Video Tour and November-January in review

Yes, I know that we are still in January. But in December I did not get to do too much, so it counts as half a month and this is an appropriate time for a review.

But first: check out my new video!

It is a small presentation and tutorial video, trying to recreate some possible steps one would take in a new fortress, like cutting out a few storage rooms, gathering some plants and logs, building a grand dinning/meeting room and getting started on personal lodgings for your dwarves. The video is annotated with explanations.

I am not 100% happy with it, but this is my best take in over 10. It is not as easy to make a good video as it seems. Coding is a lot easier. gEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEk.

So, back to the review. November and January went great. I managed to get in most of the features I planned in October. I got sidetracked with stones and layering, but it is for the better.

So what is the status of the project? Pre-alpha-one! I’m calling it!

So for the immediate future I am not going to add any new features, but bring the final polish to the existing ones and once I’m done I’ll archive and call it pre-alpha-one. I’ll post a series of short-posts about what feature got the final polish.

Then I’ll start work on pre-alpha-two. This version is going to be all about wood and stone working, bringing you the associated workshops and all the products that result from these materials. Dwarves will have selectable appearances so they don’t all look the same. And as some of you know, I have an experimental 3D engine that I’m playing around with, but I don’t think we’ll see it in pre-alpha-two.

September and October in review

Are you familiar with the concept of a release report? Well, I won’t do something as dire here, but once in a while, more precisely at the end of a month or two of development, I’ll put a few words on paper. I’ll try to be as short as a dwarf but less inebriated. Not because I am trying not to be, but there is just no alcohol around here right now.

I wanted to do this at the end of September, but that was when the change from 2D to isometric happened, so it was not a good moment. I also wanted to add a few tables, with features broken down and with percentages relative to their completion given. But how about I skip the bureaucratics? So I’ll use a short bulleted list with major things that are done:

·         Basic game engine that is capable of rendering and populating multiple Z levels, but movement is restricted to just one

·         Basic editor

·         Scheduling of digs, channeling, plant harvesting and wood cutting

·         Plants and trees

·         A few info screens

·         INI file support for multiple rendering backbends

·         Other things that I forget but are in previous posts

·         And XML support!!!

Oh gosh, I forgot about XML support in my previous post. Since I want to publish the editor ASAP, the very frequent change to the data that is serialized is not that advantageous. The serialization format is very fast and painless to use, but it is very sensitive to data changes. So for now both the editor and the game will use XML to try and obtain a minimum backwards compatibility. This was done in the same timeframe as the previous post, but I am not going to edit it.

Not short enough!

Features planned for November:

·         Food and wood stockpiles

·         Stone deposits while digging

·         Butchering of animals

·         And maybe a few wood products