as opposed to not working on it again.
but this time around, I'm gearing up towards the phase where I go out and look for graphics artists and what not. Not yet, but soon. Want to implement enemy AI routines first, and hammer out a little bit more efficiency. After streamlining a bunch of the code, the engine can now easily handle 1000+ objects at a time, time travel, 360 movement, verlet whip, grappling hook, lighting engine, moving platforms, rotating platforms, spinning platforms, and all sorts of funky stuff
I've still got a checklist a mile long of features I want to implement though, so it will be a while until I get up to the "make a game out of it phase"
The way I figure, game making for me takes two different steps:
1) Make the Engine
2) Make the Game
This was a huge thing with Gridquest. The engine alone took me a year to make, the game another year. Unlike iterative design cycles that work best with multiple people on a project, since I was alone, I tweaked the entire Gridquest engine, inventory, npcs, spells and all, up to the point that everything was completely finalized before I made the very first level of the game. And then it was another nearly a year, of making a game in the engine.
Well with that in mind, I'd consider myself near a half-way milestone. Maybe a few weeks, if I get cracking. Most of the engine is in place and I don't even know what game I'm making yet!
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