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 (2431) - 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.

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.

Today I am releasing the very first full version of Galactic Wars 3 v1.2 for the Zune. This version contains several bug fixes and more functionality. Most importantly, it is the first version to include high scores tracking with name input. It is also the first version to allow you to switch control schemes between the touch pad and the DPad though for simplicity’s sake all UI is controlled by the DPad regardless. I have also moved the content loading upfront so starting a new game takes much less time. Last but not least, this version supports the Andromeda (Hard) gameplay mode which gives you more points for a kill but is much harder.

As always, comments, critiques and suggestions are always welcomed!

Galactic Wars 3 (20520) - 2.58 MB