Things are progressing albeit painfully slowly. Emphasis on painfully, sadly. Still dealing with the health problems and doing the not-so-thought-requiring dev work. There is light at the end of the tunnel, though, and I'm hopefully on the way to recovery.
We had a music planning session with Petja since the last update we took the first steps towards planning the musical identity of the Next Game. It's still early to say 'it's decided and set in stone', but it is definitely a fun little milestone that also helps with things like sound design. It's easier to design a soundscape when you know what it is accompanied with, after all.
Last time I mentioned I was putting together the new development lair for Penguin DT work. It is almost ready – my ailments slowed that one down. And since the other centrepiece of the setup is commissioned penguin art, the whole thing is now part of the Weekly Penguin!
There will be some alterations in the not-too-distant future, most prominently the big screen. It is an LED TV I use for console gaming, but it is useless for development purposes (poor colour accuracy). After I get that replaced, I can think of mounting the VR cameras etc. – and possibly more penguin décor. I'll wait and see how much space the new display eats up first.
As mentioned in the previous update, due to health issues I'm working the less-thought-involving things, as in simply creating the enemies I already had planned. Which is a lot.
To summarise without spoilers, the Next Game has multiple enemy factions, each more difficult to deal with than the last. Though the factions symmetrical in a sense that they have the same archetypes of enemies, these are asymmetrical thanks to the increasing challenge.
Four of these 'archetypes' groups I've already done for the first two factions – and I'm now working on doing the same for the last one. This has been interesting in the sense that where the first two factions have some reservations in the sense of giving the player more breathing room, this last one throws everything and the kitchen sink at 'em. Naturally this is the faction that will likely need the most balancing done to them when I get to assembling the real gameplay scenes, but that'll be just tweaking values.
Now, to make sure these factions and their enemies have the look you'd expect from them, I've had to do some research. For reals. For most of TAGAP in the past, I go with the things that first come to my mind when I hear something called by name. For example, if I say 'a tank', a very specific things come to mind and that is what I base the designs on. However, in real life, not all 'tanks' are the same – in fact when it comes to modern military hardware, things can get pretty 'out there' and futuristic. Using tanks as an example, just image search "T-14 Armata".
This has been a fun deep dive into modern military equipment. Most of what I think of as 'war machines' comes from being a 90s kid watching tons of 80s action movies on VHS – and things have evolved way beyond your Top Guns and Rambos by now. Even something as seemingly simple as 'a missile' doesn't look (or behave) like what you'd expect any more – i.e. something like HiJENKS. And that's before I get to things like hypersonic un-manned drones that you'd think were pure sci-fi tech, but are very real things in the works.
I wonder on how many watchlists I've gotten myself unto thanks to my search histories. Oh well, at least the intelligence folks out there know of TAGAP thanks to that, so I'll chalk it up as 'extreme guerrilla marketing'.
Playlist is a regular feature in our Penguin DT blog; A chance to highlight cool games both old and new that I've been playing. As always, I believe that in order to make games, you need to play them, preferably with a broad scope when it comes to genres, so each day I dedicate at least an hour to actually playing games. The rest of the free time? There is no such thing, it all belongs to TAGAP!
I... have actually had a long break from playing anything recently. My DualShock developed a stick drift, rendering worse than useless. Considering that's the second DualShock to do that within 9 years – in comparison to the first Xbox 360 controller lasting over ten years with even more play-time – I'm not eager to give Sony any more money. So I'm in a limbo right now until I find a controller that isn't made of rotting off-the-shelf Chinese junk parts (and that works on PS4). The only one I've seen so far costs 200€, FFS.
However, prior to the controller going kaput, I finished War Tech Fighters. I can recommend it for space combat and/or mech enthusiasts – especially the more arcade-y oriented ones.
And I was in the middle of BPM: Bullets Per Minute – a rogue-like rhythm... FPS? Yeah, that's a thing. The rogue-like part is obvious, but the rhythm FPS is a new one; you can't shoot, reload or dodge unless you're on a beat or a half-beat. Miss it all you get is 'click' and there goes your multiplier. It's a refreshing take on an FPS for sure.
It's fun, but also tough as nails, especially playing on a controller; there are several small enemies that zig-zag around. Normally not a problem even on a controller – you just compensate the aim with your movement and time your shot when the enemy is your line-of-fire. Except remember that you can't shoot unless you're on a beat – so that doesn't work here. It isn't game breaking, but punishing enough that I'd recommend to grab it on a mouse-and-keyboard system if have the option.
For the Next Game; I guess more of the same, creating new enemies. If my health improves as predicted, I might get back to work proper within a month. If so, I will create a couple completely new enemy archetypes to round out the roster – allowing me to star creating the first full-length levels. That would be a mile-stone and a half!
For the Playlist; I guess I stare at the insides of my eyelids until I find a solution to keep on playing games that doesn't involve giving more money to junk peddlers.
