UPDATE: Computers for Sale - Early Render of Appartment (interior) (WIP)

UPDATE: Computers for Sale - A co-developer

Now I have a co-developer! He will help designing several parts of the game on the paper, and he is also responsible for the design of the dynamic storyline for the game. He is sort if the idea guy for the project, he comes up with a lot of ideas, describes them. And it's up to me whether to implement those or not. He has already come up with a lot of ideas for the singleplayer part of the game, especially the RPG elements.

As a start for writing the game design document, I used a template. But I have found out that the template is not sufficient enough for my needs, so I have tweaked the template a lot to fit my needs, so now there are just a minimum of the original template left.

Computers for Sale - Feature Set

The first part of the game design document is ready.

General Features

• Huge persistent world.
• Full Android support
• Full CHARVA support, for unix based computers without and X-server.
• Written in Java so all computers with the latest Java installed can play the game.
• Dynamic single-player campaign.
• Dynamic single-player skirmish
• Dynamic multiplayer skirmish.
• Dynamic economic system.

Multiplayer Features

• Hotseat multiplayer with up to 8 players.
• Realtime multiplayer with up to 16 players.
• Connect your facebook account – import friends list to get them as either hirable NPCs or a AI players.
• Expandable server which the clients can connect to. The server can be expanded to handle thousands of players, in a realtime gameplay. I will come back to this feature later in the document.

Editor

The game does not come with an editor, but a third party editor is still easy to create. It is up to other developers to create one or not. But the game is still easy to mod with just database programming (SQL), or just simple graphical database management.

Gameplay

• Builds computers
• Sells computers
• Manage company
• Hire NPCs
• Gain Alliance with rival players (/AI)
• Research new technology to use in your computers
• Build a mass amount of platforms
• Decide the prize for your computers
• Expandable HQ
• Expandable Warehouse
• Expandable appartment (only in SP)

Chances to this part of the document may happen.

The Game Design Document

I am currently working on the documention for my game.
As soon as I am finished with one section, I will post that as an update here.

And I got a screenshot, of the UI (pre alpha).

UPDATE: Computers for Sale - Early Render of Appartment (WIP) - BETTER LIGTHING

Tweaked the lighting a bit, so it looks much better now. But the RAM used when rendering is about 2 GiB so I got alot more to go with (I have 6 GiB).

And a screenshot from Blender:

UPDATE: Computers for Sale - Early Render of Appartment (WIP)

An early render of the appartment. I still need to tweak the lightning, and add textures. And I also need to tweak the materials on the grass.

UPDATE: Computers for Sale

New features planned:
- Dynamic dialog system when recruiting npcs and when choosing missions
- Full support for CHARVA so Unix based OSs without a X-server can play the game.
- Full Android support.
- Expandable storage system. (No unlimited storage place!).
- Expanable HQ.
- Expandable appartment (in the RPG stage only).
- Different countries.


My laptop fell down from my desk, so the LCD display is all cracked up. But a new laptop is on it's way soon. And I took offcourse backup of my home folder on Ubuntu. So I have NOT lost my source tree this time. A backup server with a 1TB HDD is pretty handy. And I am still working on the game design document, I will upload it when it is finished.

UPDATE: Computers for Sale

The datamanagement code is nearly 100% completed, so I can then focus on the game design. I am currently writing the game design document, and I hope I will be finished with that soon.
And I have also started on the GUI design. The design is inspired from the Linux Gnome theme. So it will have menus at the top, and window management on the bottom. In the middle, you will be able to see the development of your company's HQ, with 3D renders. The renders will not be realtime 3D renders (too keep the system requirements and a minimum), just prerenders, rendered with blender and raytracing.

UPDATE: Computers for Sale

I have been cleaning up some messy code in my programming, I realised that I had 3 of the same variables on 3 different places, so it took up appr. 3 times more memory than needed. The game data were also loaded 5-6 times, so I had to optimize that too. And I an about 80% finished with the datamanagement programming, so I can soon focus on gameplay mechanics. The gameplay will be kept as simple as possible, if a player is not very experienced, that player don't have to use all the features the game have to be a successfull CEO. And a experienced player, can use all the features to become a even more successfull CEO.

UPDATE: Computers for Sale

My last plan was that an npc would be a CEO of a non player controlled company. A npc in my game is basically people you can recruit to your company, and work under the CEO, so that a npc would be the ceo of a non player controlled company (npcc) was not proper, instead the ceo will be handled just the same as a player but with AI. Then a npc and a character will be programmed differently.

UPDATE: Computers for Sale

I am finished with the NPC generation code. Basically it reads names from a text document, and generates which npcs belongs to which company. Then there can also be companies with no NPCs which the player(s) can choose to run (as a "template" company), I have also added a function which checks if a company has a CEO or not. Basically it just loops through all employees in that company, and checks for a CEO, if a CEO is not found, a CEO is randomally picked. I am also working on a dataviewer (not editor, since everything is generated).

UPDATE: Computers for Sale

I have had great progress lately. I have created a function which auto generates companies, with it's own unique ID and Name, and it's also generates the popularity of that company.

So far the progress is:
Game Core Engine: 10-15%
Gameplay: 5%

My first sucessfull programme for a phidget; A timer

Sorry for the bad quality, but my digital camera was low on battery, so I had to use my cell phone.
What you don't see in this movie, is that I have also added a rotation sensor which the value of it's input decides the time set. And a hard enough press on a force sensor starts the timer to count down.
I will make a higher quality video later.

Weekly update

I have had some progress lately with the game core of Computers for Sale. I have also started to program the Lego NXT Robot, with Java, using Lejos. And soon I am getting a phidget + a phidget with a LCD screen. So my first task there is to create a menu (with navigation), on the LCD. And I have also got more help from my brother on my projects, so the progress will be faster.

Not much work done lately

I have been very busy with school. I have also been very busy setting up a small LAN 10-20 people. All students live on the school, and some wanted a computer room to play games on, competive and cooperative. There I have also created a local FTP server for the students to download files on. Thus making the broadband connection more accessible for they who want to play games online, and the ping lowers. I have also added a mac filtring with my router, so just some people will have access to the network, and the file server. They who weren't there today to replan the whole room. Will not gain access, and they then can't play with other, or exploit the bandwith to download warez. The broadband is only 7Mbit, so with 100 students downloading warez simultaneously, will make online gaming impossible, therfore I have encrypted the network.

By doing all this work, I actually haven't got any time to programm anything. The game core for Computers for Sale is just about 7% finished. And I will continue with Java, since my developing machine now got Ubuntu 8.04 instead of Windows Vista.

I am also planning to add monthly updates here on my blog, even if I have done nothing.

I also have a web server I am going to configure, and programm a small PHP site, for easy browsing on the FTP server, with categorizing and a simple search function.