First Person

Okay, so after much thought, I have decided that Ruined will be strictly a first person game.
I know, I know, I had had plans to support both first and third person - as you could see in previous screenshot - and even went as far as to get a stream animation system specifically customized for the player.

The problem stems from two issues

1. Lack of time
2. Complexity

I have given myself a set time frame for the production of Ruined and I simply do not have enough time to work out all of the different content needed for both first and third person views. The amount of work it was taking to support both modes seamlessly throughout the game was to much of a burden...

Luckily! I can promise you, now that I've switched to first person view, that I will put all of my time and effort into this one view type.

UNICORNS!

I've decided that Ruined has had enough progress done and that I'll just release it as is! but with one addition: Unicorns!!!!!!!!!
The main character has been replaced by a magic unicorn, and all of the levels are in the shape of, you guessed it, unicorns!
It's such a perfect idea, I don't know why I didn't see it sooner!
Everyone LOVES unicorns, so what better to make a game about?
Who needs action, excitement or hair pulling tension when you have our favorite four-legged, enchanted horse based, horned creature!
...

New Game

For the past couple days, I've been focusing most of what little time I have towards the UI for Ruined.
As you can tell by the title, I've made some significant progress on the "New Game" screen.
Quite simply this is where the player will type in his or her name to create a new save game.

The New Game screen with no name entered;
The bottom right key is the backspace, I just have't made an icon for it yet.

My name :P

As you can see I went with a simple design; however the grey you see in the background is actually a transparent black. I still haven't decided what to draw / render in the background. Maybe some waving grass or an ocean or something... IDK

Anyways, on a lesser note, I also made some more button images - Yay Inkscape

User Interface, Saving

So another week has gone by, where I have been incredibly preoccupied with school and life in general.
Luckily I managed to get some more coding in :p
Things accomplished:

• Saving and loading!
• Multiple save games, up to 3.
• The intro Ruined screen, has been implemented*
• The screen to select a save game has also been implemented*
• A "MessageBox" for handling, well messages.

Yes, I know "Press Start" is not centered, I still need to make an image for the start button.

An early version of the save manager, showing two saves games.

* Neither of these screens have backgrounds yet. Both saves in save manager pic -above- are for testing purposes: one puts the engine in debug mode, the other returns an error to simulate a broken save.

So yes, saving and loading has been implemented. Save files are created byte by byte and, as such, currently only take up 80 bytes! Of course this will change, but I don't see the save-file size growing to over 500 bytes.

A save-file contains:

• Save File Version
• Player name
• Play time (days, hours, minutes)
• Money!
• Max health and current health
• Max magic and current magic
• Equipped items in right and left hand
• The current level, and position
• Flags! (these are where most of the player's progress is stored)

All of that data, sans flags is only 24 bytes! I store flags as single bits, so I can store 8 flags in one byte.

Currently save files are defined for only 256 flags, but that number can easily be expanded to the 2000 or so I'll probably need.

I also came up with a nifty save game manager. Quite simply, it allows for three unique save games, so three different people can have their own save.

Both the save game manger and the intro screen are in EARLY stages (they don't have backgrounds, music, some textures etc..)

Finally, the "MessageBox" displays messages like: 

Disconnecting the controller, results in this message.

Until next time!

Player's House Part 2

Man, have I been busy lately. I've had barely any time to work on the game. Luckily I managed to sneak in some modeling this weekend. So here I have the model for the player's house -as you can tell by the post name. The model is mostly done.

Things that still need to be done:

• Chimney
• Windows
• Base/Porch texture
• Roof Texture 

Now for some pics (as seen in Blender):

The "solid" version.

Wireframe mode!

Textured version; the roof and porch are not using their final textures.

As I said, parts of the model are not using their correct textures, as I have yet to make them.

Hopefully I'll have this model done in the next day or two -school takes up a LOT of time- and can continue working.

As usual, all models are made in Blender and their respective textures are made in Inkscape.

Player's House Part 1

Okay, so I've decided now is the time to start making content for the actual levels of the game. Starting with the player's house.

Rough sketch of the player's house, done in pencil.

I should mention that I am using the amazing, opensource, 3d modeling tool Blender to make all of the 3d content and animation for Ruined. All of the textures and the UI are made in another awesome, opensource tool: Inkscape

Hopefully, I'll have the house finished soon, and can start focusing on the rest of the level.

Doors!

Okay, I told myself that'd I'd post about most, if not all, of the main components of the Ruined Engine. The "level" in Ruined consists of many portals. A "portal" is an area of the level containing, well anything. The Engine optimizes itself based on which portal you, the player, are in. Whether or not a portal is active is determined by the current portal.

A section of "Test Level 2", illustrating the different portals.

So, now, you may ask well how do I get from one "portal" to another. Simple! You walk through a door.

A locked door using the "Test" design.

When the player presses 'A' on a door, the door opens and the player automatically walks from one side to the other. The doors of a level are responsible for the switching of portals. Doors in Ruined can be locked, barred, or both! Of course you can't walk through a locked or barred door, so the text-box appears on screen saying so.

A door that is both locked and barred.

Locked Door Message

Barred Door Message

The doors in the engine are all functionally the same, although new door styles can easily be created. Once a door is unlocked the key is no longer needed, and the door will remain unlocked the next time the level is loaded, there is also a nifty animation for unlocking and barring/unbarring doors. 

-Doors: they are so often overlooked, but they literary the pathway from one room to another!

Note: The lag shown in the DEBUG mode FPS graph is a result of the screen capture tool, and not present in the game.