The 'Proof of Concept' demo is now available

You can download it here. Keep in mind this is a very early demo, it still isn't much fun to play and there are tons of things that need improvements (the city is small, there are very few things to do, the AI is too basic, there are some bugs...). It's just meant as a milestone for the project, a 'proof of concept', a way for me of having something to show and test to see how things are developing and where I can take it from here, but I've decided to release it in case someone wants to check it out or help me test it.

I recommend taking a look at the README file before playing, it contains information about the requirements, controls, known bugs (there's one that makes the camera go blank that seems to happen more often than I thought), things I want to add in future versions, the credits... Note: from the feedback I've received so far, the demo doesn't seem to work too well with integrated/intel graphics cards (low or too variable framerates and strange behavior of the traffic), something I expected but didn't add to the README file.

Now, I'm going to take some time apart from this project, the last couple of weeks have been quite intense trying to include everything I wanted in the demo and make it work.

Video: 'City' Project: 'Proof of Concept' Demo

I've decided it's about time I make the first working demo of the project, and the last few weeks I've been trying to implement what I'm calling a 'Proof of Concept' demo, given the early state of the project, that includes all that I've made so far. Here's a video:

I'm planning on publishing the demo this week when I've polished it a little more, in case someone is interested in checking it out or helping me test it.

Indie DB page for my 'City' project

I decided to make an Indie DB page for the game, which I'm calling 'City' Project for now. It has been approved and you can visit it here.

Work in progress screenshots 30: The city is back

I'm putting the city back together. I want to have a working demo with all that I've made so far, which was my original goal, and take some time apart from this project to learn some other things, like Unity, and/or make a shooter...

Main things I've yet to do to have what I want for the demo: integrate back the pedestrians, the HUD and the taxi missions into my new code; plus some other minor details.

Work in progress video 53: Game menus

Here's a video of the first working version of the main menu's custom GUI I'm coding for the game (the sounds are just placeholders to test if everything works as expected):

Work in progress screenshots 29: Programming the menu's GUI

I've decided to program my own code for the main menu GUI, instead of using one of the libraries I've been testing. Buttons are mostly working, here's an image from a first test:

Work in progress screenshots 28: Art for the menu

I've been drawing some ideas for the game's menu background, using MyPaint (+ The Gimp and Inkscape for some final touches). Here's what I've ended up with (Update 2: I've made a new version, this one with a little more color):

Work in progress video 52: New sound manager (using OpenAL)

I've created a simple sound manager using OpenAL (previously, I was using DirectSound/DirectMusic). Now, when a sound asks the manager to be played, a preallocated pool of channels (OpenAL sources) is checked to see if there's one available, in which case, the sound will use it. The manager is not finished, I've yet to implement priorities so a sound using a channel can be stopped to give it to a new one with more priority that needs to be played, but it's already usable:

Work in progress video 51: Vehicles + physics are back

I have the vehicles, with physics, working again (not the sound). With the new improved code it should be easier to create, destroy, customize and manage them. Also, now AI and players use the same interface to send them commands (accelerate, turn...), which will be cleaner than what I first implemented.

Work in progress video 50: Customizable vehicle colors

Today I thought it would be nice to be able to change the vehicles' color in real time, to add more variety to the city's traffic. Here's a video of my first implementation:

Work in progress screenshots 27

I've found a couple of funny screenshots I made some time ago while I was programming some inverse kinematics code for the pedestrians (but hadn't got it quite right yet :D).

Work in progress screenshots 26

Five new screenshots (click to enlarge):

Work in progress video 49: Accomplished in 2011

This video shows the state of my game project at the end of 2011. Now I'm going to continue developing the game. I'm happy with what I've accomplished these last months, I'm learning a lot, but it's still very far from finished.

Back to work & twitter

After a little holiday break, I'm going to continue developing the game. Things are getting more complex, so I have to redesign some of the code and program new elements, like a sound manager, read some game programming books I bought... it may take me a while. I'll try to update the blog whenever I have something 'visual' to show but, in the mean time, you can check my twitter account to know what I'm up to (lately, I've been using it to share, among other things, links to interesting game programming sites, tutorials, books and documents I'm finding).

Work in progress screenshots 25: Pickup truck

I found some free models on the Unity3D forum created by the people from ilp3d.com who, very kindly, made them available to use 'in any way you like'. I don't use Unity3D but I've managed to extract the pickup truck model from the Unity package that can be downloaded from the forum, made some modifications to adapt it to my needs, and loaded it in my game:

Work in progress screenshots 24

Just a quick update, I haven't made much interesting progress lately. I'm reorganizing some things in the code and thinking about modeling a few more buildings. Maybe I'll start making low poly versions so I have some variety quickly and then create more detailed versions... or the other way around, I'm not sure yet.

Work in progress video 48: More sounds

I've edited and added more sounds for braking/sliding, hitting pedestrians, using the car's horn... Also, all the cars have engine sounds, not only the player's, so the city is much noisier and alive :)

Work in progress video 47: Car engine sound

A video showing my first attempt at implementing the car's engine sound I wrote about in my previous post:

Work in progress screenshots 23

I've started working on the sound for the game. I was thinking about using OpenAL but, given I'm already tied to DirectX, I'm going to use DirectSound, at least for now, to program the sound manager for the game.

Also, I need to create some sounds so I've been playing a little with Audacity and some free sounds I found at Freesound.org. The most difficult to create will probably be a good car engine sound loop (to generate the sound for the cars my plan is to loop a running engine sound, and change its frequency as a function of the car's speed... we'll see if that makes a believable sound).

I've never done 3D sound programming or sound editing, so it will take me some time :)

Work in progress video 46: Taxi mission

I've just finished the first version of a new type of mission for the game: the taxi mission. Basically, you can start this mission if you're driving a taxi (pressing a key) and once it's started clients are generated, one at a time, so you can take them to some random destination before the time runs out. As long as you take the clients to their destination on time new clients will be generated. Not exactly original, but I've always liked this kind of missions.

The car model's doors don't open so I can't make the clients open the door before they enter the taxi, when they get close to the door I just make them disappear, and when they have to get out something similar happens. It's not too realistic but it will have to do.