Yes, the console is back and will remain in some form or another. I have been working on integrating new features into FGF as school has started to wind down for the semester. The below shot is of the current build of Foxhorn which includes LAN and Live session creation, search and join through the console (The new build of the GUI library is not ready for testing yet).

Right now I am testing a few features being built into Thrust for the next release including the ability to log and share data between people playing a game on Live. The goal is to abstract the idea of a high scores sharing component to be able to share anything. The next release of Thrust will come with two things to share: high scores and error reports. While high scores will be a liberal thing to hand out, error reports will be setup in a client / server manner where only one server exists and is only connected to when a) it is up and running and b) the client wants to or can (ie the game detects he/she is idle in the menus).

I am taking a different approach to the menus in the next version of Galactic Wars (formally known as Galactic Wars 3). The previous version (1.3) used a new sliding menu that shifted to seemingly random points on an image and displayed some text for the point. It made sense since Galactic Wars does take place in space (each menu choice was a star in a galaxy). However the graphics required to do this were a big drawback, even on the Zune. This is because you can’t really have a low resolution image and have to make it much larger than the screen to get the sliding effect to look good. Because the game is going to the PC and Xbox 360 platforms, to carry over this idea would require even bigger images. In the end, it just doesn’t make sense.

So the new idea is to keep it sleak and simple. On the PC/360 version the menus will drill down a little differently but the idea is the same.

A very early version of Gato Muy Splato is now available for download one the Zune Games page.

I have upgraded GW3 for Xna 3.0 Beta and Thrust v1.1. I have included a fifth level that should be very hard and attempted to fix a few bugs. If you run into any issues, please do not hesitate to let me know. You can download the GW3 source code from the following link:

Galactic Wars 3 (8552) - 7.46 MB

I knew I couldn’t just let the work we did on Tower Defense just sit forever in some bin of old source code on my hard drive. So I have started porting it over to the Zune with some upgrades and some downgrades. Naturally there is no mouse on the device so I have been working mostly on the UI for tile selecting and placement. Here is a demo showing the work so far:

I am working towards an alpha release within a week or two which will coincide nicely with a new release of FGF, which will contain the first release of Vodka.

Implemented the start of color maps today…

One of the problems with developing a game for the Xbox 360 is the inability to know exactly what the safe zone is for the TV you are playing on. For that reason, I am including a HUD adjustment tool in the next release of FGF (Thrust). Here it is in action, a simple move of the left joystick will increase or decrease the amount (percentage) of width between the edge of the screen and the HUD. Each axis works independently since some TVs may be worse on one axis.

You may also notice that in the above screenshot, there is a fairly obvious rip in the terrain! We cannot have this in a game, so I have gone ahead and implemented some simple seam fixing. Here is the result:

Found some fonts and vector art today so I played around in Photoshop with where I want to take the design of Foxhorn and/or Vodka. Thoughts? Comments?

I know I made a post about Gato Muy Splato being available soon, but the first release of GMS has now slipped. This is due to my internal wants and needs changing but also because of the recent announcement of the Xbox 360 publishing. Here is what you can consider my roadmap for 2008. Names of games/software are denoted by acronyms and/or codewords. I have tagged each release with the platform as well since I am now planning to support the Xbox 360 fully. I have also added roadmap information for two unannounced projects: Foxhorn and Vodka.

Please understand that some of the releases will not be made public. This is because as I move to a real business model (us indie game developers do need to make some money) I will need to internalize testing a bit for security.

Looks like Gato Muy Splato should be ready for some public play by the end of the week.