Rick Rocket nearing completion

[TroyHepfner]

A quick update on Rick Rocket: we've made a lot of progress over the past couple of weeks (even with the Christmas break). I've finished all but 9 of the 48 levels in the game. So 39 levels are done. The final levels will be very exciting, and will feature some epic space battles involving lots of small fighters and huge capital ships. Here is a screenshot from one of the recently completed levels showing two large capital ships engaging one another, with fighters swarming all around:


http://www.mygamecompany.com/blog/rickrocket22_500x389.jpg


I've started to receive some of the game music from our musician, and he is putting the finishing touches on the last pieces. I expect to receive the rest of the music by the end of next week.

Our testers have been play-testing the game, reporting bugs, and offering great suggestions for improvement. Here are some comments we have received so far from the volunteers who have been helping to test Rick Rocket:

"I've been playing the game, and it's pretty fun"
"The story adds a lot to the game. I had a sense of progression and kept playing."
"I like where this game is going, and I was having fun by the end despite control issues" (which have been fixed)
"The allied spaceships are a great idea"
"The supporting ships that help you are cool"
"I really liked the asteroid field level where you retrieve the disabled ships"At this point, I think we're still on track to release the game by the end of the month. Stay tuned!

[TroyHepfner]

Another quick update: I have all but the last 2 levels done!

The final levels are taking a little longer to finish, mainly due to the intensity of the space battles. I always envisioned the final levels consisting of huge battles on par with Star Wars, but the sheer number of ships, laser blasts, and explosions that I wanted have turned up some interesting performance problems. So I have been working to solve those problems. I've made huge strides in the past 10 days, and I expect to finish the last two levels by the end of this week. Then, the game will be done!

As I mentioned before, the testers have been doing a great job finding bugs and gameplay issues, and I will be spending the next week or two fixing the bugs, improving the gameplay, and polishing the game. I'm still expecting to release the game by the end of the month. Stay tuned!

[TroyHepfner]

Yesterday, I received the full sound track for Rick Rocket from Jesse Hopkins, the musician for this particular project. I have to say that I'm blown away by the great music he has produced! It fits the game so perfectly. Jesse produced a bunch of small pieces that can be dynamically spliced together at run-time, and I've written a music engine that selects the appropriate tracks to play based on what is happening in the game. So far, it is working pretty well. I can hardly wait to release the game so all of you can play it.

By the way, I've set the official release date for January 30. That gives me exactly two weeks to finish polishing the game and add some finishing touches. So be sure to mark the date on your calendar!

[TroyHepfner]

Just a quick update - we are on track for the January 30 release of Rick Rocket!

The Mac and Windows versions will be available this coming Friday. The Linux version will be delayed a couple of weeks, due to a hardware failure in our Linux computer (the hard drive controller failed). This is preventing us from generating a Linux build of the game. But we're going ahead with the scheduled release anyway, so that we can get the Mac and Windows versions out to you. Once that is done, we can see about repairing or replacing our Linux computer and finishing off the Linux version of Rick Rocket. Stay tuned!