Weekly Assessment #6

Well, it looks like we're making a Flash game now. It's not entirely surprising, considering the issues we've had with Torque. Even judging on the limited basis of what I've seen of it, it's really not the most flexible or approachable working environment one could imagine.

Fortunately, however, we do still have plans to pursue the Torque version of the game after classes end. If we can pull it off, the extra initiative ought to make it look even more impressive on a portfolio. Also, making a Flash game is hardly a total sacrifice. Sure, 3D is cooler but we can cover most of what we set out to do in a 2D format. My little 3D ship still looks pretty good as an animated sprite. My poor buildings though are another matter; I just don't know how I'm gonna get them to work from a top-down perspective. My towers have been reduced to sad little circles now. Sigh.

On a positive note, at least the development of character stuff shouldn't be affected by this change in format. So, whatever we want to do with the cutscenes and in-game chatter should potentially be just as cool. Thus, I would like to invest a considerable fraction of my resources on the characters, and I've mostly been working on a model of Clyde this past week.

The game prototype also turned out rather nicely; Lawson clearly knows a little something about Flash. Today's (or technically yesterday's) testing session may have been a bit last minute, but I think we got some great feedback and highly positive first impressions. And now that we finally have something tangible to work with, I expect our team meetings may prove more productive.