I think it’s time for a brief update on my new superhero project, Truth, Justice and Spandex. I was planning on having a 0.1 version done by September but - as always - things get delayed. This is not 0.1 yet, but I definitely think I have made some progress. (Click the images for bigger versions.)
Ah, the title screen in all its splendour! Yes, the art styles clash…but I think I’m going for this version anyway. “Gallery, what’s that,” the observant reader may ask. Inspired by Freedom Force, that’s going to be a gallery of all the heroes that the player has created, and all supervillains that he has encountered.
I’m slowly getting to where the game scenes are looking…decent. This picture is lacking a falling piano/plane/meteor that the hero needs to deflect, but I think the GUI and game board works.
…And this is what the hero says after he’s successfully vanquished the evil piano. I started this project with a clear image of how the hero should be “over-the-top in a subtle manner” and I think this comment reflects that idea. (If you’re wondering what I mean by over-the-top…how often do you see pianos attacking a city? The hero is anthromorphosizing the piano, resulting in a ridiculously heroic comment.)
Another game screen! This time the hero needs to save a poor old lady from getting run over by a speeding car. Of course, the lady is lacking in this screen, but you get the idea!
Ah-hah! En garde, Blizzard Wizard! I love how he looks suitably creepy. This is an example of a dialogue from the game…of which there will be many. Have you noticed the red squares? Those are citizens running around the city; in a couple of weeks I’ll have proper little men and women instead.
With all this progress, why am I not calling this version 0.1? I called a much less polished version of Sheeplings 0.1 earlier than this! Well, I’ve decided that 0.1 means “playable from the beginning to the end, within the levels and constraints present.” In Sheeplings there were discrete levels that were very separate from each other. Once the main mechanism was there I could start churning out levels (and add polish and whatnot later). But with Truth, Justice and Spandex things are more difficult. The hero can level up. Levelling up gives access to skill points which can be distributed to the powers. Higher power ratings make you receive higher token values from making matches in the puzzles. So, the difficulty level must scale according to the player level. But the player also has a reputation and other parameters, and all of these must work intimately together to scale appropriately. And on top of this, I have to weave everything in with a storyline.
Sure, I can make individual minigames work by themselves, but not until I have a balanced stat/levelling/difficulty/reputation system will I call it 0.1. By then you’ll actually be able to play through the game as it’s meant to be!
Lately I’ve been asked several times why I haven’t blogged in a while, and there’s a fairly simple explanation for that - I’m busy. These are some of the things happening right now:
- At work I have two projects which present new technologies to delve into. Interesting stuff, but the technical meetings are way too time-consuming.
- I’ve applied for a new job. I like my current one, but the new job would have me travelling all over the world - or at least to Latin America and other places where a certain large telecom company is performing business right now. I fully intend to go back to software development in a year or so, but I’d love to see the world while I’m still below the 30 line.
- I’m moving to a bigger place in a couple of weeks. Maybe now I’ll have space for all my computer junk!
- Right after I’ve moved I’m going on vacation. This was originally planned for August, and then September…but - as always it seems - I end up taking my vacation in October. I just hope there’s still some sun left around the Mediterranean.
- Finally, in my spare time I’m working on my new game: Truth, Justice and Spandex!
So, why am I writing this if I claim to be so horribly busy? Well, I just saw that Robert Jordan (aka James Oliver Rigney, Jr.) is dead. At the all-too-young age of 58 he joined the choir angelic, right as he was finishing book twelve of the Wheel of Time fantasy series. It’s a shame…but I really don’t care. And that’s what struck me as peculiar.
In 1998 I got Internet access at home for the first time (if you don’t count BBS:ing with my Amiga for a brief summer), and since I was a rabid WoT fan back then I quickly discovered similarly-minded people. I tried various IRC channels and forums, but eventually found my home at the WoT Book Forum - a place filled with equally young and equally strange and socially inept boys and girls. This forum was a spinoff from the official WoT game forum; Legend Entertainment encouraged book discussions on their game forum, and it became a strange mix of game-related threads, book theory threads, and general inane silliness threads. (Later the forum became the Ina-Community forums with a separate game and book forum. These in turn became the Infogrames forums, and eventually the Atari forums.)
This WoT forum became a second home for me for quite some time. It branched off into an IRC channel and a few spinoff forums, and I spent an unholy amount of time in these virtual communities. Maybe even an unhealthy amount - in some ways the people online helped me overcome many social issues I had, but on the other hand I might have been better off by finding Real People(TM) to deal with instead. Either way, the forums and their inhabitants were incredibly important to me, and I met many good friends there.
Back then I read the WoT books over and over; analysing chapters here, taking down notes there, and discussing various theories with other nerds like me. I must have read The Shadow Rising and Lord of Chaos a dozen of times! But eventually things began to cool down. A Crown of Swords was pretty much “meh,” and The Path of Daggers was similarly sucky. When Winter’s Heart came out in 2000 I was getting pretty bored at the slow pace of the series, and book ten, Crossroads of Twilight, still lies unopened in my bookshelf. I’ll read it sometime, just as I’ll read Knife of Dreams and A Memory of Light, but it will be a chore rather than a pleasure. The books really aren’t that good!
Ten years ago I was a rabid fan who may not have committed suicide at the news of RJ’s demise, but I surely would have been incredibly depressed. I would’ve shared my grief with others online, and I would’ve been comforted by the community. Today I shrugged and found my lack of reaction more noteworthy than Mr. Rigney’s death itself. It’s strange how priorities and obsessions change so drastically over the years; my reaction now would have been unthinkable back in the days.
Oh yeah. Colin McRae also died recently. But I’m not shocked at my lack of response to that - if it weren’t for the rally games I never would’ve heard his name before. Luciano Pavarotti’s recent demise was much more touching.
