Item Tracker

After some inactivity in the programming dept. things are back on track again. As announced one of the features we’re currently working on is the item system and everything related to it – such as the OC-typical item tracker. AtomicJo looked into this matter and, while some tweaking is still needed, the results look pretty presentable:

But what is the item tracker without the typical HUD voice (e.g. original OC footage at 0:32)? If you think you can do the job, don’t hesitate to apply and your voice will guide the player in our next demo!

Note that the “focus borders” are placeholders from CW. As it happens we’re looking for Flash designers right now. If you have experience with designing Flash websites or other user interfaces, take a look at the open jobs.

—

Oasis 1.2

While working on the components of the actual game (story, assets, levels) and other stuff (document procedures, …) kept us busy in the last months, we decided to give you something playable again soon: Oasis 1.2, our next demo!

As the name suggests we don’t consider it as pure technical demo anymore (e.g. demonstrating the possiblity of nonlinear dialogues and persistent levels). This one will feature all the core components of the game.

If you tried Oasis 1.1 you probably know what was missing: some action! (read: combat system and enemy AI)

Additionally the whole questline and dialogues were rewritten and our leveldesigners Demogorgon and Linkin Muse rebuilt the oasis level from scratch and tweaked the island level.

This milestone will also incorporate the feedback we received from the technical demo, while under the hood many systems have been revised to enable easy porting. Expect it… ehm… well, at least before the release of the…

—

… Cryengine 3 SDK

When we decided to use Crysis (Wars) and CryEngine 2 as technical base for the project, we got a state-of-the-art engine with great tools for the price of not being able to create a standalone game.

As the UDK was released, many Unreal Engine based mods went indie and while no real struggle emerged about changing the engine inside our team, spirits were down a bit since the Crysis Wars SDK is in some ways buggy and not really well documented (much time was spent on figuring out how to do something that could be explained in not more than three lines). Additionally there was the feeling that even after finishing the project some players MAY hesitate to try the thing if they have to buy another game in advance or download a ~6GB demo (even in the times of high-speed internet).

When Crytek recently published a release date for the Cryengine 3 SDK and confirmed it will come for free for noncommercial projects, things have changed for the better: we’ll be able to release open Outcast as a standalone game!

Although everyone in the team is excited about the new perspectives (going indie, better documentation, regular updates and bug fixes directly from Crytek), we’re trying even harder to reach a new level of quality in our last CryEngine 2 (and Crysis Wars) based demo in order to have a good starting point when the battle of the SDKs gets into the next level this summer (UDK – Unity – CE3 SDK).

—

Jobs

Want to jump into CE2 based game development (and learn using the tools) to be ready when CE3 SDK gets out? Always wanted to work in a team, that’s determined to reach AAA quality in all fields, to enhance your portfolio? You can apply for:

• Female Voice Talent – be the voice of our HUD! See original OC footage at 0:32 for an example in the original Outcast game
• 3D Artist – everything from simple decoration to architeture, animals and characters
• Flash artist – always wanted to use your skills to design an user interface of a game?
• Action Script programmer – Give some functionality to our HUD and menus.
• Gamedesigner – You’re always complaining about dull quests, imbalanced weapons or THAT huge design flaw? Here is your chance to make it better! You should be ready to learn some tools and do some scripting – but that’s worth it, right?
• Writer – Like writing stories or plays? How about giving more depth to our storyline or creating some ingame dialogues?
• Translator – make sure Oasis 1.2 gets localized to $YOUR_LANGUAGE as well!

If something of this is appealing to you check out the detailed job descriptions.

—

So far for now and Happy Easter to everyone!

A feature that no game calling itself sequel to Outcast should be missing is the ability to travel between different regions freely (the game world Adelpha was connected through portals – the so called Daokas).

Is it possible to transform a merely linear First-Person-Shooter like Crysis Wars into an adventure game that supports this kind of free travelling?

See for yourself:

NOTE: The morph targets for the Cutter model weren’t finished, so his lines aren’t lipsynched. What do you think about his voice? Should it be changed – maybe YOU can do it better?

When introducing free travelling we also had to think about following issues:

• Will the inventory/questlog of the player be kept when travelling to another level?
• Will modifications performed to the current level be remembered when travelling elsewhere?

Our solution for both of them was the development of a persistence system (check the corresponding feature on ModDB for more). We were pretty much relieved when it worked out the way we imagined, since it wasn’t clear whether the Crysis Wars SDK would permit such sort of modification altogether.

This and the dialogue system (presented in an earlier news post) were features not clear to be doable with the SDK – so we decided to implement them first to make sure we chose the right engine for our project.

Again we were confirmed in our choice … while it is still a long way to go until we’ve finished the programming work (not to mention asset creation) we are at least certain now that the remaining things we want to alter are definetly possible.

You also may have noticed that some custom UI elements for the questlog were added. Under the hood we further created a Lua-driven quest system that fits our needs better than the stock mission system of Crysis Wars.

And finally we added some screenshots of the new marketplace, city walls and the tweaked Cutter model with the incredible Backpack 3000:

The next step in terms of programming will be the implementation of an improved 3rd person camera with support for proper aiming (in combat mode) and collision detection (everyone who tried Oasis surely noticed that navigating in buildings was pretty annoying).

More on that soon…

---

And finally some advertisment for vacant jobs:

We are always searching for motivated and talented people who want to help us release open Outcast some day and improve their portfolio along with getting experience working in a team with a professional claim at the same time. Currently we have a considerable shortage of 3D artists (modelers and the like) and besides we could need some tool programmers (C# knowledge required) and community managers (who can translate news postings and “spread the word”).

Take a look at the official job announcement at ModDB to learn how to apply and what the detailed requirements are.

Who doesn’t know the charming “Inventory is full” or “You are over encumbered” messages popping up when you want to pick up your reward for killing some tough boss enemy. Now there is a solution for these kind of problems: the Backpack 3000!

To get a full overview of it’s capabilities (along with testimonials and a list of famous people already using it) make sure to read the fact sheet.

Now seriously again:

In the last weeks we were working on our quest system and custom user interface (adding a journal for example). Tests with saving local data when travelling between levels were positive and we already implemented the basics of our persistence system that will enable free travelling between levels, while your progress and your modifications to each level aren’t lost.

It’s hard to give an exact date but expect some ingame video showing all of this around the middle of May.