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Making a Game
Saturday, April 5th, 2008
I've decided to admit that ultimately HaVoc is a very very far way away from being the amazing crazy FPS that I would like it to be some day. There are a number of reasons for this, namely the fact that my time and focus can't be split between 5 or 6 different disciplines. It's not an impossibility for a single person to create everything that goes into a game, code and promote it; it's impossible, though, to do all of that in any small time span, and still maintain quality.
I have found that in general I'm not suited for managing some large mod or project, and certainly not for team building and attracting others to my grandiose vision for success. At least not yet. My least favorite part about creating this particular site (and the ModDB profile, which any legitimate mod or standalone has) was writing the about sections. It's always wonderfully ambiguous and generic. Well... hmm.. it's going to have guns, and you can shoot them. And also I'll probably include CTF because that's necessary right? Oh and I'll name off some gametypes I can't even begin to know how to implement yet...
Who wouldn't want to play that?
I believe the problem of not knowing what I want this project to be stems from not having the intention of creating some cool new game in the first place. If I delve deep into my memory and think about why I originally wanted to make a standalone, it was mostly to showcase my levels and artwork. I approached making a game with the skillset of making levels for Quake 3: Arena. A number of people pointed out this problem. Most projects' leads are programmers.
You are doomed to fail.
You suck Kaz, have fun living in Boone!
Etc. ... fuck you scar3crow.
I digress. The point is that levels don't make games. Levels are just supposed to be pretty containers where the game is allowed to do its magic. As I began working on moving from Quake 3: Arena to the q3a-media-free HaVoc, somewhere along the way I slowly realized that. I wasted alot of time trying to make badass shotguns in 3DS and create sweet skins and textures in Photoshop, when what I should've been doing is learning how the shotgun is actually represented code-wise. That's not to say that what I learned about modeling and texturing isn't valuable, I just didn't learn it in the correct order. You can't make a game that's any different than Quake 3 by just replacing media. That's partially why OpenArena has been such a success; because it didn't claim to do anything other than be a media replacement.
So... what's the point? Well, at some point in time I began looking through the code. Not just trying to create little features (Ooooh, a stamina bar! How revolutionary!), but actually trying to understand how the big mess worked. It made sense, after awhile, why people weren't metaphorically chomping at the HaVoc bit to be it's programmer. I certainly wouldn't invest my time in coding someone else's vague idea for a game. It just doesn't work that way. If I intend to go out and build a game on my own, then I need to spend more time on the foundation of actually knowing how to program the logic of one, and less time on a shiney new gun to plug into code I didn't write or understand.
That means a couple things for HaVoc
. For one the tone of this site will be a sight less annoying and update-y (certainly someone cares!) and more about things that people might find cool or useful that I find in my endeavor to be a legit programmer. I want to keep the label HaVoc, as it's pretty fucking cool IMO, but use as a general label for whatever I end up creating with the Quake 3 source.
Eventually HaVoc may evolve into some amazing crazy FPS, or some other awesome standalone, but I think for now it's premature to promote it as such, and relegating it to "amalgamation of code and levels and shit" is a more appropriate decision. Hopefully I'll remember to update the site on a more regular basis. Thank you for reading.
Chaaaaanges!
Tuesday, January 29th, 2008
I recently discovered that by printing off the source code, going through each function, and making a todo list, then actually changing things increases my productivity by hundreds of percents:
- Re-worked HUD graphics - adjusted for CTF
- Health color now slowly fades from white(100+) to red(<100)
- Scoring display!
Here're some new screenshots:
Lists of Things
Sunday, January 20th, 2008
Here's a list of recent changes/fixes:
- New, high-resolution font drawing functions
- HUD Graphics, updated obituary messages (RTCW-esque) - ex: 'Kaz was shotgunned by Sarge'
- Map description system for the main menu, consists of parsing simple .txt files with the same name as the map
Here's a list of persistant annoyances:
- The ammo display doesn't update properly, only once the player reloads, even though it recognizes that the ammo is actually carried
- Shotgun impact graphics don't want to actually show up... Other weapon impacts are fine and the shotgun actually does the proper tracing and damage, just no impact marks/explosions
- Crash occurs in the 'controls' menu under options. Haven't really looked into this one
- Crash occurs when the player hops on a lift. Haven't checked it out yet
Know the q3 source? Care to look into some of these issues? You can download the source here, and if you fire off an email to me, I can send you the latest version... it still contains some naughty copyrighted material so I'm hesitant to release it publically.
Site Re-launched
Sunday, January 20th, 2008
It's been quite some time since any progress has been made on HaVoc, although development has now resumed. There's been a refocusing of effort on my part, away from creating any sort of levels or weapons, etc, opting instead to focus on UI and cleaning up various media. Currently I'm simply reorganizing the HUD, and implementing some neat graphical fading and whatnot. Check out the media section, which will now contain any half-way significant screenshots, even rough work-in-progress shots. Feel free to email me with any questions.