You know how it goes with hobbies over time, they change. This Remake project has been our hobby for a long time, but as all things change in this world, so does it too… Last release (r6720) was very exhausting. Me and Lewin are still on a vacation from serious KaM Remake coding.
What I’m about to say has been nagging us for a long time. AÂ few months ago we realized, that we got so very bored by pixelated 2D graphics, jittery animations and endless stream of bugfixing (and never-ending fountain of ideas to add new houses and units we could not add) that we have decided to put this to an end.
Some of you might not like it, but those who are strong by heart should proceed:
Decision was made. Starting with it was hard, so we had to have a few glasses of wine (made earlier by a fellow Farmer chap, stomping on pink pixely grapes). Hold on to your seats – we decided to create a radically new game!
We have discussed over what should it be – an FPS shooter in Lauenburg ruins, Arcade Walheim, even a racing game in the Moorbach suburbs (I have some race games experience, even a few car models in my garage). All that looked promising and refreshing after KaM. But I guess everyone is bound to his fate, so we ended up right where we have started – on an RTS genre. Could be boring once again, but we figured we might change something in the recipe.
First things first, we headed to the drawing board. (Pardon our lines, we had wine, remember?)
We had no napkins, had to draw on a whiteboard
The game’s logic needs to become fully rectangular, preferably in green lines. House outlines have to become red to stand out on the screen. Something has to become blue, but neither of us could remember what exactly, so we have started working and hoping to figure it out later on. And most importantly, no change is complete without changing left-side menu into a bottom-side one. Ever!
With all that planned well ahead we have butchered the 2D render and everything around it and threw it away (in the most brutal way possible). Also had to dispose of any unwanted witness serfs and builders. Houses were demolished and rubble cleaned up. New tins with paints were opened and plywood sheets ordered. Meet the Next Knightly RTS prototype:
Building from grounds up
Of all things, we are using the same game engine. Porting Delphi code to Unity or Unreal Engine would take months of work, and we don’t have time for that. With a team of just two guys, we need to be efficient. Lewin is working hard on new design ideas, balance and gameplay pace. I’m focused on adding a 3rd dimension to the engine, visual design, 3D modelling and animation.
Hammering plywood
Using the latest OpenGL technology the game will feature 50% more dimensions, spherically harmonic trees, physically based resources and lots of facial hair for Recruits. And of course good perspectives on Android, iOS, OSX, *nix and PC versions from the single executable!
This a long road ahead. We might bump into some problems, but hopefully we will overcome them like we did before. Wish us luck!
Thumbs up!
20 responses to “Future plans”