Actually, here's the update for the website:
Mission select, objectives and unlockable missions are in! It took a bit of doing (and a lot of forethought!) but we now have a semblance of a game structure emerging. The screens and graphics may be a bit ropey (I'm *not* an artist), but we can start building a game now.
To give you a taster, here's how our test level works.
At the start, you are given two objectives: one primary - Destroy some radioactive barrels; one secondary - kill all aliens. If you look around the first rooms, you'll spot a terrible placeholder graphic that is supposed to represent a document. On picking it up & reading you realise that there is a prisoner trapped somewhere on the level. New secondary objective added: free the prisoner. If you find this prisoner, they tell you the location of a secret base in Alaska. Of course, as this is a secondary objective, you don't have to complete it...
After destroying the barrels (exit the first room, go down, all the way to the left and up and destroy them all) you have to escape the base. Ideally we should have a timed level-destruct countdown here. The pick up point you have to get to is outside the building - it should be obvious when you find it, as the graphic is the same one as mentioned above!
Once you've got to the pick up point, you are returned to the mission select screen with the Cairo level available. If you freed the prisoner, you also have the Alaska level. (Okay, so I know the context is all wrong, but I told you, I'm no artist, and I just grabbed the first images off my PC!).
You can view objectives by pressing "P" - although this should really be a PocketPC in your inventory. And the kill aliens objective can never actually be completed. But the *structure* is now there for us to build a real game around...
...and now, it's time for bed!
Mission select, objectives and unlockable missions are in! It took a bit of doing (and a lot of forethought!) but we now have a semblance of a game structure emerging. The screens and graphics may be a bit ropey (I'm *not* an artist), but we can start building a game now.
To give you a taster, here's how our test level works.
At the start, you are given two objectives: one primary - Destroy some radioactive barrels; one secondary - kill all aliens. If you look around the first rooms, you'll spot a terrible placeholder graphic that is supposed to represent a document. On picking it up & reading you realise that there is a prisoner trapped somewhere on the level. New secondary objective added: free the prisoner. If you find this prisoner, they tell you the location of a secret base in Alaska. Of course, as this is a secondary objective, you don't have to complete it...
After destroying the barrels (exit the first room, go down, all the way to the left and up and destroy them all) you have to escape the base. Ideally we should have a timed level-destruct countdown here. The pick up point you have to get to is outside the building - it should be obvious when you find it, as the graphic is the same one as mentioned above!
Once you've got to the pick up point, you are returned to the mission select screen with the Cairo level available. If you freed the prisoner, you also have the Alaska level. (Okay, so I know the context is all wrong, but I told you, I'm no artist, and I just grabbed the first images off my PC!).
You can view objectives by pressing "P" - although this should really be a PocketPC in your inventory. And the kill aliens objective can never actually be completed. But the *structure* is now there for us to build a real game around...
...and now, it's time for bed!