I've been trying to decide whether a light or dark negative space is more functional, and which looks better. I'm a fan of the silohuette style, but I think I'll go with a nightclub theme- mostly dark with bright colors in the foreground.

Thank you for testing, Staffan! I wish I had a vista or win7 computer to test on... I've added a line to the installer script that request's an admin's status to install the game. Its a weak attempt for compatibility, for now. I'm going to look for a better install system (than NSIS) that requires less esoteric one-time-use scripting knowledge.

There is no goal at the moment. The test level is where I'm puting all of the different creatures I'm making. I run performance tests, tweak Box2D, test AI behavior, tune gameplay controls, and fix bugs in the test level. Very soon I'll implement creature death, and have a enemy chase the player around. Expect future posts about waypoints and AI behaviors.

I'd have a demo, but I just started using a recent version of Box2d. I was using the code directly in my project from version 1.4.3 or something. Now I'll be linking to up-to-date static libs from the repository. I needed a joint that my creatures can use to bite and carry objects, and the old version didn't cut it. The new one has a b2WeldJoint, which should work nicely.

I added some music to the demo. My previous OpenAL/Ogg code was buggy, which didn't make sense because I started with demo code that worked fine! So I started over with the demo code and discovered that I was trying to open the Ogg stream using ov_open_callbacks() instead of ov_open(), which I found in the docs on the OpenAL site when I was trying to fix an (apparently) unrelated bug.

I've fixed it now and added a track I whipped up in Reason. I put it together in a couple hours using stock samples in Dr.Rex, and liberal use of faders and automation. Anyone that's used Reason knows that its a hack job, but I'm ok with that. I think a low-key Pink Floyd vibe would be suitable for the exploration parts of gameplay.... Maybe this lively tune could play when the creature is first introduced to the "outside world" (when leaving the introductory birth-caverns).

one lively song, one minute long