Building up

Hello every one!

Thanks for checking in once again on the progress of Fleet Calamity.

This post will be a short one as there still isn't much to show visually. As I mentioned last time we are working on the backbones and inner workings of the game, thus there isn't a lot of visual detail as far as game play goes.

The most recent work has been focused on implementing card functions, such as drawing cards, discarding cards and gaining resources from that. We also have been working on various menu's so we can navigate through the game properly.

Speaking of menu's here are a few images of the menu's as they are now. Keep in mind as the game progresses these may change to accommodate the any new features or functions we need. The look may change as well to ensure everything blends well together.

 

Above is the options menu, you'll be able to open this menu from just about any menu using the gear icon shown in previous images of the GUI. Here (from top to bottom) you'll be able to alter whether the game is full screen or windowed, what aspect ratio your screen is, affect the volume of music and sound effects, the sensitivity of the camera rotation, camera zoom and your mouse. Lastly you can alter the key bindings for the keyboard and mouse.

Above is the pause menu. You'll be able to open this while in game and be able to return to to the main menu, exit the game to your desktop or resume the game.


I'll be sure to inform you all as we progress with the game play and any other aspects of the game.

In the mean time we are being sure to keep in constant communication to inform each other of up coming personal obligations as well as what we've been doing on the project.

Once the back bones are finished there will be more to show, but we need to make sure the backbones are made properly so it won't make more work for us in the future. This is one of the biggest aspects of the game followed by the card implementation. By "card implementation" I mean programming all the various unique aspects of the cards. This will take a lot of time with very little to visually show, but it is a core aspect of Fleet Calamity.

Until next time feel free to follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/FleetCalamity
And/or follow us on Twitter @HalfHeartGames

We're back!

Hello once again every one!

I apologize for the long period of silence and I'll be working on making sure that doesn't happen agian.

But let me catch every one up on the Fleet Calamity game and what has been happening with Half Heart Games. Some time ago the programmer I was working with started to get overwhelmed with life and work, as many of us do. Over time he couldn't help as much as he would have liked and also ran into a few road blocks, which I couldn't help with. Ultimately he decided to take a break from Fleet Calamity and eventually left the team all together.
Don't worry though, we didn't have a big fight or anything. He simply had more important things to worry about such as family, work and life as a whole. I still think he is a great guy, and I look forward to see what he does in the future.

As for Half Heart as a team and Fleet Calamity as a game I have some good news!
I put out some more feelers and wanted ads for programmers and this time I made sure I got more than just one person to help. This time I also used a great site called Teamup and through them I found some amazing people. I got a bunch of people who replied to my ad, but I eventually went with two programmers who are both very smart, fun and excited to see this project through.

This time I also wanted at least 2 programmers so I wouldn't run into some of the issues I had before with just one programmer. Now if one of them has an issue and doesn't know how to resolve it they can ask the other and talk it out. I personally don't know much -if anything- about programming so I often couldn't help with technical issues. However, now the two programmers are able to fix issues almost as soon as they crop up.

Having more people on the team, especially when they live half way across the world, requires a lot of communication to ensure we are all on the same page. To this end we often communicate on Skype nearly daily just to check up on each other and see what we all are doing, whether it is development related or just to see how we all are doing. If a big topic comes up we will then schedule a meeting at a time where we all can attend and express our opinions.
So far this set up has been working very well and we are plugging along pretty quickly. Having two people help out also makes the development process much faster.

As of right now we don't have too much to actually show as we are currently starting the programming all over from the ground up. One of the programmers is setting up all the states and ensuring everything is talking with each other while the other builds up those scenes and prepares all the cards to be used, such as the deck editor, shuffling and dealing cards.  Right now we are moving into the actual game play as all the back bones are set up and functioning.

Here is a gimps of what we have thus far.

 

Above is the temp main menu. As we move forward we'll implement more of the correct GUI and functions, but for now this allows us to navigate the game and get to what we need.

 

Above is the temp deck editor. Most of this scene is ready to go, but as you can see some of the gui elements are not positioned correctly. Again, this allows us to work with what we need to, but doesn't give us all the bells and whistles. Currently you can just move cards from the overall library and place them into your deck. You may also save decks and use them in the main game.

 

Lastly, above here is the starting of the main game. The menu before this allows the player to choose between a human or AI enemy (although AI won't be implemented for some time). It also allows you to choose your deck, name your opponent. 

Like I said there isn't much visual content to show off as much of the work thus far has been behind the scenes, including setting up the team, getting the team all on one page, organizing the assets, getting version control up and running and of course programming the base of the game.

As we continue I will show off more of the game as it is built. I'll also share all the details of how we make decisions, solve problems and what we plan on doing next.

As I move forward I will attempt to update this blog weekly or bi-weekly depending on how much actually gets done.

Until then take care every one!

Make sure to join our facebook group @ https://www.facebook.com/FleetCalamity

and on Twitter @HalfHeartGames