Retractable!
My Jameson pre-launch tasklist continues to shrink, but at a slower rate than the growth of my “done” list. The problem, I’m sure you’ve guessed, is that I keep finding new things to do. These things aren’t bugs or big sweeping changes. They aren’t new features that add depth and complexity to the gameplay. No, they’re details.
It’s weird, given the game’s abstract graphics and sparce audioscape, that I can keep finding little things to add. The running lights, first appearing in Successor, flash the correct colours to distinguish port from starboard. All 700 possible ship names have been manually translated into phonemes so they can be spoken aloud by the game’s speech synthesizer. And now this week, while fixing a bug with the docking stations and changing how they’re distributed throughout the sector, I couldn’t help but add a little detail. Every time you launch a little retractable aerobridge snakes away from your ship.
The effect lasts roughly one second, took me two hours to implement, and was totally worth it.
<3 Farbs
You sir are amazing.
BTW, nice mix of alpha and kilo level parts. That’s some high risk design right there.
Looking good, keep it up.
Dude every post makes me more excited to play Jameson. It’s gonna be awesome!
It’s that kind of attention to detail that helps makes these games so addictive. I’ve never really experienced any “rough edges” or weird effects that jolt me back to reality; I always spend an entire round so deeply involved I find myself playing for ages without glancing at the time, or even grabbing a drink, awesome stuff!
Wow Farbs, It’s looking great.
awesome
Its the details and fine tuning that make all great games worth playing, keep up the good work.
so does your command module have to be exposed to dock or can it dock to girders?
also off of what Chris K said, have you ever given thought to having the modules that were attached to a destroyed girder not also being destroyed? how much would that influence game play, have you experiment with it?
An amazing addition! Can’t wait to play jameson!
@Ryan
I would think that allowing for that to happen would result in a lot of extra clutter (which leads to slowdown) and also it would eliminate some of the strategy from the game by making it much easier to get the parts you want and run. I feel that having to destroy the command module to get parts makes a lot of sense from a game design perspective.
But then again, maybe I’m wrong. It would be interesting to see how things played out that way, I suppose.
There should be an option to toggle that not-get-destroyed-with-destroyed-girder on and off, so that people who want strategy will get strategy and people who want fun will get fun, Might be an idea.
Awesome!
Love tiny little additions like this – they add so much character to the Captain world. I’m really looking forward to the greater depth this next episode will lend to the series as well, as well as the new possibilities and strictures in ship design. Keep up the hard work man, I can’t wait to play!
Hey farbs, i know you said earlier on that the ETA is december, but since you’ve actually started, has this changed?
I am filled with delight every time I discover a new Jameson post, and they never disappoint.
do want!!!
i can defiantly see large chunks of my life spent lost in the games of farbs
also: what RandomCommander said
I want to play this game so bad! I just registered the other day because I watched your July Progress Report (you need to do another one by the way).
This and Minecraft are going to be the end of my free time… infinite re-playability is something we need to see more of.
You sir are amazing!