Project: Time frame, schedule

[Michael Hartlef]

Hi folks,

tommorow is the official start of the contest. We have allready some ideas how some parts of the game could be working out and I think that this is a good thing. Of course, a lot of the aspects are not dicussed but till the end of October, things shoud be carved in stone. I mean the general direction and the feature set.

To give you all a time table of how I would like to set the milestones of the project, I made this time table. I will extend this over the next weeks as things become more detailed.

October 31st, 2008:

- Feature set decided
- Story and setting finished
- Track implementation done
- Track editor workable
- Dummy artwork for track and vessel for testing provided
- Particle routines done

November 30th, 2008

- OpenGL GUI routines done
- Dummy artwork for gui provided
- Multiplayer routines done
- First play mode playable
- SoundFX provided
- Music partially provided

December 31st, 2008

- Second play mode playable
- First play mode finished
- Artwork finished


January 27th, 2008

- Everything has to be done

January 29th, 2008

- Game packaged and send to CodingMonkeys

[kryton9]

Looks good Michael, right now I can't think of anything to add. Thanks.

[Petr Schreiber]

Thanks for the plan,

seems ok to me.


Petr

[ErosOlmi]

Thanks. Great schedule plan.

I've only one doubt on "Multiplayer routines done" if you intend multi player over tcp/ip because we have done little experience with it so we are not aware of possible problems.

Ciao
Eros

[Michael Hartlef]

Hi folks,

I moved to posts by Eros and Jason into another topic http://community.thinbasic.com/index.php?topic=2163.0 .

[Petr Schreiber]

Mike,

you posted questions on who is working on what in many threads,
I would like to specify here what I am working on ( and take responsibility for ) now:
- particles ( with perfect help from Simone )
- ray-mesh collisions

I know I will not have time for following:
- hi score module
- multiplayer
... because I have too elemental knowledge in these 2 areas, I know it would took too long to me to get something done and the result would not be reliable.

I fully support idea of tile based track editor, but I am not sure if time resources will allow to help on this during October.
I would like to work on AI but I need to finish ray-mesh collision first. This is essential feature we need for AI sensorics.


Petr

[Michael Hartlef]

Thanks Petr for the info. My question in the particle topic was about a particle editor, not a track editor. Something to visually desing an effect.
If we decide to go the tile based track way, then I suggest to use the editor I have started and that I enhance it with feature you guys would like to see.

[Petr Schreiber]

I am also for using your editor,

it is simple to use, but it does allow to create quite diverse tracks.
I will answer the particles in the particles topic.


Petr

[ISAWHIM]

I am getting a little confused by the phrase, "Track Implementation".

I think I will step-up and invest some time into that portion of the project. I assume you are looking for, "How it will be used", as opposed to how it is created. (Eg, not track-edit.)

We all agree on the blocks concept, but we are at a cross-road for the AI, which ultimately decides how the track is used in the game. However, I can/have been thinking full force about the game-play interaction with the track. (The logic, not the physics.) I believe I have finally come up with something that will work perfect, for both AI and player and camera. Took two nights of coffee, coffee, coffee... Thank-you Starbucks!

It does not simplify anything, but it should allow us nearly full track-freedom. Once I get the generic code into my sandbox, I will say more. It was actually something Kent said, on another topic, which led me to the idea. (P.S. I have added the car-views to the sandbox, and those will also be in there.)