Little update 11/11/2012

Hi all

I better go explaining what I'm doing during this long period between releases.

Right now, I'm "investing" some time in having a "Wind Tunnel", a small universe where I can control better the wind and the ship position, without bothering of other game mechanism as the ticking clock, the ghost configuration and the camera movements.

In this wind tunnel, I enforce the ship not to move, but the ship itself is still calculating its own movements, they'll be collected and it'll be useful for a ship development.
I'll also have control over the position and the power of a wind generator, and over the ship control themselves, and the output in terms of speed and inclinations will be printed on screen.

By doing this work, I've also worked in the modularity of the whole system, trying to make easier to create mods for the game. It's not ready though, lots of work to do yet, specially in the Game Builder, it must allow registration of objects from every mod, so the Wind Tunnel would be able to ask "what ships are available to test" and the builder would respond with the registered data.

Many ideas, and little time.

TO-DO list for version 0.2

Not yet really closed, I have a draft for the improvements for version 0.2, quite ambitious though.

1. Record positions and movements for an user.
2. Ghost player shown.
3. Create a server for storing user's records online.
4. Map Champion's ghost.
5. Extend definition file for specifying ship type (implementing class).
6. Create a new screen for Millestone games.
7. Model and create the logic for a new ship.
8. New integrated control for compass and wind representation.
9. (Defect) FlyByCamera fails when ship is not visible.
10. Activate physics and collitions.
11. Include terrains in the scenario.

Releasing 0.1!!

About two months since I started working for third time in this personal project, I can say I have something playable, and good enough for showing!

Download:

http://code.google.com/p/cabo-trafalgar/downloads/detail?name=CaboTrafalgar-0.1.zip

Features:

• Not networked.
• Poorly modelled one rigid sail ship.
• Default water, using shader.
• One player.
• One mode, against the clock.
• Not ready for plugins.
• Fixed key definitions.
• Fixed graphics configuration. 

Technologies and tools:

• Java
• JMonkeyEngine + Nifty-GUI
• Netbeans
• Blender

Some pictures:

The best window isn't mine :)

Not even this picture, direct from nifty-gui example.

Top menu, some cameras, useful info at top left, debug info bottom left.

Popups when pressed ESC or X menu button.

And now the game, you have to use the rudder and the sails for taking the wind (little red arrow over the hull) and touch those red millestones.

Another camera, targetCamera, will allow you to see in every moment your ship and the next millestone at the same time. Your ship'll become transparent for a better visibility of the millestones.

Millestones will turn green once touched, and camera will change to next untouched one.

Video demo: