And now for a very special episode of 'Derelict Dev Post'

I have reached a milestone. Derelict has now been in production for ten weeks. Ten weeks.. doesn't sound like very long does it? And yet that was the entire production length for last years 'Project Firestart' and so far its taken ten times as long to develop as 'Blow stuff up'.

So how is the game development going so far? Well, pretty damned good I think. I have had much more time to take proper care of it, rather then just get the damned thing out the door in time for the competition judging. The interface, lighting effects, graphics, AI and polish are all miles ahead of Firestart in my opinion. The notorious crashing bug that plagued Firestart is gone with the buggy bitmap font library that caused it.

A disproportionate amount of the work has been done in this last week - excited about the approaching anniversary I have sat down and furiously attacked bugs, polished the GUI, added a basic menu system, developed a short (yet completable) level, implemented enemy AI and the means for the marine AI to fight them and added working doors. Take a look at the screenshot to see how the game is looking so far:


The game obviously has a long way to go before it is completed however. I have only done a single draft version of a single level, there are only a handful of textures and only one type of enemy. It is somewhat daunting when I think about the 24 levels I intend to have in the final version! But there are a couple of people who are interested in giving me a hand, and if you'd like to as well just let me know.

Do I have a clue when it'll be finished? Not at all. However I will do enough work on it each week for a new blog post, and if it isn't totally finished by week 52 then i'll just publish it in its current state and leave it as it is.

The very first pre-alpha build, which includes the map maker, is complete. If I haven't sent you the link personally and you'd like to have a look, just get in touch.

Finally, I'll close this post by mentioning all of the people who have contributed towards Derelict so far. Thanks for all of the support and I look forward to seeing your future contributions.

Greg Thomas, for the cursor, bloodsplats, bitmap font and other bits and pieces
Mark Harper, for making the 3D guns
Samuel Gavin, for the creepy soundtrack