I am Star Revolution! Check me out! No, seriously, check me out!
I know, I know, it doesn’t look like much…but these are all black triangles that prove that my new state system, gui system and font system all work.
I really like the font…I found it here (by Googling “bitmap font” and clicking on the very first link). It’s evocative of Starflight without being quite as limited as that font – it has true lowercase and descenders, for instance. This is going to be the official Star Revolution font unless everybody stands up and says they hate it for some reason.
I have also surreptitiously begun work on a tool to create individual planets. It needs some work (for one thing, I need a better understanding of Perlin Noise) but it’s coming along and I expect to have something much more impressive to show you soon.
Also note that I’m not numbering my hours. I have abandoned the idea of writing SR in 40 hours; it’s simply too big. I’m sure I could write a version of SR in 40 hours, but I want this game to be worth playing, unlike Inaria. So I am switching tactics. Instead of a fixed amount of time, I am simply saying that the game must be completed and published by July 31, which gives me three and a half months.
Awesome. Black triangles rule!
As far as counting your hours maybe you should still do it, but instead of stopping when they’re up, you say, okay i’ll finish it from now in 40 hours. And try to compress your time, but never actually stop. I’ve found out in some things I do, that I get done quicker than I do normally, even though i’m taking longer than I originally decided.
I’m actually going to go ahead with my Enchanted Lands: 100 hour challenge – http://www.gamesafoot.com/?p=57 which is to get this game done in 100 hours in a fully playable state (note it’s not fully polished but fully playable). If I don’t get it, then no shirt off my back I just continue on.
I was starting to contemplate whether or not I would do this, because it seemed as though I was merely doing bits and pieces and that a time-based challenge should be in one chunk. If it takes me a year to finish a game even though it only took a few hours a day, what did I gain really. I will be “in the zone” less time, and I might as well not count the hours then. So I decided I would allow it to take most of my game development time, for about a month.
Yes it looks impossible, and certainly I may not get that far, but it’s worth the try to get well on my way. If I *DO* succeed, then it’s great because I have a great roadmap for the content and the hardest is behind me.
Keith
PS. You wouldn’t mind adding me to your roll or list of friends or even a catagory for general aquaintainces would you? 🙂
Keith
I’ll think about it 🙂
Honestly, one of the things I learned when making my first 40-hour game is “it’s hard making big games in 40 hours”. This game is even bigger than Inaria, so putting an hour limit on it would probably be non-productive. I do want to put a final date on it, though, so it doesn’t become “the project that will not die”.