After several weeks of tweaking the explosion sound effects got finished. Ticking off this big task from the todo list was great.

More illustrative work is the improvement of the gauge graphics. Here you can see a pre-post comparison:

I’m quite happy with the result. An essential part of designing the new version was to get inspiration from other gauge designs on the internet. Just a few examples:

The longer I’m into game development the more I see how important copying given design is. There is no applause for wheel reinventers.

Cheers,
Thomas

PS: Just to remind you about the @nordenfeltgame Twitter feed. Feel free to follow and get dedicated info about what’s going on at the the Nordenfelt development front.

A new Wednesday, a new dev log entry.

This week rushed by as if it was just a single day. Most of the time I was setting up the upcoming sales page. There isn’t much to show yet, so …

Wait! There is something I can show you. I’ve spent a day and the following night on the game’s title screen. There were some odd drafts in the beginning but I think it became quite good in the end. Have a look at the drafts in chronological order, starting left top:

As ever feel free to subscribe to Nordenfelt’s RSS feed or follow me on Twitter at @black_golem. New insights every Wednesday.

Cheers,
Thomas

Let’s have a look on what happened during the last 7 days.

Equipment Screen Concepts

The equipment screen is still in experimental phase and therefore has just functional graphics. This is the second version I’ve made so far:

The list of available equipment is listed on the right panel. Buying and equipping the ship is done on the left panel. Everything works but it’s not as intuitive and fluent as it should be. More tweaking needed.

Live Positioning GUI Parts in Editor Mode

GUI part positions are hard-coded in Nordenfelt. This is quite bothersome when trying out different layouts. Therefore I’ve added the possibility to drag around GUI parts using the right mouse button.

Graphics Offset Bug Fixed

This was an interesting one, only visible at low frame rates. E.g. the player ship and its shield where out of sync when it was moved vertically.

Started Enemy Design

As mentioned here I’m working on replacing test graphics. The “first” model in progress, top to bottom:

More to come.

Made Machine Exhaust Definitions Data-Driven

Due to the steampunk setting there will be many exhausts blowing out steam and smoke. Their definition is data-driven now and can be set in the corresponding XML files.

That’s it for the first regular entry in the dev log series. See you next Wednesday for dev log 2.

In the meantime feel free to subscribe to Nordenfelt’s RSS feed or follow me on Twitter at @black_golem.

Cheers,
Thomas

Download it!

An Appeal

Version 0.4 has two major improvements: a new GUI and frame rate issue fixes. Now I’m interested in your feedback for them.

Firstly I’m interested if the GUI works for you, what you like about it and what should be cut. I’m aware that it’s consistency is far from complete. This happened by accident but constitutes branches in style. So there is a degree of choice.

Secondly I’m not sure if the frame rate issues are completely fixed. Therefore I need some profiling data from other machines than mine. I’ve added a profiling system which creates a file named profile.csv beside Nordenfelt.exe. It would be great if you could send this file to improve@nordenfelt-thegame.com. Don’t worry, I don’t spy you out. You can inspect the file with any text editor, MS Excel or Open Office to see what’s in there.

I’m looking forward to your replies.

Cheers,
Thomas