On Call Ver 1.05 Patch Progress

I'm nearly done with the work for the next patch and so I'm here with a list of all the changes and tweaks that will make it into the patch. Its a large patch, so large in fact that I've gone through several version numbers during testing.

Space ship explosions:

Color and lighting tweaks as well as new art / posters:

• Re-Coded camera for the space ship:

1. Changing to the follow camera and then back to the normal orbital camera will no longer cause the camera to glitch out in terms of position.
2. Using boost now makes the camera follow the ship so that its easier to control.
3. Holding square now also causes the camera to center and follow the ship.
4. Optimized the camera code, removing a few hundred lines of code.
5. Added different positions for the camera, so that when boosting, it will be further away to give the player more screen space.

• Tweaked the space ship:

1. Fixed a glitch where the player would continuously lose health.
2. Re-Balanced the health and damage of the ship for more fun.
3. Added the ability to slow to a halt in space, this will double the sensitivity of the ship, allowing far better control in tight dog fights.
4. Gave the player infinite boost in the interest of more fun.
5. Doubled bullet speed so that its easier to hit your target at great distances.
6. Improved collision detection for objects and bullets.
7. Improved aimer.

• Tweaked the space AI:

1. Added a new routine for the ships to speed up slightly while the player has stopped, allowing the player to over take.
2. Tweaked speeds and general awareness in the interest of fun.
3. Tweaked damage dealt to the player in the interest of fun.

• Arcade Mode:

1. Tweaked colors and lighting due to player feedback.
2. Added a menu for when the player dies showing the players current score, high score and asking the player whether they wish to play again, or return to the main menu.
3. Added explosions for the enemy AI. (still tweaking the sound for this as it currently crackles)
4. Added force to those explosions that will push any ship away that is close enough.

• Space:

1. Tweaked colors and lighting due to player feedback.
2. Added an explosion to the drifting ship.

• Fire ranges:

1. Added new art in the form of papers and posters that litter the levels.
2. Added sparks for when the player shoots the turrets.
3. Added a smoke particle for when the turret is disabled.
4. Tweaked colors and lighting due to player feedback.

• Hanger:

1. Tweaked colors and lighting due to player feedback.
2. Added new art in the form of papers and posters.

• Life support:

1. Tweaked colors and lighting due to player feedback.
2. Added new art in the form of papers and posters.

• Crew chambers:

1. Tweaked colors and lighting due to player feedback.
2. Added new art in the form of papers and posters.
3. Added gore and particles to the creeps for when they are shot and when they die.

• Bridge:

1. Tweaked colors and lighting due to player feedback.
2. Added new art in the form of papers and posters.
3. Added sparks to the turret when the player shoots it.
4. Added a smoke particle for when the turret is inactive.
5. Added gore and particles to the creeps for when they are shot and when they die.

• Engine:

1. Added gore and particles to the creeps for when they are shot and when they die.

• Credits:

1. Added new names according to their contributions and also tweaked their appearance.

Good and Bad News

Hope the holidays are going well for everyone!

Things are going ok over here, but alas, I have some good and bad news.

I'll start with the good. I have several large projects lining up with several other small time indy devs. What this could mean is the formation of a studio in the far future... What it definitely means is far larger scale games. One project is an art orientated project that I'm keenly interested in and another is a more tech orientated project that I've been asked to join. Both are far larger than On Call but both are likely to be about as small in terms of success. I honestly love the idea of working on my art and improving, but at the same time the large scale and technology I would need to make for the other project intrigues me greatly. In all honesty though, the more arty idea will likely see a full game being released, where as the more tech idea I can foresee everyone else leaving me to work alone on it in my spear time as soon as they realize how hard it will be. Hopefully both can come together well. One of them is in concept while the other is only gearing up to start concept next year, so anything could happen.

The other good news is that I'm gearing up for the reveal of a new project. I've been working insanely hard on the art for this one, as I feel my art is whats lacking in order for me to land a job at a studio. I cant wait to show it off.

Lastly we come to the bad news. It looks like I cannot finish working on On Call unless I turn it into a sequel. This is a two part reason. Firstly and most importantly, I cannot change the age rating to include human enemies... Apparently that is set in stone, which means I cannot add any of the new levels I've been making... Which means that the only way to release it would be to make an outright sequel... That is not in all a bad thing, as my second reason is that the new levels would make On Call around 5 times longer and larger than it is now, which in truth does seem more like a sequel than a simple update...

Because of these things I have decided to release all the game play changes and new weapons for On Call, as they do not need to be re-rated. I will also work on anything else people do not like, like the fact that the creeps just disappear when they die as well as adding in the great art supplied by Matthew Sibler, while adding the new names to the credits for their help. Then we shall see if there is enough interest and support for me to make a sequel in my spare time. I'm extremely upset by this, as I've done a lot of work and preparation for On Call's new levels, story and enemy types.

The last think I need to talk about is how I really really want to make a multiplayer test game for PSM. It would be free, but small so that we can all test it to see if it works. I would add 2 modes, one on the ground as normal people in a small map, and one in space... I'd love to do that just to see how viable it is performance wise and how the networking code would need to work...

So there you have it... As you can see, my future is extremely uncertain at this point... I'll let you know how things progress.

Tweaks

I've re-written the space-ship camera code to add and revise some features:

• If you hit circle, the camera will still go behind the ship, but now it will follow the ship completely instead of allowing the ship to have some free rotation. Its better like this as the player can see what is up above and down below them.
• If you hit square the ship will rotate faster and your speed will come to a halt. The camera will revert to the follow position while this happens. This new mode of movement will add a level of ease to controlling the ship in combat.
• The camera will subtly follow the player when no movement is made to the camera stick after a period of time, akin to GTAs car camera.
• The camera should also never forget its position when changing camera modes now as it has before.
• Now that the glitch where the player automatically loses health has been sorted out, I've re-tweaked the damage ratios for all enemies. The player will now die fastest from collisions, followed by large shots and then by small shots.
• I've added a new routine to the enemy space AI so that they will speed up when the player goes slowly allowing the player to let them overtake.

These additions / changes are purely to enhance controls of the ship and camera, hence providing more fun gameplay to the player.

Progress Report

Happy holidays everyone. Hope everything is going well.

I've been working on some really cool stuff of late and I'm ready to talk about that stuff and hopefully show it off soon.

So first off, lets talk about On Call. I've been adding / tweaking a lot of things that I'd like to discuss.

• I've added explosions to when enemy space ships explode. These are a big deal in a lot of ways. They are not only cool looking and sounding so the player gets feedback on a kill, but they also have a lot of physics code beneath the hood, so if you blow up a nearby ship, it will cause your ship to shake and even be blown away with a powerful shock wave of force from the explosion. I still need to optimize this for the Vita, but its coming along well.

• I'm fixing a particular bug in the space arcade mode where the player continuously takes damage and seemingly dies out of nowhere. Once this is fixed, I will also tweak the damage the player receives on impact with objects in space.

• I'm playing with some visual damage to the players ship. So far results are good and its probably going to end up in the game. Its still weird sometimes, but I will work out kinks.

• I've also made a lot of improvements to the ship. It can now have a permanent boost so the player can always escape from the AI. I came to the conclusion that its just not as much fun if the player has limited escape options. I'm also adding in a slow down ability that the AI will not be able to match, allowing the player to slow down and have the AI fly past them, once again opening up space combat vastly.

• I've made a lot of progress with the character model for the enemy AI. The model is nearly fully modeled and then I will texture, rig and animate it. From there we will be able to put them into levels, both new and old.
• Lastly, I've been doing a lot of color tweaking for the game. I've received a lot of complaints that its too dark. So, where the levels are not designed around that darkness I will lighten them up. But the levels where the darkness is part of the gameplay will stay dark.

Secondly, I've got a new game that's coming along really really well. I cant wait to show it off soon.

As always, hope you guys have a great time. I hope to upload another patch before Christmas with as much new stuff as possible, but probably not new levels.