Basic research tree

Just a little drop here to show my current progress in the Research panel. Looks good!

Basic Research tree

I only had to make a small modification on my algorithm to get this working. So so proud of it! This is the first attempt at making one of the 4 research trees. Yes, there will be 4 trees like this one! Zooming in and out is done, as you can see on the image. I still have drag issues when changing the zoom but nothing to worry about.

Technologies

Hey! I'm going to talk a little about technologies. "Research tree" was to much used previously so now, I'll talk about technologies.

As mentioned somewhere I can't remember, I want to create a huge technology tree. But too much informations shown at a time may be disturbing. So the global tree will be separated into categories. Four categories (for now):

1. Basics
2. Mining
3. Trading
4. Transport

As for visions representing a zoom of the universe, each category will represent a part of the global technology tree. I started listing technologies for the Basic one. I'm not done yet but here is a view of it :

Click to enlarge the image

Stay tuned for more informations.

Research Tree (4)

Here I am, talking about the research panel for the fourth time. Previously, I made the tree management but I wasn't completely satisfied by the rendering. It was clearly not optimised, in the code nor visually (space management). I though about a way to manage this properly. It took me days to elaborate a custom algorithm. Yeah, I did it the hard way : by my self.

I had a quite hard day at work and I didn't expected to go this far tonight. I was really exhausted! But I found some energy to work anyway. The algorithm is done and optimized, the rendering is cool, good work there. Take a look at what it looked like before and after :

Old rendering system

New rendering system

As you can see, the graph takes REALLY less space on screen. By the way, node coordinates are computed only once which save CPU during rendering.

Some important details to notice : the vertical gap between the last level nodes (on the right) is configurable, as is the horizontal gap between node levels. The player will be able to change theses values to modify the rendering as wish : player's comfort is important.

Oh and one more thing. That's not implemented yet, but the player will be able to zoom in/out to get a better view of the research advancement.

That's all for tonigh.t Stay tuned and take care of yourself.

Research Tree (3)

Good stuff incoming! I worked on the Research Panel tonight and thought it would be great to share.

What I made looked like that :

Boring and horrible huh? Here is how it looks like now with my previously presented prototype :

That's quite better! I still have to work on tree nodes placement but... That's just awesome already. I can go to bed completely satisfied.

:-)

Research Tree (2)

Graphic tree node placement is ok for now. Not perfect but that's enough at this point. Details will be polished later.

Here we go. Say hello to the first tree node graphic representation!

This may be simple but it shows a lot of informations. The top rectangle will display the technology name. I'm still thinking about hiding it and showing it only on mouseover. In the square below is displayed the technology icon.

The use of colors will also give informations : a white icon means that the technology is not acquired and a blue icon means that the technology is already owned. With this trick the player will be able to see clearly and fast where to put efforts on.

A yellow progress bar is below the icon. The color will probably change to be easier to notice. This progress bar shows the research program's progression. The bar will disappear when the technology is aquired.

And the most important part of the research concept comes below. There are 6 slots. On the image, 3 are filled, but what does it means? To do some research, you will have to build at least one research center. This will allow you to unlock the research panel. Each research program needs a defined amount of "research points" to be completed. In order to do this, the player will have to attach research centers to research programs to work on. Each research center attached to a program will give one research points every second until it's completed or detached. So the 3 blue slots means that 3 research centers are attached to this program.

Stay in touch for the next step!

Research Tree (1)

Creating the research panel is hard work. In order to display the research tree, I have to create a custom algorithm. As the tree won't be symmetric, that's quite hard. I'm not satisfied yet by what I made so far but I'm on the path (to glory).

Here is the current result of my viewer prototype :

I wanted to manage nodes with more than one parent to make tree branches cross but that's hell to handle! So for now, I'll keep it simple : only one parent.

Oh and something that the screenshot doesn't show, you can drag the tree around. Still work in progress but it looks promising.

Research panel is comming

Now that the conference is over, i could get back to work on Alone in Space. For now, I'm creating a custom window management to handle the game panels (Research, Freight, ...). For this purpose I'm using some viewport tricks but the input is not well handled yet.

The idea of using a viewport is to ease the construction of the panels and also their management. Yna allows to use game states as full screen of as popups. That's what I need : some kind of popups on top of the current Vision.

When the panel system will be operational, I'll be able to start working on the research tree and also the other panels later.

The research panel will give informations about the player's discovered technologies. On this panel, the player will also manage research programs with a (I hope) realistic approach. Technologies will be shown as a big tree. I want to create a really big one so it won't fit on screen. Here are some things I want to do about it :

• Drag the tree to show hidden parts.
• Scroll to zoom in / out and show more or less tree nodes
• Use colors and symbols to distinguish researched, available for research and not available nodes

No screenshot for now.

Talking about AiS

Hey!

I'm not dead, the project neither. This few days I was preparing a conference about Alone in Space. I polished a clean version of the actual game to present the Structure construction system and the resource management.

More informations about the conference here (in french) : Passion sans limite

After presenting myself and my game project, i could talk to peoples and they gave me great feedback and ideas. That's awesome. Thank you guys!

As I said to many of you on Google Plus or by voice, here come screenshots of the version v0.0.0.3 available for test on my stand :

And to conclude, yes, this version is freely downloadable here : Alone in Space v0.0.0.3. That's a Google Drive upload so to get it, press CTRL+ S or File > Download)

Please note things about this version :

•  You need the XNA 4.0 Redistributable
• The first structure built must be the command center
• Structures need energy to run or a yellow storm will appear over them.
• To create energy, build some solar plants
• Buildings need to be near a road
• There is no sound nor music
• You can press "H" to show / hide the UI
• Enjoy!

Alone in Space - v0.0.0.2

Hey!

Happy new year! I hope you a lot of love and great things for the incoming year 2013!

There was no real activity on Alone in Space since my last "run" around christmas. From then I worked on making a playable demo of the current state gameplay. You can build structures.  I'm going to present this demo at a meeting in Lyon (France) organized by the Game Dev Party (which promote the indie gamedev). The meeting takes place the 10th of january. More informations about this event here (in french) : Passion sans Limite.

I also thrown a personnal challenge to myself : create a flash game before the end of 2012. So I worked about 12 hours on two days making a simple flash game. It's available on Kongragate, so feel free to test it! That's not perfect, there are optimization problems. But keep in mind that it was done in a few hours. By the way, I want to improve it to be fun and user friendly as well. I wont add additionnal features, just improve the existing ones.