Anyway, here's a screenie to show where things are at.
Most of what I have been working on is under the hood. Tidied up the serialization a little. Refactored a hefty chunk of code and got it all checked into SVN. I was annoyed that I hadn't started out by putting all the code into SVN in the first place. Anyway, you can run around with the little pup (got nice, smooth movement happening), and chomp away on the bones. The bones just respawn once chomped, but in the game you'll just have to collect them before time runs out. So the next thing I need is a timer. I have to admit I held off on the timer because I'm not looking forward to adding a proper GUI. I know it's going to look ugly :-(
OK, so I haven't been working all the time, and I haven't just been coding either. My lovely, thoughtful wife bought me Gears of War last weekend and I've been having a good bit of fun with that. It's a nice game. I think they pretty much nailed the use of cover. I really like playing SWAT4 and I'd've loved to use cover the way I can in Gears. The graphics are good but it's the usual gray, baby-vomit color palette that's standard in military type games. I like the story too: The characters are engaging although the timing on the scripted sequences is off in places. I think they made a dubious decision with the ragdolls. The ragdolls look good until you walk into them. Then they wobble about like jelly/jello; They look especially bad when you slam them into a wall when you take cover - you're hiding behind this wall with this thing jiggling all over the place. Ragdolls can be a pain in the arse to tune, and I think they should not have let the player kick them around given the way the react. Still, none of that detracts from the fun of the game, and it is fun, which is the most important thing.
