July 25 (It's All in the Look)

Last week was focused on continuing to rough out the Power Failure map. It's a long process of going from design to fully functioning level but progress is definitely being made. There's also been a couple important revelations a long the way.

First, Bit Battles has progressed significantly beyond the initial design but the overall look of the game hasn't. Many of the textures still in use were quick mockups made during the prototyping phase designed to test whether the TRON look could be done convincingly and in a unique way. They were never meant to be permanent additions but, unfortunately, they've fallen into that role over the past few months.

So, the long process of refining and, in many cases, simply redoing each texture has begun. Many of the changes are fairly minor (like small circuitry details on the textures for level geometry) but they create some pretty drastic results. As a result, the overall atmosphere of the game seems to have gotten a bit darker, more serious, perhaps even sinister. Surprisingly, this seems to go quite well with the storyline so I'm pleased with the results thus far.

Level geometry is in a similar state. The firewalls from The Breach, for example, were simply fill-ins until something better could be made. They don't do much to instill the idea that this sector is one where defenses are down, nor do they really fit the "firewall" description. So, in addition to the texture work, I'm going back and changing geometry, adding extra details, etc. It's a slow process as well but I'll get there eventually!

Secondly, the overall idea for level design hasn't been well-defined. Nowhere is this more evident than when comparing The Breach and Power Failure. The Breach was made early on and the smooth, flowing terrain is a stark contrast to the harsh, jutting terrain in Power Failure. What's really interesting is that The Breach works better from a gameplay perspective (the smooth terrain is ideal for the hovertanks to skim across) but Power Failure has a "cooler" digital/circuit board look that's not well-suited to the game.

Based on my experience with other games, I'm favoring the functional design of The Breach over the "coolness" of Power Failure. Some of the best (most fun) maps in TRIBES, for example, were the simpler ones. Of course, that's not to say that the two designs are mutually exclusive. My hope is that the second pass of Power Failure will result in a map that both looks awesome and is solid from a gameplay perspective. We'll see how it goes!

As for the upcoming week, I'll be slaving away on the next round of texture refinements and further developing Power Failure. My hope is that by the middle of August the map will be complete and I can move on to the next one: Fragmentation. Until next time!