So for the past month or two I have been doing mainly level design. Things are progressing smoothly with 12 stages finished out of the 25 we plan on launching with. Some of that time was changing/improving the work flow involved in the level creation process to make the remaining levels to design go smoother.
We originally hoped to get the game into beta by the end of July but it might be slightly longer than that at the rate things are going currently. I’m very excited about the future of Rhythm Destruction and we have been working on some things that should hit around the time we launch the game. I don’t have any official announcement yet but we are looking to having a Rhythm Destruction tournament in the near future. On top of that we are working on a behind the scenes video to show what went on the past few years during development.
I did up the player ship model today, and finished the capital ship model a couple days ago. Im pretty happy with the latter, and it ended up being 6500~ polys. Its by far the most of any ship in the game, compared to the 800~ of the player ship. We’re getting much closer to beta now, as we accomplished a TON in the past 2 weeks. If you haven’t yet, check out the website for details on how to apply.
Have been a bit sidetracked and have been instead revamping and finishing up a lot of the menus. However I did finish(well almost, it’s about 95% done) the capital ship. This ship will be used for the “hold notes.” I’ve put a lot of detail into it compared to the rest of the ships since it’s the biggest one. Atm it’s about 5k polygons, will probably finish around 5.5k
Two ships left to do, including the player ship which I’ll finish up last. After that I’m gonna start working on environment models. We’re not 100% sure what that entails yet but we’ll figure it out once we get there.
I have been busy and lazy(:P) as of late but I have finally started to work on the 3d models. They’re nothing fancy as any in depth detail would likely be hard to notice from the top-down view of the game. I have about 5 ships left to do, which shouldnt take longer than a few weeks if all goes as planned. Enjoy.
Been hard at work lately trying to finish up Rhythm Destruction. Updated the 3D engine code and made the lighting look much nicer. Added some cool new effects as well. Also the camera angle used to be completely top down but now I slanted it back just a tad. Look much nicer this way.
The menus are mostly done now other than some minor polish and a few bugs fixes that will be ironed out during the beta. Speaking of which I’m going to put up a box on the main page soon for signing up for the closed beta. I am looking to get about 50 – 100 people in the closed beta so I can properly test the game. At the moment only a hand full of people have even touched the game. Will be fun to see how it’s received from a “slightly” larger audience.
Haven’t updated the blog in a few weeks because I just recently had a daughter so I’ve been pretty busy with taking care of her. I’m starting back now though to building levels for Rhythm Destruction. I recently finished building the level designed for the OscillatorX song Dynamo. Definitely my favorite one of their songs. Just a quick update for now, I’ll post more this weekend. Now, back to making more levels.
I decided to take a break from working on some levels to make another blog entry. It takes quite a bit of time to make each level which is why the game isn’t finished yet. We have to create a note chart that places when our enemies will attack and that they are associated with a certain beat in the song. Then for every note that is associated with an enemy we place it in the level we have created and then create a movement path for the ships to follow when they appear on screen.
The 20 stages available with the launch of the game will come in 3 difficulty levels each. Any stage on easy should be able to be passed on the first or second try while medium, and especially hard, will take more time to complete and master. I imagine most people will play easy to get the hang of the game play but then skip to medium. Depending on demand and resources we want to try to roll out lots of post launch content to keep the community fresh. The hardest songs in the game will definitely give everyone a tough challenge but I’m sure at some point after people have mastered them they will be looking for more so we also have the potential to add in an extra difficulty if needed. But don’t let that make you think the hard difficulty is a push over because it certainly isn’t. The actual note chart alone for the toughest levels would be a decent challenge for someone used to music games but then add in dodging the level’s objects and bullets and it can get pretty hectic.
Once Sennin has finalized the look of the 3d models I will post some updated screen shots to show everyone what the game is looking like in its current state.
Completing certain objectives in the game will unlock medals. Each medal is assigned a point value and all of their scores added up will give you your medal score. Each medal will also unlock a title for your online persona in Rhythm Destruction. When you sign into your Rhythm Destruction profile you will see a ton of stats that we monitor as well as your current title you have selected. Titles are just something extra to add some customization to your persona.
At launch there will be around 50 medals to unlock which means there will be 50 titles to collect though we plan on adding more medals post launch. Some medals are very easy to obtain while others are near impossible. Here are a few examples of some easy medals….
- Medal Name : “Didn’t Miss Nuttin”
- Medal Description : “Get a full combo on any level on easy.”
- Title Earned : “Big Combo”
- Medal Name : “Beat A Friend”
- Medal Description : “Beat one of your friend’s high scores.”
- Title Earned : “Not Friendly”
Here are some examples of some of the more challenging medals…
- Medal Name : “Perfect Score Expert”
- Medal Description : “Get a perfect score on any song on expert.”
- Title Earned : “Perfectionist”
- Medal Name : “Bullet Hell”
- Medal Description : “Pass a song on expert without dying once while not firing any bullets”
- Title Earned : “Pacifist”
