Planitia’s Final Fate

Recent events have hammered home one thing to me…that I should be getting paid for most of the code I write.

I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s starting to rankle that I’ve spent two+ years on Planitia and I won’t see any income from it. I will not reneg on my promise to make Planitia free and release the source, but frankly I just don’t have much more time to spend on it.

So here’s what’s going to happen with Planitia:

I’ll be adding a tutorial mode to explain the basic concepts of the game to new players.

I’ll be implementing the last two god powers that don’t work at all (which are currently Flamestrike and Armageddon) and tweaking a couple others (Golem should not allow you to place the golem, it should appear automatically at one of your cities and randomly seek out an enemy city).

I’ll be implementing “idle” animations for the military units so that they don’t just stop dead in mid-stride…that looks weird.

And that’s it. Planitia will be done.

And it’ll be done by the end of next week.

Now, that’s not to say that I won’t fix bugs or make improvements if people suggest them; just that it won’t be high-priority.

I need to move on to a project that can actually make me money, because lord knows I need some.

By the same token…dear lord, I don’t want to do this…but you’ll be seeing ads on this website soon. I’m going to make them as unobtrusive as possible, but if this site can at least pay for itself I’d be much happier.

And I’ll also be putting up a Paypal link for donations. If you’ve played Inaria or Planitia and enjoyed them, or if my articles have helped you in any way, you may now slip me money!

Frankly, I hate doing this…but I don’t feel I have a choice. I also feel it’s the next natural step in my development as a game programmer.


Let’s Play Starflight! 13: Puttering Around

I really must apologize for this video…I was almost not going to post it and then…well, you’ll see. I swear the next video will be more exciting.


Name That Game 60!

This game is notable because it’s based on a short story by a famous author, who was heavily involved in this game’s development – going so far as to voice the game’s main villain.

It’s also notable because the game can’t really be won – there are multiple endings and they are all bad. But one is much less bad than the others.

Name and developer, please!


Dwarf Fortress Video Tutorials

If you’re like me, you’re fascinated by both the concept of Dwarf Fortress and the depth of its world simulation, but you just cannot crack the shell of that abysmal interface to get at the sweet, gooey gaming goodness inside.

Well, someone going by the handle of Captain_Duck has finally decided to make some video tutorials for Dwarf Fortress, and they are actually pretty good. I would embed one but YouTube won’t let me embed a high-quality video and you need to watch these in high-quality so you can read the text. Stupid YouTube.

Will this get me into Dwarf Fortress? Maybe. I don’t really have time for it right now (major update to Planitia coming up this week) but perhaps later, now that I understand a little better what is going on…


Name That Game 59!

Frankly, I can’t say anything about the development of this game without giving huge clues as to what it is, so I’ll just present the screenshot.

Name and developer, please! If you win, I’ll FTOL your TAC and SCAN your STS for you.


More Game Voyeurism

Would you like to watch two great Starcraft II players play a game while the lead designer comments on it?

If you’re like me, of course you would.


Planitia Update 35: A Little Somethin’-Somethin’

Okay, a minor update to Planitia. Click here to download.

* The game should no longer crash when you try to create a golem.

* “Skirmish Mode” has been renamed “Single Player”

* The second mouse pointer has been eliminated.

* Single player mode now pits you against one enemy AI instead of three. This should make it easier to play as well as help with performance until I can get some optimizations in.

* More logging to help find other crashers.

Again, please feel free to try it out. I’m trying to get the game looking as professional as I can with the resources I’ve got; if you want to make suggestions feel free, either in the comments or by emailing me at anthony.salter@gmail.com.


Weird Fact of the Day

Lori Alan, who was the voice of the Boss in Metal Gear Solid 3…

…is also the voice of Diane Simmons on Family Guy…

…and the voice of Pearl on Spongebob Squarepants.

null

That is all.


Planitia Update 34: Spit and Polish and Bailing Wire

All right, a new version of Planitia is now available. This version features:

* Images are now front-loaded, eliminating the pause when creating new units.

* Loading screen lets you know that the game has not locked up on startup!

* Icons are now the correct color, have the correct icons, and even have tooltips!

* Walkers now have a “farming” animation.

* The bug where units would occasionally walk backwards has been fixed.

* General and Golem units now have footstep sounds.

* Music! The music is “Overture” by Julia Ecklar, and I got it from Podsafe Audio.

Even if you don’t feel like playing it, if you could just download it and tell me what your initial impression of the game is – especially if you’ve not tried it before – I’d be very grateful.


The Job Hunt Begins

Okay, spent yesterday updating and tidying up my resume (you may click here to look at it if you want to give me feedback – or send it to your HR department!)

Now it’s time to start emailing it everywhere in the world.

It’s also time to start rememorizing all the answers to those tricky questions they ask you during programming interviews, like the four uses of const and what private inheritance actually means. Rereading Effective C++ will be helpful.