Worklog of the 3D game I'm developing; Khan Adventures. Years ago I began a project with the same name in TGF, and now that I have the technical capability (and time) to make it how I always wanted it to be, it is once again a go.
The final product will be a non linear action oriented adventure, with a twisted, thoughtful storyline written by myself and Monika Siefert. The engine, coding, graphics, sounds, music and toolset will be fully developed by me (Jesse Johnston).
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Worked today on polishing up the cinematics engine. Speech text is now more visible, and some graphics have been added.
I've demonstrated through scripts a way for multi-character conversations where the camera pans from player to player as they speak. An important detail is that characters will face whomever they're talking to, at the appropriate times. I plan on making some animations (surprised, happy, etc) to throw into conversations, to give them emotion. There is a small (non annoying) sound that plays as text is "typed", and a different "diddle" when the text is complete (ala. Zelda LTTP). As of now this all seems to do what I want and so I'll go with it.
There may be a few minor updates before it is complete, but for the most part I will be working on Character inventory (Weapons, potions, spells, etc.) Almost there; I can taste it. Just this and enemies - and its time to get started on the final product that you'll play!
[ Timeline update ]
Inventory completion: Sunday, Feb 27
Enemies: Tue, Mar 1st
Final Integration (health, attacking, etc and script functionality): March 15th.
World, Character, Script, Graphic, Music, Sound and Storyline development: Estimating 3-5 months. I plan on releasing video footage of the game throughout the development process.
Today I further implemented scripting. The current level has a character that follows you once you enter her sight.
Also complete today is a text engine, complete with wrapping functionality (needs a bit of work-but it will come). A few cinematics functions were written to allow the camera to pan between the characters that are speaking, and also for the characters to face who they're talking to. I need to implement facial animation, but right now I'm preparing to tackle the inventory system (and the enemy system soon afterwards) first.
[TOOLS]
The tools are mostly complete at this point, and with wrapping the engines functions to the scripting engine nearly complete - the fun gameplay and graphic development will follow with the next update. The map editor allows for placement of a world entity (usually a large mesh, either an indoor or outdoor 'scene'), and objects / characters from the game library into that scene. I'm taking ideas from both MMF and Unity and combining them to easily allow the creation of levels. No other functionality is probably needed, as there are various other ways to modify levels (scripts... you can also edit these levels in notepad)
[SCRIPTING]
The scripting engine is almost complete. As with every other function in the game, I have made mindful coding choices (in this case with the wrapped functionality) so that the game will be optimized to run the same on most systems, which is something I really like about consoles (game can still take advantage of better resolutions). The scripting engine is good enough for whats needed, runs fast and can really manipulate whats happening in the game world. It could change a bright day with the sun shining into a darkened rainstorm with fog, thunder and lightning, burning buildings, and people running. The plan is to really take advantage of the vast modular functionality this system has when I start developing levels. I aim for this game to be an immense 3D digital world, not just another run-of-the-mill effort.
I've developed a test (Which can be seen in the video) that makes a character run out of the house and follow the player. On paper, it works in a chrono-trigger like fasion, as the character follows the path that your character is taken. To end the game, you just click on the character that's following you. This was completely put together with only the level editor and the level's script. (Which are both tremendously easy to edit by default, and developed in a format that you can even edit in notepad!). The plan is to make a moddable engine that will be released alongside as a separate release to the game. This will allow the more hardcore of us to place our own objects and characters into 3d environments and develop 3d games to share (and i'm hoping the more-talented and creative of those create some amazing adventures of their own)
[ENGINE]
The character engine is at this point in a working condition. Not much has been updated since those early cube-man videos (which themselves were a 2 week effort). Players can move around, and the NPCs can be set waypoints for movement (And they move along the paths just fine). In these waypoints are attatched speed variables; allowing a character to be walking, and slowly ramp up to running (or anything else you could think of). The engine still needs work - I must complete a system for carrying and using items (probably through scripts) and then the rest is history.
[STORYLINE/WORLD]
Monika and I have been working on the story - there will be multiple timelines throughout the character's life within it, and quite possibly flashes of multiple lifetimes of the same character (much like reincarnation). Characters in the game, weapons, items etc. are all being worked on at this point. Those of you that appreciated the palette of items and functionality in Zelda: A Link To The Past should feel at home with whats planned for this game.
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Worklog of the 3D game I'm developing; Khan Adventures. Years ago I began a project with the same name in TGF, and now that I have the technical capability (and time) to make it how I always wanted it to be, it is once again a go.
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