News
Thursday update #04 - First bit of texture work on Javelin
June 2nd, 2011
The last couple of weeks I’ve been working on texturing a piece of Javelin (the new Metal Drift deck). I started with the ‘bumper’ as it’s a common piece and is one of the things you’ll be driving around and looking at the most.
Here’s what I’ve got so far:
I’m sure I’ll tweak this here and there, but this is generally what the final product should look like. Here’s a fly through of it in-game:
Please ignore the sky and, well, everything beside the bumper. More on it’s way.
-W
Categories: Development Comments: 4
Thursday update #03 - Aftermath of the Crazy Sale! + Work Update
May 25th, 2011
This last week started with the crazy daily deal sale, resulting in over 4,000 more copies of Metal Drift sold!! Servers have been MUCH more active. It’s been great seeing so many new players. Some of whom are already kicking my ass with some amazing efficiency…you know who you are.
I’ve been working on a character for our latest iPhone game, and working on the texture for the bumpers and floor in Javelin. I hope to have something to show on both fronts soon. Brian has been tweaking our new iOS art pipeline and working on game mechanics for our iOS game.
I’m off to play some MD.
-W
Categories: Development Comments: 0
Thursday update #02 - Crazy Sale! + Javelin (Untextured)
May 19th, 2011
First off, Metal Drift is only $3.40 today!! (Thur. 5/19) for the next 20 hours only!!!
on Steam!
It’s going crazy, as I write this we’ve sold 1,027 copies in the last 3 hours!!
So, on to the wicked madness that will soon be the new Metal Drift cauldron of carnage ™. After performing the necessary incantations over many moons, (only 1 moon actually); my unholy creation has finally reached an adequate stage for public viewing. Mind you this is in its larval form. It has not grown skin, or talons, or the ability to be awesome….yet.
For those of you just tuning in; I started working on this new level ‘Javelin’ last summer, but shelved it to tackle more bite sized projects. But after our spring sale in April, I felt renewed zeal and decided to rededicate myself. Like the crazy uncle winding his own fishing lures or building tiny civil war re-enactments in the shed for hours each night, I’ve returned to this strange hobby with gusto.
So, exciting new stuff to expect in Javelin:
- Now Extra Smooth! As you can see in the fly through, the track and walls are smooth curves, rather than hard edged ramps and corners. In previous levels the movement of the tanks was not well supported by the level. The tanks move in big arcs, the levels had few of these. So Javelin is full of them.
- Even More Smoothness! The big curves weren’t enough. I removed all the bumps from the ground. This wasn’t a strategic game play issue, just a constant frustration! Javelin is smooth, no lips on the ramps, no raised pads or bumps on the shield wall thresholds. It feels faster to me, and more fluid now. No more lining up a shot, just to lose aim when you drive down a ramp or through a shield wall.
- Extra Speedier! The boost areas are more spread out now. You can see them as blue blocks on the ground in the flythrough. Having one long boost tunnel, as in past levels, seemed too separate and concentrated. I wanted to try short bursts of boost scattered around the level so you could more easily fight while boosting. It speeds up the game quite a bit in general (a common suggestion we’ve heard).
- Lastly, I’m trying out a more unique approach to the supporting geometry. I’m not worrying so much about reusing everything, and will be customizing more. I put a lot of thought into aesthetic improvements as well, but I’ll talk more about those as I get texturing done.
I can’t make big changes at this point (if I ever want to finish this beast) but I’m always open to feedback. Please feel free to drop me a line. weston (at) blackjacketstudios.com
-W
Categories: Development Comments: 3