After a few initial coding hang-ups and a lack of free time devoted to coding during the past couple weeks, I've some new developments to report:
--game can be paused with the ESC button, and eventually I'll have a nifty status screen message to display when the game is paused.
--significant improvement: I've worked out "pop-up" status messages that let the player know recent updates or provide reminders about objectives. "3 convoys remaining" appears at the start of level 1, and is updated when a convoy successfully arrives at the end base. Other planned updates include when stun gas is acquired, when ammunition is picked up, and when the player has suffered a lot of damage.
--rough demos of audio files for significant in-game events are made. for now, I'm the only voice actor, but I'll recruit my friends and associates to do some recordings for me.
--game automatically starts in full-screen mode, which resulted in a drastic improvement in performance.
Known issues/to do list include:
--There's a strange "graphical dithering" that occurs now that the game is in full-screen mode. I'll have to look and see if this occurs only on a LCD screen, or in all displays; I'll check it at work and have some testers on other systems take a look at it. After some time hoping for responses on the forums, it doesn't look like anyone has a clue on how to stop this from happening. If I can provide more details on the issue in the future, I certainly will in the hopes that it will help testers pinpoint this issue.
--I'm looking for replacements of the MIDI file music. If anyone can refer me to some free databases of XM and/or MOD files, that would help. I wouldn't have to re-learn them or save audio as MP3s (and jack up the file size as a result).
--I'll be creating an "ejection seat" animation for when the player's vehicle has been destroyed.
--I need to create a "smoke & damage" animation for when the player's vehicle has suffered damage. I've been wanting to do this for a while.
--Now that the turret and the vehicle rotate independently, I want to modify the orientation of the vehicle based on which direction the player is moving as opposed to the direction of the mouse. This is a simple matter (Sketchy's engine had this implemented and all I need to do is update my code to reflect the same modifications).
--create the aforementioned pause-game status screen. This will be easy.
No download to inspect this time around; I will have level one's full demo as the next downloadable update.
This is going to be my most ambitious project yet! I'm very excited about the possibilities, and I've learned quite a bit while working on this.
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