I haven't really been keeping up the pace with Derelict as much as I should have, however I have made a couple of breakthroughs which should make the game more interesting. Check it out.


What we see here is a new type of object in the game - posters. Posters are basically just images attached to walls. This particular poster is special because it's dynamically generated - it is a map of the entire ship (although I haven't finished drawing it yet! Anyone good at doing blueprint type drawings is welcome to do it instead) showing the name and location of the current level. I put that in to make the levels slightly more interesting - and also try to add to the illusion that you're progressing through a ship, rather then simply playing a sequence of levels!

Other posters I have done so far include fairly generic ones like toilet signs and warning labels, however i'll definitely do one that acts as an email terminal - to give the player the option to follow the storyline by reading emails sent from the besieged ships admiral. Basically just in there as a nice touch - if you want a story you can stop to read them, if you don't you can ignore it and move on.

The Auckland Game Works meeting was really good. Joshua Smyth's java-roguelike game is coming along nicely and is rapidly approaching completion. Stephen Knightly has a working demo of his music-driven platformer. After the meeting we had lunch at the Char Grill place just down the road and spent ages just talking about games. I'll definitely inquire about holding future AGW meetings at MAINZ.

Stay tuned next week for another Derelict update, possibly with a new beta!