Here is the new entry in Nordenfelt‘s development log. When I’m looking back to dev log 29 I should call this log entry Dev Log 29 Cont’d. They share the same topics: music and the game’s intro.

You can help getting Nordenfelt done, test the game’s latest versions and discuss it in the secret development forum with other preorderers by preordering Nordenfelt. If you like to stay in touch, be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed, email newsletter or listen to my tweets at @black_golem. For the very nosy among you I’m running an issue tracker as well.

Let’s have a look what happened (speak continued) since last time.

Nordenfelt’s Soundtrack – Cont’d

I was pondering if Nordenfelt should get canned tracks or a dedicated soundtrack. Right now the game has a very cool intro theme from a stock site. I caught myself firing up Nordenfelt over and over again just to hear this track. That should be a good sign, ain’t it?

Nonetheless, original tunes would be awesome. So I decided to go part canned, part newly composed stuff. The upcoming version 0.5.3 – which is advancing at the rate of a snail – will have just canned tracks. Following versions should receive specially composed works.

Game Intro – Cont’d

Instinct is a funny thing. In our world full of information and education shoved down our throats we forgot to listen to our gut feeling. This is why I’ve tweaked the game intro for several hours just to realize that the first idea was the best. Often initial intentions are right. This happens to me again and again. So I’m tempted to leave out my mind more often and just listen to my guts.

Due to this I’ve updated the start screen to challenge my instincts with art. I’ve added lightning bolts from the Tesla weapon and improved the grunge look:

That’s it for this time. See you in 2012.

Happy New Year!

Cheers,
Thomas

Here is the new entry in Nordenfelt‘s development log. I’ve spent the last two weeks at the audio battle front. Finding the right sound effects and background music is not as easy as it … sounds …

You can help getting Nordenfelt done, test the game’s latest versions and discuss it in the secret development forum with other preorderers by preordering Nordenfelt. If you like to stay in touch, be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed, email newsletter or listen to my tweets at @black_golem. For the very nosy among you I’m running an issue tracker as well.

Explosion Sounds

As a followup to the new explosion graphics I’ve added some spicy blast effects. Some people complained about the old explosion sounds. No surprise, they were placeholders. The problem with placeholders is that when they are not ugly enough people will see (or hear) them as final. Therefore – as I wrote here – there won’t be any new stuff which is not meant to be final. Make a real job of it and come to an end.

Nordenfelt’s Soundtrack

Nordenfelt will get an epic, orchestral soundtrack. At the moment I have a couple of dozen tracks which may find their way into the game. They come from audio stock sites like www.premiumbeat.com or www.shockwave-sound.com. It’s easy to get preview tracks from these sites and test them right in the game. You may undervalue the interaction between background music and the game itself when you judge them separately. Music heavily influences the game’s atmosphere. So always test the music tracks while playing the game. If they don’t boost the feeling they are worthless.

Game Intro

While I was listening to some intro music candidates my mind already painted (or does a game dev brain render?) a sketch of the game intro itself. It was all about comic-like, steam-powered Star Wars scenes with much ado and whatnot. The usual flight of fancy when your brain skips all limits.

After all this simple screen is what reality dictated:

Reality is cruel, isn’t it?

What the heck, KISS!

Turrets

Last but not least: turrets now leave their pedestals when their heads explode.

In the near future I’ll contact some composers for an offer regarding the soundtrack. I’m wondering how much the whole audio stuff will cost. It’s good to have canned music as fail-safety. A dedicated soundtrack would be better though. It depends on the $$$, as usual.

Cheers,
Thomas

Here is the new entry in Nordenfelt‘s development log. Since the last post the game hit the home stretch regarding explosions.

You can help getting this project done, test Nordenfelt’s latest versions and discuss the game in the secret development forum with other preorderers by preordering Nordenfelt. If you like to stay in touch, be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed, email newsletter or listen to my tweets at @black_golem.

Nordenfelt got  its small and medium unit explosions done. Furthermore the GUI shakes now when multiple strong explosions happen at once. Simple gimmickry but easy to code.

Currently I’m working on the end boss its implosion-explosion-fireball ending. Hope it comes off as it promises to be.

When all this eye candy work is done I’m looking forward to improve the gameplay mechanics. More equipment is overdue, mouse cursor aiming may be interesting to try and procedural grinding (money-making) levels sound interesting. Just to name a few.

Cheers,
Thomas

Here is the new entry in Nordenfelt‘s weekly development log.

You can help getting this project done, test Nordenfelt’s latest versions and discuss the game in the secret development forum with other preorderers by preordering Nordenfelt. If you like to stay in touch, be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed, email newsletter or listen to my tweets at @black_golem.

OK, enough calls to action. Let’s see what happened since last Wednesday.

Released 0.5.2

The draft version of level 2 and the revised ingame shop where installed in Nordenfelt’s new version 0.5.2. I’ve already showed you some screenshots from the second level last week. Here is a screenshot of the new shop:

It looks a little empty at the moment. That’s because there are just three pieces of equipment to buy yet. More will come along with gameplay refinement.

Your Project Can Die Any Day

This Monday I was happily working away when my virus scanner started its regular update. Suddenly it bleeped, showed me a virus and the fun started: the shortcuts on my desktop, in my quick launch bar and my programs started to disappear. Dozens of dialogs popped up, telling me that my harddisk is massively corrupted. As you can imagine I was shocked. What if this beast deletes my project files? I backup my Subversion repositories regularly but there are always some development files not included, e.g. large Gimp or Blender files.

Rebooting in Windows’ Safe Mode stopped my cold sweat. At least there was a way to access the machine without triggering the virus again. Two hours of forum search (on my dad’s prehistoric PC which loves to crash randomly) made it clear: it’s all right, just easily fixable malware. One hour later everything was repaired and I headed to the city for a new 2TB external backup storage. No more fiddling around with partial backups due to lack of disk space. From now on I’m backing up ALL DRIVES as they are. Making images would be an even better solution but I did not investigate image software yet.

To make a long story short:

A virus can kill your project IMMEDIATELY. When was YOUR last backup?

That’s it for this week.

As mentioned before, feel free to support the project by preordering Nordenfelt. Many thanks to all the people who already bought the game. You’re awesome!

Cheers,
Thomas

Here is the new entry in Nordenfelt‘s weekly development log. There was much grey this week… You’ll understand when you see the screenshots.

But first:

You can help getting this project done, test Nordenfelt’s latest versions and discuss the game in the secret development forum with other preorderers by preordering Nordenfelt. If you like to stay in touch, be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed, email newsletter or listen to my tweets at @black_golem.

Now, what changed since last time?

Drafting Level 2

Drafting, drafting, drafting – all day long. Here are some wordless screenshots:

Shop Improvement

Today I’ve started improving the ingame shop. Its current version has a rather clumsy function flow. E.g. buying and equipping a weapon needs three mouse clicks. That may not sound that much but it is. The optimal click count for any functionality IS … *drum roll*:

ZERO!

Brain-reading devices are not available by now so I have to aim for the suboptimal single click. Or worse.

Win Nordenfelt!

I have decided to make subscribing to Nordenfelt’s email newsletter more attractive. From now on subscribers can win access to the secret development forum each time a new version rolls out.

So, in case you haven’t done it yet:

Subscribe and Win Nordenfelt!

That’s it for this week.

As mentioned before, feel free to support the project by preordering Nordenfelt. Many thanks to all the people who already bought the game. You’re awesome!

Cheers,
Thomas

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

This Wednesday I have just two points: a new enemy model and a really nasty bug.

New Cannon Boat

This is the first nautical vehicle in Nordenfelt:

Hunting a Stealth Bug

Adding exhaust particle effects to the cannon boat unveiled a curious bug. Check out the following two screenshots:

The upper image shows a boat heading from left to right. In this case the unit has no rotation as the debug display “native rot = 0″ tells. The lower image shows the same boat pointing in the opposite direction, the unit has a 180 degrees rotation. Now compare the orientations of the exhaust particles relative to the boat orientations. Can you see the failure?

Today is the fifth day I’m chasing this damned bug. It’s a really tough beast. Hopefully it will be squashed soon to go on with more interesting stuff to show next Wednesday.

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

Cheers,
Thomas