9.09.2007 - PGD video with some of my projects

There is a contest running at Codegear from Borland.

Jason McMillen, a guy from www.pascalgamedevelopment.com made a very nice video and entered the contest with it.

There is a total of 5 projects of mine showed in this video.

You can take a look at it here: Codegear video contest entry

23.04.2006 - Some progress

Finished the credit screen.

Made ammo of cannon unlimited. Using a gunheat instead. This way you will never find yourself absolutely defenseless due to lack of ammo. If the gun is overheated it needs a cooldown to shoot again.

Added a leveltimer. Leveleditor can now include a timer to the level. The player has to achieve levelgoals within the given time, otherwise the whole level will be bombed and player dies.

Added new rotorsound for 2nd heli.

21.04.2006 - Refreshed To-Do List

- support for 1280x1024 (800x600 is working correct)

- better collision response

- minimum of 3 "well designed" levels

- The ENDboss

- pickup for bomb-drone

- bomb drone needs some work (atm it can fly all over the map. I will include a maximum distance to the players tank, otherwise you could bomb a boss from a safe place until it goes down.

- add a credit screen

- add a "game over screen" -> ending sequence

21.04.2006 - New basic enemy

I added a new basic enemy.

It's a small heli which is quite fast, makes low damage (only has one MG attached to the front) and gets down "easy".

With this enemy, the feature of shooting in the air makes more sense through the whole game.

Even if this is no hard enemy, you don't wish to have more than 2 of them in your neck.

Just need to make a individual texture for it, then it's ready.

With this I only need one more enemy. The big boss.

All other missing things like credit screen etc are in progress. I think I will manage to meet all goals until the 7th of may.

Hopefully I find some time to add some more not really required content to the game, like buildings, walls, streets etc. This would give a more individual touch to every level.

18.04.2006 - Heli Miniboss

I added a helicopter miniboss for final compo release. The heli is 80% finished yet and works well when I place it on the level. It hunts the player and is able to shoot rockets and cannonrounds.

Also sound for the heli is already done.

Things I need to add:

- Player must be able to shoot in the air to get the heli down

- Deathsequence for heli (turning around uncontrolled leaving a smoketrail, then explode on the ground)

- Heli take off sequence (Helis should be placed on the ground. If player gets in range the rotor should speed up and the heli takes off.)

- some work on the texture of the heli has to be done.

12.04.2006 - ToDo List

I want to finish the following things in the next three weeks (final entry submission):

- dynamic weather working

- full support of 3 screen resolutions

- better collision response

- adding some sound samples and little music loops and make it all together 3D sound!!

- minimum of 3 "well designed" levels

- Another miniboss

- The ENDboss

- another type of enemy

- pickup for bomb-drone

- bomb drone needs some work (atm it can fly all over the map. I will include a maximum distance to the players tank, otherwise you could bomb a boss from a safe place until it goes down.

- add a credit screen

- add a "game over screen" -> ending sequence

Hopefully I will achieve all this in three weeks. Should there be time left, I will try to add additional content (buildings, walls, trees, objects, etc).

12.04.2006 - Support of different screen resolutions

I am nearly ready with the support of 3 different screen resolutions.

The following resolutions will be supported:

800x600

1024x768

1280x1024

All resolutions are already working. There are only minor bugs in placement of some HUD-items.

Saturday is the next stage submission. I am not sure if I will include the resolution support. But the final game will support all three.

10.04.2006 - Menu nearly done

I nearly finished my menu.

It is available from the title screen and within the game.

The following options are implemented right now:

- Antialiasing On/Off

- Mipmapping On/Off

- Lighting On/Off

- Debris Collision On/Off

- Weather effects On/Off

- Fullscreen On/Off

- Particlecount High/Medium/Low

Setting all to the lowest should gain some FPS on slower machines.

10.04.2006 - more destruction

The trees in the game are now destructable. If they are hit by a rocket, drone or cannon they will fall, with a cracking sound and smoke on the ground. Also the birds are fleeing of course :-)

6.04.2006 - Weather

My snow and rain effects are already finished for a couple of weeks. But I am still on the dynamic weather which will randomly change the weather from "some raindrops" to a heavy thunderstorm. The leveleditor is already able to define the kind of weather, a level should have.

My trees are now weaving in the wind, too. Looks quite cool in my opinion.

Also the cameraview can now be zoomed further out (and in) whithout getting advantages or disadvantages in gameplay, because I changed the behaviour of the aiming cross. Now aiming is not restricted to the visible area on screen.

6.04.2006 - New weapon

Finally I finished my new weapon.

Bomb-Drone:

It's a kind of rocket with a rotor which the player can shoot right into the sky. The keyboardcontrols will steer the "helicopter"-drone then instead of the tank. The mouse actions still belong to the tank, so that it is not defenseless when being attacked.

The drone can fly all over the map and is not seen by the enemys. So you can spy out the map or eliminate enemy packs without bringing your tank into danger.

Surely, you will gain this extra very rarely. I will design my endboss in a way that you need to use the drones to kill him.

Ah, btw. When steering the drone, pressing space lets the rotor fly away and the bomb fall down from heaven, of course with a "following camera" :-)

4.04.2006 - Development environment

I use the follwing tools to develop Tanx:

- Borland Delphi 2005 Enterprise

- Apshyre eXtreme Component Library http://www.afterwarp.net

- FastGEO for collision detection http://www.partow.net/projects/fastgeo/fastgeo

- Bass Library for audio http://www.un4seen.com

That's it.

4.04.2006 - Screenshot of the game engine

Here is a little screenshot to show what the game will be about.

It's an action game with tons of explosions and fast gameplay.

The essential fun will be to eliminate the enemys and to extend your tank with powerups.

The engine shows the gameenvironment from birdview, but it uses pure 3D. So exploding things fly upwards into the direction of the camera etc.

4.04.2006 - Starting the Blog for "Tanx"

Hi,

the game is already in a playable state so maybe it's a little late to start a blog, but I find it useful to get some comments from others and to write down my ideas.

Let's see if this helps during the development.

Greetings,

Dirk