Курилка | страница 128 (Elite Games)

[*] posted on 7-1-2015 at 11:22 PM
SW3DG 15th Anniversary...

15 years ago today, the original Star Wraith 3D space combat game was released, effectively starting my venture into 3D powered PC space games under the SW3DG name. The launch of the original Star Wraith came about 15 years after I started developing first person perspective space games in 1985 back when I was working with 4 color CGA graphics and had to render most details in either wireframe or raw pixels. My programming efforts started in the early 80's on a Tandy TRS-80 III, but it wasn't until I later switched to an XT (8088) PC that I began developing first person perspective space games. So today is kind of a dual anniversary date, one marking about 30 years of PC space game development, the other marking the launch of the original Star Wraith as SW3DG.

What may be next...

I'm hopeful I'll be able to complete at least one more first person indie 3D space-sim project, one that I've been working on since 2011 and has been in alpha testing for a few months now. This latest project (technically a sequel to Evochron Mercenary, although significantly different in a lot of ways) has overall been the most difficult project I've taken on to date. It has been in development alongside EM for about the last 4 years. In fact, EM has received several new options and features in recent years that have been back ported from the new project to the existing game so that both games would benefit from some of the new things I've been working on. The free expansion back in 2012 for players who bought the original EM was a big part of that.

The new project has been a monumental task and includes some new technological minimums, writing and rewriting lots of new code, creating new graphics/UI elements and options, as well as developing a new/different set of base gameplay conditions and rules. I'm still striving to finish it in a reasonable time, but I can't say exactly when it will be 'done' for release. I'll also want to support it for some time to come, as long as it remains financially feasible for me to do so as a way to provide for my family. So when/if the new game is released, I hope to be able to continue working on it based on player feedback in a similar manner as I've been working on EM since it began development back in 2008.

I'm not sure I'll want to venture on a project of this scale alone again in the future. I'm just one person trying to do my best on an 'indie' project that spans three programming languages throughout a pretty sizeable overall codebase. I have hired help for things like modeling, shader coding, and music. There is also an amazing team of testers who have been helping me pin down bugs, change options/features, implement new features, and evaluate compatibility. I'm annoyed it's taken me these 4 years to get this far (the time and financial costs have been heavy), but I won't release it until it meets my expectations for where I want it to be for an initial launch. If it doesn't get there, it'll never be released. But I am working extremely hard to achieve the goal of getting it to the point of meeting the release goals/objectives.

There is an enormous amount of work left for me to do. There are two remaining technical obstacles that must be solved (both of which are show-stoppers that will prevent release if not completed), months of potential testing left, lots of coding, finalizing media, multiplayer testing, and documentation/wesbite work. For a preview of some of the early prototype systems I've been working on (new shadow effects, new navigation console, new radar, revised HUD, and more), follow the YouTube link at the top of this forum for several videos that have been posted over the last year or so.

Stay tuned for the latest, when/if there is something to announce about a likely release, I'll post it here in the forum.