Our project is running like a well oiled machine this summer. We have all of our sections doing work efficiently and each section has an emergency backup plan if they were to fall behind. The team is divided up into smaller teams for each section. I am the only one that oversees all the sections along with Andrew Cardon. We've made huge leaps and bounds in the art department, we have the evil Aroceans completed at this point. They are the antagonistic race of the game, they are a blue lizard-like species that are plutocratic in nature and extremely xenophobic. They were modeled after world war II Nazis with a science fiction twist.
All of the playing field creatures are just about completed and ready to be modeled in Blender. Our big thanks goes out to Joshua Airoso, he has spent countless hours working on the creature designs. He has a background in both art and natural biology (Dairy Sciences) so his creatures really make genetic sense. By genetic sense I mean that the creatures look like they have a similar ancestor and are adapted specifically for the environment they inherit.
In the game design department, the game has now been subdivided into two main play states, the endo-world exploration and exo-world exploration. In the first part of the game, you will traverse the different citadels of Tahi to put yourself through trials during the Arocean War on that very planet. Each citadel is inhabited by a female Philosopher. The philosophers are in a suspended state of animation and control the very essence of the Citadel. Since the Tahians are an amalgam of both ancient and new (theological and high tech), the Citadels are extremely advanced and change during the player's stay in the citadel, similar to that of Portal 2 and the dynamic chambers.
The Exo-world exploration part of the game is a combination between Mass Effect and Star Control 2: The Ur-Quan Masters. In this portion of the game you will explore strange worlds that have been affected by the Arocean Empire and try to right its wrongs to find the evil AroCat's home world. You will play through these worlds and piece together the Arocean Home world's location. That is all I can say in regards to that, I don't want to spill out too many spoilers!
The menu is uniquely designed to really grab your attention, it is extremely artistic, calm, soothing yet foreboding. I cannot send the audio file just as of yet, but it will sound similar to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4SwFhfNh1w
For the engine designing department, here's where things get nice and gritty! We've been working on the controller interrupts and I have been working on some theory. As of now we've been designing this engine to be polygon based, just like every other engine out there on the market. However, we want to make this engine unique and powerful! Which we have been doing, no less. I have been working with some theories regarding splines and how they can function in relation to 3D space to create 3D objects. I cannot divulge much into the theory but we are going to start trying to apply this theory onto our engine, it will completely eliminate the use of polygons and thus be able to produce graphics UNHEARD OF using a Dreamcast, imagine having the looks of an XBOX 360 in the form factor of a Dreamcast, well some of you may think it's impossible and ludicrous but for those of you who believe so, here is a link for you to stew on: http://www.gamersspot.com/?controller=news&op=view-news&news_id=91805 This engine is using nothing but dots, small atomic-like structures to create an engine and its efficiency is blowing the top off of any platform. Our spline theory was created not knowing of this already preexisting engine. We will attempt to try to apply our theories onto this engine and if successful, we will continue work with it!
Our musician has successfully created the menu music as well as the theme song to the Arocean Armada, he is currently working on the game's theme song and the heroes theme song. The music is tracked together so that it can be applied to any tracker if we so choose to use any.
Attached along with this message are some drawings from the game thus far, the first few are early Arocean designs with armor and body, the second is Koncler, a very key Arocean to the game, the third and fourth are Philosophers from two Citadels.
(Note the Armor with Corrections on it is not finalized, I roughed over the drawings to make changes for the artist)
More to come in the upcoming weeks, including a website update! Yes we're changing that front page over to something a little more fitting as well as updating the bios page with our musician, Sean Vidal.
Thank you all for the wonderful support through these years, we're working hard as a small, tightly-knit group and we will have this game done in ALL of its glory!
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Source : Dreamcast-talk.com
Site officiel : Reticonentertainment.org