Work Will Continue Soon

I haven't had much time to work on Wizard Combat lately due to work being so hectic this time of year and, well, Portal.  But I'm done with Portal now, so work will continue soon.

Major Gameplay Change

I was going to explain why I decided to do this or that, but it's getting late, so I'm just going to tell you the new direction of the game.

• It is now Turn-based instead of real-time. There will be a time limit on turns to keep things moving at a decent pace.
  
• Cool downs on spells will last for x number of turns instead of seconds.
  
• Since it's turn-based, casting speed has gone away.
  
• Rather than building your character in a long process at the beginning, you will build your wizard on-the-fly, which will enable you to counter your enemy's spells by changing your strategy mid-game.
  

Here's a quick mock-up:

XBOX 360 vs PS3

I always see exchanges like the following in the comments for game-related news:

360fanboy: Halo 3 is the best game ever. PS3 wishes it had a game like Halo 3.
PS3fanboy: At least my system works. I've got 3 friends with 360s, and all 3 have had Red Rings of Death.
360fanboy: PS3 sucks. It sucks because there are no games for it. It's hard to program for, and it's too expensive.

I'd like to finally tackle this complicated debate myself. I have both a 360 and a PS3 now, and I see advantages and disadvantages to both.

If you strictly want a game machine, you should get a 360. There shouldn't be any doubt about that in anybody's mind. PS3 has Heavenly Sword, and that's pretty much it right now.

If you want a high definition movie player that also plays some games, you should get a PS3. It's a better deal. A lot of people would probably read that and think there's no way a PS3 could ever be a better deal than the 360, but let me break it down for you with current prices from Circuit City.

Playstation 3 w/HDMI, 60 GB hard drive, wi-fi built in, Blu-Ray, free online multiplayer
$500

360 Premium Console w/HDMI & 20 GB hard drive
$350
360 Wireless Networking Adapter
$100
360 HD DVD Player
$180
Xbox Live Gold 12 Month Membership Card
$50

PS3 = $500
360 = $680

The PS3 is only a better deal if you want high definition movies, wi-fi, and you play games online.

I'm not totally on Sony's side here, though. I actually think Microsoft had the better idea by making you buy everything separately, that way the cost of entry is a lot lower for people who don't care about all the extras.

I chose the 360 as the platform for Wizard Combat because it was the easiest. There is no free, publicly available development kit (that I'm aware of) for the Playstation 3, and even if there was, I can't imagine it being any easier to use than XNA Game Studio Express.

That said, I really wish there was a free, publicly available development kit for the PS3.

I read some news from the Playstation Blog about Everyday Shooter, and how it became a PS3 exclusive. Apparently, the developer (just one guy) built the game (which looks like another Geometry Wars clone), and people loved it. He had it on display at GDC 2007, and Sony liked it and asked him to port it to PS3. They gave him the development kit, and within 3 days he had it running.

That doesn't make programming for the PS3 sound all that difficult, and it also gives me hope that Wizard Combat might get picked up by a publisher somewhere.

This is something else I found interesting from that article: "So the first thing I did was figure out how I could get a hold of the developer Jonathan Mak or his agent if he had one. I found out that I knew his agent already so I gave him a ring..."

Wait -- developers are supposed to have agents? No wonder MIPSter never took off!

First Video of Wizard Combat in Action

I just uploaded the first video of Wizard Combat.

A few things you'll notice:

• The menu on the title screen works.
• Loading screen works.
• The wizard animations work.
• The water is moving...
• The pop-up menu works.
• Background music works.

Download a high-resolution version of the video here:
http://www.downcastsystems.com/wizardcombat/wizardcombatxna1.wmv

I know it's not much, and it's short, but I was having some trouble with FRAPS capturing the video.  The avi it produced was 160MB.  I had to download Windows Media Encoder to convert it.  Now it's only ~3MB.

Update - No TorqueX

This is just a smattering of updates.

TorqueX seems like a really good 2D engine, but I just can't figure it out. There's way too much noise going on. I've gotten more accomplished (and feel more confident) after I started over from scratch using nothing but XNA.

I downloaded the GameManagementState sample from here:
http://creators.xna.com/Headlines/developmentaspx/archive/2007/01/01/Game-State-Management-Sample.aspx

I now have a working menu system (with background music) that actually goes to the gameplay screen. On the gameplay screen, the background is there, different background music is playing, the two wizards are on their columns, and the idle animations are showing. Pressing Space, A, or B makes them do the casting, taking damage, and idle animations. I'm happy with the progress.

I got the new batch of animations from David Neale. The number of frames have been doubled, so it's a lot smoother. That guy does a great job.

That's all for right now. I hope to have a video up soon of the game (so far) running on the 360. It might be a week or two, though. I want it to look really sharp before I show it to you guys.