Project Diary

Loads of stuff to report this time, both because it's been two weeks since our last update and because everybody's been taking to heart the unofficial company slogan, "Work like a dog, or you're fired!" (In the real world, of course, firings happen on a much more arbitrary and capricious basis, as evidenced by my upcoming story about Kate).

Warren's minions in our Austin office got basic spherical-object physics in, so objects can collide with each other. Mahk wasted no time setting up our first bow combat system. Doug revisited the outer space rendering code from System Shock and got in starry night skies. He also prototyped our footstep sounds, so you can now hear enemies coming (and vice versa). Briscoe got AI's hooked up to Jon's speech system, so they bark out appropriate guard-like phrases when they begin to detect you. He also implemented some new behaviors for non-combatants (sleeping, fleeing, general helplessness).

Kate and Mark's biped animation work is finally starting to bear fruit, though we almost fired
her when we discovered she'd never heard of Ray Harryhausen. We can say stuff like this about Kate because the thought of firing her is so absurd. For one thing, her presence may just be the bulwark against the project pit's descent into locker-room-like squalor.

Robb continues on object models, including a new set of flickering-torch models and broken versions of various fragile things. He's also got us our first mock-up of the player's view of his own hands, which does more than you might expect for making our pre-Alpha look polished. Meanwhile, Dan and Josh finished up our promo trailer for the E³ demo.

Dorian's been working closely with Steve on our prototype mission architecture, with a smidge of polish from Greg and much kibitzing all around. Jeff's been finding the bugs with AI behaviors in our level, both on general principles and 'cause we all live to cause vexation to Briscoe.

I've been working over our database of object properties, making profound statements like "arrows are solid." Grungy work, I admit, but without it our largely data-driven system would be, as they say, all dressed up with no place to go. -Tim