We have finally got around to getting a Creators Club Premium membership so we can start to release our games on the Xbox Live Creators Games.

As my post title suggests, the first game we are putting up is Nebulon, the brain child of Dave Bonner.

Nebulon is a 2D top down shooter, you fly your ship around looking for alien “photons” to warp in so you can shoot them. You have to be quick though, they like to gang up and if to many get together there is the chance of a wormhole opening up and something nasty coming out..

Here are some  screen shots:

If you have a Creators Club Premium account, please get on and give it a play test, we really would love to hear your feed back on it so we have a solid, robust game going into peer review.

You can leave your comments here, on the play test forum for Nebulon.

So get your trigger fingers at the ready and start blasting some photons!

- Nemo

Well here is another quick update. Basic inventory system is in now, with some simple pickups.

The HUD needs to be re done, but it’s no biggy.

- Nemo

Yes, missed the second post for April, and this is just a quick one…

Have decided not to incorperate the new collision system into my engine untill I have completed Killer Core. In the mean time (tonight anyway) I have been doing some modeling.

I have got some basic inventory into the game now so you can pick up items you find on the planet, so now I need to create models for these pickups and that is what I have been doing.

Let me know what you think, I am not the best artist (3 or 2D!) but it’s all my work

-Nemo Krad

So, still not getting much time on this, and with Dream Build Play comming up, we are thinking about making a group entry, work is, as ever piling up, but I am determined to get this done on at the very least into peer review on XBLCG.

What have I been upto since the last post then, well as you can see from the clip, you can now angle your shot, I have also added missiles. The shell it’s self I did in Blender3D, and they have the usual particle trail. I have also added a post processing particle effect to the missiles that can be switched on and off (at the moment to test), you can see this in the later part of the missile clip.

Will crack on now and try and get this game finished.

-Nemo Krad

Well it’s been a very, very busy month, so I have not had much time to spend on XNA. As you can see from the clip, I have altered the player avatar a bit, need to UV the thing now

I am using the old avatar for the planet inhabitants at the moment, still need to write the A.I for them, not sure if they should be there in multi-player yet, probably will be. You can see I have et them so they are much lighter than the player so they bounce about a fair bit when hit.

You will also see that I have altered the little sparkle particles, I think they look better now. Also you can now shoot!! This will probably be the first weapon in the game, may tone it down a bit, but it gives you an idea of what a weapon in KC will look like. The blaster, as you can see pushes entities about, even the player. This will also cause damage as well as blast the target.

Not sure about the HUD, think it will change.

Oh and hope you like the retro track I have put on the clip, it’s from an Amiga Demo, I love that retro sound. Which brings me to mention a very good friend of mine, Jan Knetsch of KSK Productions, he has been working hard creating sound for Dark Omen Games. The current menu, in game music and the intro music has been done by him. So a big tank you to Jan and I hope he can continue to help.

As I say, not much progress, but enough for a post I think…

- Nemo Krad

Well I think I am going to try and post 2 updates a month if I can so this is the opener for March.

So, what have I done since the last update?

Added the Live networking framework (still yet to finish and test), have started on the planet flora and some atmosphere sprites. I have also improved the lighting and due to the flora thought it would be a bit unfair to have one of the players in green, so made them all grey. Still yet to finish of the model, UV and texture it so I dare say this will change. Thanks to Simon I may be able to give the player an option on what avatar they want to use thanks to his modeling skills, check out his blog by the way it is well worth a read. Also I have tidies the jump jet a little, again this may well change as the game evolves.

Forgive the stutter in the clip, my machine starts to die as the clip takes up more drive space…The game is still a solid 60 fps.

Still much to do, need to start getting the game play together now I think, some weapons, pickups, the inventory system etc..

-Nemo Krad

So just so you don’t think I have just stopped, here is the latest clip of KC. You will see the lighting is not as strong as before, I have added an intensity value to each of the player point lights, so this will also give me another possible pickup for the players that gives you a stringer lamp, or even a trap that kills your light… be a swine driving around in the dark..Yet another background type, looks good I think, going to have these so that the texture alters as you get deeper into the planet..

Also started to implement my networking, will hopefully pull in some of the guys to help out testing it, pretty sure this will show up a load of bugs.

You will see I have added some particles so that when the avatar jumps it gives off a puff of dust, still not happy with the look of this, but the mechanics are there now, and as you can see not a hit on performance. I started off doing this with point sprites, but turned back to billboards as I had trouble implementing it on my 360. Oh well might give them a go later.

Hope you like the clip, stay tuned…

-Nemo Krad

Yes, done a bit more on this now, as you will see in the clip, there are now the four avatars, more fire, a background and some dynamic point lights for the players.

Still need to add lighting for the flames, as well as 101 game play elements. Not sure if I have said before, but I am hoping to have this done and on XBLCG in December this year, if nothing else then into peer review.

My next step will be to get the networking in there and have all four players running about, hoping to keep to the 60 fps. Also need to finish up the map loader so I can add moving platforms to the level without having to hand key them, also I am thinking of a few other elements other than fire….

Stay tuned…..

-Nemo Krad