan on having a workable 3D engine until January, and I probably won't start substantial work on it until December. Unfortunately, that's when Super Smash Bros. Brawl comes out, so I might shave a bit of time off of Avian Hunt.