Getting ready for Alpha

Having had some extra time recently to commit to Pixel Station, I'm nearly ready to release the first Alpha.

I've created an open testing community so anyone can join in and have a go. Hopefully this will be manageable and encourage more people to offer feedback.

Pixel Station is orders of magnitude more complex than Simples so I'll be putting it through it's paces in a more rigorous way.

OneSevenOne Android Testing Community

Android users are invited to join the testing community page linked above. Further instructions are on the main page

Pixel Station: play-through of pre-alpha build

Pixel Station - first footage

A very early version of the gameplay in Pixel Station. A lot of development still to come but this gives a good idea of what the game is like.

Pixel Station is a science fiction turned based game with some Roguelike elements.

I've yet to find a good way of capturing the Android audio so this sounds a bit like a 70's kung-fu movie at times.

Complex 1

Pixel Station continues to progress well. I've spent a good few hours today coding and adding new graphics and sound effects.

There's still a long list of things to do but the game is starting to take shape with a host of functionality up and running now.

Collision detection is always fiddly but as of this evening, it's working well. I used Bresenham's line algorithm to check line-of-sight when shooting and will also use this to determine if an enemy can see the player. Fortunately, someone posted a Java implementation of the algorithm and it was a simple cut & paste effort which worked first time.

Inventory management is nearly complete - this has also turned out to be be an involved task, partly due to Java still being something of a second language for me.

A simple storyline is still floating around in my head so I'm developing the game to fit around that. Or rather, the storyline has evolved from the direction in which the game has been headed, with the various limitations of me and what makes a good game.

I'm hoping for an early summer release, which gives me about three months to get everything done and polished. At this point, that seems like ample time but experience tells me these things don't often turn out quite as I'd imagined.