Milestone!

This is a landmark moment for Orcs vs. Martians. I've now completed all essential (as judged ever-so-subjectively by me) game coding, save for one remaining task.

From here on out, everything is icing on the cake, bells and whistles, and polishing so to speak. There are no known hangs in the game. There's only one known crash--and that's only when taking a screenshot on Intel Graphics chipsets. Optimization and performance are decent, although not always great. The networking code works--last I checked, anyway. I figure I could theoretically release now--if sub-par art and rough corners were ok to release with.

This has been a long project - 4.5 years in development so far.

Work left to do:

• Chase camera. I've already done two coding iterations on this thing, but am still not overly happy with it. One more iteration, and it ought to be golden.


• Optimization. Still lots of possibilities for this. A big game can accumulate a couple of thousand ShapeBase-derived objects; need to get those things lean(er) and mean(er).


• Usability. I've already spent tons of time (or so it seems) trying to make the HUD feel convenient and non-frustrating, but there are still several minor annoyances. It'd be really nice to iron those out.


• GUI Artwork. It all could stand some polishing. The menu GUIs need new backgrounds, better-looking controls, and maybe new fonts... Also, the in-game HUD needs better fonts; the existing ones are probably too small.


• 3-D Artwork. Need DTS models that are optimized for RTS usage, and just generally more of them. I'd like to have lots of different DTS models that reflect progressions in a player's upgrades, so the player gets visual feedback for his upgrades.


• Terrain rendering. Need better terrain tile sets. There's also a usability issue, sometimes, with seeing narrow walkable passages...going up a plateau, it can be hard to see where the ramp(s) are. If those could be easier to see, that'd be great. Finally, it's a pipe dream of mine to increase the resolution of TGE's terrain textures from 256x256 to 512x512...that would look REALLY nice, IMO.


• Gfx Effects. This is the fun really one--I've got 1000 ideas for more gfx effects. I want to have lots of fx that reflect a player's upgrades--the more a player can see visible results from his upgrades, the better. Flaming arrows, tracer bullets, multiple laser beams, per chance? Also, I'd like to exploit dynamic lighting more.


• Replay. Add some very minimal sound fx; compress the replay data better. Maybe cross-off names of players as they die.


• A.I. I made some noise about AI a few months ago, but then backed off, in order to finish the essentials of the game. I kind of hated to do that, but it made sense. So, while the AI is competent, there's lots of additional smarts that could still be added.


• Sound. Fairly good as it stands, but needs more TLC. It might also be nice to make the sound effects change as players accumulate upgrades, like the 3-D models & gfx effects already do.


• Music. No additional coding necessary here; just need to choose the music and drop in the .ogg files.


• Game Balance. Naturally.

- - -

I think that's it. Still a lot of stuff to do, but it should be mostly bells, whistles, and polishing at this point.

It feels like a milestone of sorts.


Don't anger upgraded Orcs, they're bigger than you are.



Unless, of course, you have an upgraded gun.