Well, I released the next Single Player test version of TrajectoryZone last week. They played it a while, and came back with a relatively short list of bugs, and a couple of feature enhancements. Not bad – I was expecting a lot more problems.Â
I’ll be releasing one more test version before I move to the first Beta – this one will be both Single-Player and Multi-Player enabled. Eric Forhan is workin’ on getting the levels cleaned up and ready for the beta. Most things are in place now – I need to get the main UI completed though, it’s still mainly temporary placeholder stuff. I also need to develop some lobby code – rather than do the typical FPS thing and set up a map rotator, I’ll just a between level lobby, and the game administrator can pick the next level. I think that will be nicer.
Eric is gearing the levels for between 8 and 16 players. We COULD support more players (this is Torque based, after all) but I think at that point the levels would end up too small, since we’ve moved to a smaller texture square size. Everything has tradeoffs 😉
I also finally opened up one of the first forums for MidnightRyder.Com game chat for non-game owners – the Jumpman forums are open for anyone who’s interested in the old Jumpman games, plus all the new freeware ones that have been developed, and of course Jumpman: 2049 that I’m working towards. I opened the forums, THEN discovered that there already existed a set of chat forums about Jumpman. Sheesh!
Lookin’ forward to IGC ’03 still, but I really want this game ready to show off before I get there – why can’t it still be another 2 months off? 😉
Nicolas Quijano  (Sep 22, 2003 at 11:06)
yeah, kinda in the same conundrum : I’m flying to Eugene in 2 weeks today… 8p
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr  (Sep 22, 2003 at 13:11) Â
I hate when GG looses my post!
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr  (Sep 22, 2003 at 13:20) Â
Are ya gonna be showing anything off at IGC, Nicolas? I’m really lookin’ forward to seein’ what everyone else is workin’ on, particlularly stuff with the Torque engine 🙂
One of my big difficulties right now is a massive change in shedule, life wise. Work has been busy, of course, but to make things more interesting, my wife got a job at a juvenile detention center. She’s in college still, so now she’s twice as busy workin’ about 32 hours a week (it was SUPPOSED to be part time 😉 She used to handle most of the stuff around the house. Now in the mornings I wake up, work out, and go cook breakfast and lunch, then cook supper later on. I used to do that when I was single, of course, but had gotten out of the habit. Amazing how much extra time that eats up!
As it stands now, I’ll definitely be able to show off Single Player stuff, and Multi-Player is highly likely (really bad things have to break before I can’t show off multi-player.) But… I’m afraid of what the game will look like – the UI is far from complete at the moment. I emailed one of the artists to see if he’s got time to work up some of the UI stuff for me (Mike’s been busy with other contracts, and Eric is focusing on getting the levels polished for me), but I’m not so sure that part will be done in time. Plus, getting the lobby done in time will be a challenge – I haven’t even quite figured out how I’m gonna implement it yet 😛 But – it will be playable at least 🙂 Two months… another two months would get the job done without causing me to tear my hair out 😉