Next up: The big Square Trail update!

So summer has pretty much started and the Lone and Prologue mini-updates have hit, here are some of my goals for this summer.

1. Get the next Square Trail update, version 2, pushed out in the coming weeks.
2. Get some levels done for Prologue, revise gifting system.
3. I doubt I'll be able to get Outskirts part 2 for Lone this summer, SO I'M MAKING IT A 4 PART UPDATE WOOO. parts 2 and 3 will probably come out next month. Finishing the forest area and adding more to the Pier. Actual ferry would be in part 4.

Pretty much: Big updates for all 3 games. But Square Trail will be my main focus. I had to revise my goals for it a bit, but here's what I want as of now:

• Complete UI overhaul, big enough to fit...
• New customization tools!
• Credit system, points are aggregated with bonuses to create Coins each round.
• Coins are spent on items and skins for your Square.
• Items give small "mini-abilities" such as a bomb. They are not limited to your ability choice. You can use Ghost as your ability and carry a few Bomb items. Items are ALWAYS weaker than Abilities.
• Abilities will most likely not be locked out. You won't have to buy them with Coins.
• Skins are different, completely cosmetic designs for your Square. They always have the same size and speed.

A while back I talked about a Ranking system, where you can level up and such. While this seems like a good idea and all, I fear it's a bit overused. Leveling puts interesting RPG aspects into non-RPG games nowadays. Look at Call of Duty (4 and up) and Battlefield 3. Square Trail is not supposed to be an RPG, and I will leave this out until I can come up with an idea better than simple Levels. For now, it'll play similar to Prologue's "MyPro". Collect credits -> buy items for new gameplay -> earn more credits.

Moving on...

Here's the first status update for CSI: Prologue!

1. The current Revelations levels will survive, and live on in the "Legacy" mode.
2. New menu interface is pretty much complete, it's very simple and works well, screenshots coming.
3. We have progress on the save system! Currently it's just saving and reading a score, not positions and levels yet. More on this after this section.

So this is how saving will hopefully work... In all of the game's modes.

• STORY MODE

You'll be able to save from the menu, you will have to restart whatever scene you are in though if you load. 

• SURVIVAL MODE

Either your top score or most recent score will be saved depending on what I can pull off here, you'll be able to see it before you start Survival.

• LEGACY MODE

There's a chance of saving in this mode not being implemented, since Revelations in it's last update was only around 15 minutes long. We might get score saving per level, so if you're a score fiend, Legacy and Survival modes are for you.

The Return

Back with more news on the restructuring of this series.
So we know CSI: Revelations is getting a big revamp. It's going to be larger than I first thought. Completely redesigned to have my cousins (that created the series) enjoy it more, it'll just be called CSI: Prologue.

Here's the stuff that will survive the restructuring:

• Survival Mode (Hordes)
• Pistol/SMG base weapons, the whole ammo system
• The engine, it won't be updated to the awesome taeHD you see in Lone sadly, but it will play and look the same as Revelations did.
• Scores, although they'll be more balanced than before (no combo running with sprint!)
• Character sprites and interface, expect more detail and cinematic stuff though.

What won't survive:

• taeConnect integration, it'll be focused at being appropriate and enjoyable for my younger cousins.
• The map, gone are the winding corridors.
• The current main story mode. This is completely wiped.

New Stuff:

• A completely new story.
• Completely new map.
• Probably some more weapons.
• A new mode...?
• New menu interface.

I'm baackkkkk.

I RETURNNN! Yup, I've been on break from gamedev-ing for a while. Mostly due to my laptop needing to be sent back for repairs and school.

I'll be getting back to work on Lone: Outskirts Expansion pretty soon! I also want to see what I can do with Revelations. I also have a new ideas for the future of taeHD (tae3D just isn't viable for being done in Multimedia Fusion 2, the app I use for my game development) including a way to manage seamless "Frame" transitions, future Open World games will switch between areas much better than ever before, this hasn't been necessary for  any of the current set of games, though. Revelations or Lone. Nations will probably use this, as well another game concept I'm still thinking about. I'll say this much, I want to try making an RPG. I'll post about it later on.

On: Open Source taeHD?

I got a few questions over email about any plans to release tae (well, the HD version in CSI 2 Revelations and lone) as a Multimedia Fusion 2 (what I use to make this stuff) example file. Yup, I will! By the end of this 'Trevtech Generation' though, sometime in the summer, that way it will have all the improvements I'd of put in an early version of the taeHD running CSI 2: NATIONS that won't be in REVELATIONS. Not sure about updating it from there on though, it's up to whoever downloads it at that point.

tae3D is an entirely different thing. THERE'S NO WAY I'd release this in open source by then, it's done as an idea, sure. But so far in the example I have, it has NO FUNCTIONALITY. There's nothing you can do with it like taeHD has so far, it might as well not be a 'tae' at all, there's almost no similarities. None if you don't count lone. as a taeHD release.

One final thing that you don't see in this list, I want true GamePage integration into games. I'll start with lone. AFTER the Outskirts Expansion. Imagine being able to open up the GamePage wherever you are (and even from lone. itself) check out some achievement goals you can earn, then start playing Lone and being able to collect them. So far it's 100% in the idea stage with no sort of physical form, integration might not even come with it, as in saved achievements. I think I can work on it, though.

Trevor Houlroyd's Precious Little Projects (It's a Scott Pilgrim reference!)

So here's a screenshot of a fully-3D rendered taeHD game. (Much more of a tech demo.)
This is what I'm working on right now to take a breather from lone for a bit. This has a good chance of being featured in CSI 2: NATIONS, but development on that hasn't even been touched yet.

It'll use actual depth and parallax. So in a way, this is a 3D game. However, it's using the same 2D Character sprite as Lone right now, and definitely looks wonky in 3D, but that'll be updated later on. If you go further back, you shrink in your display, come closer to the camera, and you grow. 3D! So far it appears to still be rather limited, so I do need to investigate options for games with this still.

Outskirts Expansion: Let's go over this...

Hey all, it's time for a recap of what I've got done with the update so far, expect it to release publicly by sometime next week.

Yeah. It blows 'Nightlife' out of the water.

New
Two Super-massive new map expansions (districts), East Bay and Bay Street
One new subway station. (East Bay)
Improvements to previous subway stations.
New 'CineCorp' office building, with 1 office so far.
New Apartment building in midtown (For player 2)
Cooperative Mode (Private release, won't be uploaded yet. IS AWESOME.)
"24/7" Gas Convience shop in East Bay.
Non-Realtime Mode (With a critical bug, but not gamebreaking. I'll describe it at release if it isn't fixed.)
New Launcher screen.
Press Space to skip the splash screen.
East Bay Beach.
Parking lots.
East Bay Forest. (RV Lot and Campgrounds not done yet)
Bay Street Seaport (No ferry service yet.)
East Bay Bridge.
"3D Display" on the launcher menu, it just shows the 3D effects for the heck of a tech demo.
Street signs in some places.
It now has a chance to stop raining, and then continue again.
ePhone has been added, with 'eEvents' and 'Speedometer!' apps.
Framework for improved GamePage support.

Fixed / Changed
The new lighting system brought in from Nightlife has been built upon even further, for spectacular effects.
Players walk slower, but sprint has the same effect.
Sound related fixes!
Upped maxobj in the City to 2000+. Slow downs might pop up now and then on low power computers.
Midtown Station was moved a bit.

I am doing work!

SEEE?! I'm just going to put this right here...

Welcome to the Outskirts: Dev news.

Busy weekend, the 3DS came out! So yeah, not much progress on the update. But here's some news:

Activities will be delayed for another update, it'd take weeks more to release if I tried to put them in now!
A yacht ride around the city will be added either in this update or a mini-patch after the big Outskirts expansion releases, you'll get on from the park (or something) in Central City and arrive when you want at the East Bay docks.

even though it's a long ways out...

i love lone

MAY I JUST SAY, LONE LOOKS STUNNING IN FULL SCREEN.

Ahem, now that I've gotten that over with. It's time for the first nite note! A semi-nightly blog post on the game development for that day. In this one, I'mma cover the all-new lone.

I gotta say the game looks fantastic. Even though player shadows had to be removed, the game looks the best ANY of my games have ever looked, at least on my screen. I still need to do testing on other computers (and, uh... desktops)

The game runs in a wide window, but nothing looks stretched, even when in full screen from what I've seen. Everything looks crisp, bright, fun. I'm addicted! It's gotten me in that idea flow thing where you have no writers block whatsoever.

Read more after the breaaaaaak!

An update on the changes.

GamePages, while implemented already will have their pages complete later on, this week, most likely.
"lone." is going rather slow in production, so give it a while yet! Meanwhile, play some CSI 2 Rev? :D

Welcome to the new trevdev.blogspot.

Now accessible from "trevdev.tk"

Annnd we're back! Welcome to the new trevdev blog, featuring an awesome template now much easier on the eyes. Let's take a tour of the changes!

Everything is after the jump. Click the title of this post.

In other news... New trevdev Preview.

In addition to the epic "lone." data drop today...

trevdev is about to undergo a redesign!
Introducing some of the new features... (full list will be released after the redesign)

1. New theme: hopefully making text easier to read while keeeping everything minimalistic!

2. Labels on posts: quickly and easily find specific blog posts about things that you're interested in, say just CSI 2 information, just random jibberjabber, etc.

3. GamePages: Pages of information dedicated to certain games, these pages will also be integrated to Generation 4 games through a taeHD update, and Generation 5 games later on.

4. Twitter-ific: Twitter intergration on the Sidebar to every page or post, live information!

5. Cleaner site design thanks to a revamp.