On the nerdy side of things, my T2FM is just about finished (it'd want to be anyways; the deadline for submission is tomorrow at midnight!). Here are a heap of screens.
View across the canal, facing west. The distant building is actually just a texture that doesn't change in angle or size wherever you are. When you're in-game, it gives the impression of being very far away.
I've finally got round to re-doing the cathedral, both exterior and interior. Notice the nicely coloured and balanced lighting? Just another agonizing detail that'll fail to be noticed. That reminds me, I should really put some religious stuff on the altar.
Northwest view of the Inn, up against the city walls. The small delivery hatch leads to the Cellar.
This boarded-up hole allows access to some of the City's dankest abandoned cellars and basements. I've removed the boards so you can see the hole in the floor. All this is lit by the PC's flares, without which, you'll have to explore in pitch black.
More of the Underground. I'm planning on implementing (if I have time) a background story similar to that Edgar Allen Poe story where the dude gets walled up in the cellar.
Just a random street. Thought it looked cool. Notice that some of the windows still don't give off ambient light. It's one of those features which looks really cool and is extremely easy to implement, so obviously I haven't got round to doing it.
The view from behind the altar in the Cathedral. At the moment, I'm building a series of vaulted crypts below. The names on the sarcophagi will be those of people I want to thank for the help they've given me along the way. A weird tribute, it's true, but meh.
In Darkfall News, Beta Registration has finally opened, finally dispelling the rumours of Vaporware (as in, it'll vapourize before it comes out). Naturally, I've signed myself up along with the rest of the 150,000 or so people on the Darkfall Forums. It's odd, because a week before Beta was announced, there was about 40,000 users. Now the forums are full of people who've never been on before, never posted before, and certainly haven't been registered for more than a couple of weeks starting threads like "Omg f*cking newbs. why cnt they just find their own forums. We've all bin hre way longer so we shud get beta slots." Ah, Forumfall. Proving ground of the Forum Troll.
Anyways, if you're not interested in the ongoing battles waged weekly on the Darkfall forums, there's other news this week in the World of Geek. SPORE!
It's a revolutionary game in its own right. I picked up my copy as soon as I could. Basically, you start off as a single-celled spore in the primordial soup on a world of your choice. The first half hour of the game is sort of like an old Arcade game. You get your creature to go around and eat other creatures or plants (depending on what type of mouth you choose)
As you slowly evolve from a cell to a fish to a grotesque creation, your brain size increases to the point where you can evolve legs! You walk onto land and the creature phase begins.
To me, the thing that makes Spore unique is the creators. You can make virtually any type of creature, of any size, shape, form, or colour. It's all done through clever evolutionary interfaces. Basically, if you want to change something, you send out a mating call. The resulting baby can be editted, and the evolution of your species continues.
Eventually, once your creatures are smart enough, a pisstake of the moment in 2001: A Space Odyssey takes place in which your character develops tools. You can now form a tribe. While you're no longer able to evolve, you can now customize the tools and costumes of your Tribe
The game continues as you impress, flatter, or exterminate all the other tribes until the point where you can enter civilisation, and all the cities, vehicles, bombs and guns that come with it.
Once again, the creators allow you to completely customize your race, with their own unique cars, ships, buildings, outifits, and of course national anthem.
If you're nice (or merciless) enough, you can take control of the planet to unify it under one banner. Once that happens, you're in the space age.
Your goal is now a mixture of exploration, economics, domination, and colonization. And of course, to unravel the mysterious Grox, an empire made up of cyborg monkey things.
Eventually there must be some sort of end. The centre of the Galaxy seems to be the ultimate goal. But to be honest, I have no idea what's in there. There's about 1,000,000 stars in the Spore galaxy, each of them with an average of about 3 habitable planets each. For true galactic domination, it could take me years.
The thing about Spore is that it's completely unique. Sure, the creature stage is well below par of the average adventure game. Sure, you'd get a better strategy experience than those of the tribal and civilisation stages playing any ordinary strategy game. Sure, the space combat seems a little lacking.
But the reality is that Spore is just fun to play. EA has dumbed it down enough so that a seven year old could beat it. But that doesn't take away from the experience of older generations. It's just so satisfyingly addictive that you can accidentally let several hours pass while you try to get your palace looking just right.
I'd recommend it to anyone. It's a great game all-round.
