Pacifism

So!
Since my last post I got a new awesome job and thus worked less on PewPew and Rollin' Droid. An update for PewPew is in preparation though. It will feature basic maintenance stuff (iphone 5 support, sound improvements, small optimisations, etc...), and more importantly a new game mode:

Pacifism

It is inspired copied from Geometry Wars' Pacifism game mode, and even in its unfinished form it's really a lot of fun. It will be available only in PewPew 2 when you finish the 3rd Campaign (in any difficulty).

Concerning Rollin' Droid, I've expanded my ambitions and need to re-do a part of the engine because I feel that my creativity is limited. I can't simply think of a feature and quickly implement it like I could do in PewPew. The hard part about RD's engine is that I have randomly generated levels that are potentially infinitely wide and height so I can't just alloc enough memory in advance. Also, I absolutely want to maintain 60 fps with no hiccups when loading a new area, so I have to create and stream it chunk by chunk to the GPU. To top it off, I can only use integer to have a deterministic game because I want people to be able to replay each other's games across different CPUs.

"as seen at the Google IO"

I was watching the live broadcast of the Google IO when I got the pleasant surprise of seeing PewPew 2 as the (currently displayed) recommended app.

Completely unrelated, and much more importantly, Sébastien Huss has ported PewPew 2 to the Pandora console. I've been meaning to port it to this console for a long time because it has 2 physical joysticks.
I really want to thank him as he did all the work quickly, and without any of my help.

It should be noted that porting PewPew to the Pandora would have been totally impossible had I used any closed component (Unity 3D, UDK, Marmelade, ShiVa3D...) ;-)

PewPew, step 10

At the beginning of this blog, I used to do short movies showing the progress of the game. I think it's cool to look back and see what changed and what hasn't.

Following this spirit, I made a small video showing the new game mode in action:

It features two new enemies internally called "Rolling Cube" and "Planner" :)

It looks really cool, but I still find it hard to play because my fingers tend to slip off the screen. This is because when the two ships are going in opposite directions, they cancel each others movement. Because I want to move anyway, I naturally move my fingers away from the centers of the joysticks, and thus move my fingers off the touchscreen.

There is really nothing I can do, except maybe visually notify the players that they are already moving as much as they can, and that they don't need to move their fingers further from the center. Come to think about it, it's an excellent idea. Yay. Now back to work.

PewPew 2

Here's a news that will make a lot of people happy: PewPew 2 is in development!

It will feature (among other things) new game modes unlock-able by completing some levels (there's a campaign mode), additional sound tracks, and medals and ships to earn.

The release date of PewPew 2 is "When it's done", but I hope to finish it before March 2010.

Programming the levels in the campaign mode is one of the task that is taking me the most time. I want all the levels to have a distinct look as well as a different gameplay. Right now, creating one level takes approximately one week (20% of the time is spent creating the level, 80% is spent polishing it)...

Of course, if you have any ideas or suggestions for PewPew 2, feel free to send me an email (jfgeyelin@gmail.com) or post a comment.