TBTK v1.0.4 is now released!

I'm so happy to announce that the latest TBTK is now live on AssetStore. Now with this latest release, all the "incoming" features listed when the kit is first released is now done. Honestly It's a great relief for me personally. Now I can ease my foot on the paddle a bit and perhaps find more time doing other things I'm interested. But knowing the way I work, it's certain that at some point in the future I'll pick it up again.

So about the update, first there's the perk system which has been coming long time. Almost every stats on unit can be modified via the perk system. But I have to say it's not the most comprehensive aspect of the toolkit yet. There's still a lot of things that can be added, more dynamic things like gain certain bonus after certain event. But I feel like going there could mean adding a lot more work so I'm going to leave it for now. Needless to say, the system can be used either as a self-contained progression within a single level or a persistent progress across a campaign.

The other addition is the hotseat multiplayer support. There's some limitation yet of course. For instance the unit selection scene doesn't really support this yet. But I doubt anyone who build a hotseat multiplayer game would wants to use the default unit selection scene. What I've done instead is add the code support to assign multiple player unit selection which should work automatically with the game play scene. In short, you build your own unit selection scene, assign unit selected by each player via an API and that's that. Otherwise, the hotseat can be a self-contained level with randomised or preset unit.

I've also add a few abilities following user request. There's Spawn Unit, Teleport and Change Enemy Faction. This should spice things up a bit. So if you have got TBTK, go have fun! If not, buy it, I promise it's worth it. :)

Change log for TBTK v1.0.4:
addition/change

• add perk system
• add “hotseat” multi-player support
• add new ability (spawn unit, teleport)
• icons can be removed in once assigned to reduce build size
• grid generation in editor is significantly faster now.
• get rid of warning message for NGUI for unity 4.0 and up
• code improvement here and there.

bug fixes

• fix a bug with GridManager faction setting and unit generation
• fix some bugs with unit-abilities

Edit: A small update (v1.0.4f2) for bug fixing has been released on 5December2013

Some Thoughts

I've been playing with the idea of making an end user game. In fact I'm in the process of it, testing water here and there. I have a vague idea so what it should be. But whenever I comes down to the details, I got lost. What I realise is, it's quite easy to visioning a game, but it's very hard to actually sort out all the design details. Not when you try to consider every factor there is to consider. 

Probably it's just me. Since I know I'm working on my own here I have to keep the scale down so there shouldn't be too many elements. Ideally there should be two or three very simple core elements that plays together real well. At least the is what I have in mind. But I have trouble even just to nail that down. In the attempt of playing with various possibility, often a lot more thing springs to mind. As a result, a simple thought could snow-balling into a very complex concept and what happen then is I find myself back to square one realising I couldn't possibly pull the whole idea off.

It not just the dealing with the gameplay design, there's also asset integration to think of. When operating with limited resources, obviously I need to set things up so the game don't need huge amount of asset. An open world design would certainly kill me before I can really get to the project. Well, I'm a bit over cautious I think.

Anyway, the plan is to wrap up the contract work I have on my hand. At the same time, finish up the update for TBTK. Then I'll focus on developing the idea and see where it takes me. So much things to try when I think of it, I havent even try Unity4.3. It does make me wonder why am I taking time writing this. Well, a man has to rant I suppose.

Status Update

It's been a hectic time for the past few weeks. Many thing happens. Not necessarily bad things. But professionally speaking, they are chores that disrupt productivity. I end up feeling like I could have done a lot more in that particular period of time. Buy hey, you got to have some life outside work right?

Anyway, the perk system of TBTK is certainly taking shape. I'm still not very sure of it. Wondering if I could do more. For now, it's just some optional upgradeable that modify the unit stats. But in that respect, it's pretty decent. Almost every stats of the unit can be altered via perk. Of course there are also some other ideas that I'm playing with and hope I could make it work for future update. But to prevent false hope, I'm not going to say what are they.

Also something that has been coming, I've started working on a full game of my own. I'm slowly building the prototype, testing with various design idea as I go. Hopefully it turns out to be fun. Let just say that it is sci-fi theme and it has got mechs. While I wont show anything about the prototype, I've got a few models that I've been working on from time to time. Figure I could finally use them in the project. These are what I do when I don't feel like coding. It's a nice change of pace. Like the turret set and tank set I've done, these made to be a set and modular in nature so the pieces of mesh can be interchanged.

Now, if only uv mapping and texturing isn't such a pain...