Allright. So if you've found this blog, you probably already know that I'm the coder for Eternity's Child. I'm normally not too interested in speaking up, but the game is nearing it's first official release, and I find Luc has trouble expressing himself in english, and he gets mixed up sometimes.
The version we're releasing to steam soon is the first chapter of EC. It's over a dozen levels (we have 16 right now, we may trim some out, or add a couple more). It is going to be $5, and that price will include the next one or two chapters for free, when they're ready. Why is it so cheap? Well, to gain attention, and because the whole team agrees that most games are overpriced. Basically, because we can. Chapter 1 doesn't have all the features we intend to have in place for chapters 2 and 3. For instance, it doesn't have any "action levels" yet, where Angel (the main character) would be flying or racing on something while the level explodes behind him. Chapter 1 is a very solid (and in my opinion fun) platformer, somewhat in the style of Earthworm Jim on the SNES. While Chapter 1 is certainly a good game by itself, it's only the beginning of what we have planned for this series.
The engine I've written is called PlaneD. It will handle any resolution your computer can run (widescreen too), and will probably run it very well. It's been heavily tested on dozens of systems, and seems to be bug free for all the parts required in Eternity's Child. The map editor has a random crash under odd circumstances, but that doesn't affect the game at all. The recommended requirements for Eternity's Child as of this moment are Windows XP/Vista, a 128mb video card, capable of OpenGL 2.0, and 2ghz CPU. If you bought your computer in the last 5 years, you should be able to run the game.
So what's left for me to code? Not much. I need to write code for multiple save slots, keeping score when the player blows something up, and we need to add dialogue between the two main characters. I also need to write the code for the final boss of Chapter 1, but her art and animations are already done.
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14 comments:
18 levels to be exact :P
Any idea how the 'chapters' will work on Wiiware?
The plan is that by the time the code is ported to wiiware, the three chapters will be complete. Or we'll use completely different levels and chapters for wiiware. Odds are, it will be a combination of both.
Alrighty, sounding good! Thanks for the info.
I have a wii and a computer that could easily run the steam version and I live in north america. I will only buy this game on Wii Ware. I have been looking forward to this game for a very long time. I hope it comes to North America and to Wiiware, otherwise it is a huge waste.
I forgot this was also hitting the pc. Since this game is using OpenGL, does that mean it will run on a linux system without WINE? Have you tested this yet, if not could you? It's definitely not a must have feature, but if it is, it'll be great to have a game for my pc that doesn't need wine to run it. At elast one that i want, I love the art, the agme seems cool so far.
Sorry for double posting, but may i ask what programming language is being used for Eternity's child?
And how is difficult is to develop a game using OpenGL?
It's written in C++. OpenGL is a very good API, in my opinion. Easy to learn. It doesn't make writing a game effortless, of course. The game will not currently run without WINE, but porting to linux (and mac) is on my todo list for the engine. But don't expect it anytime soon, unfortunately.
To troyb3: EC is coming to north america, when the wiiware version is released. I disagree that the game would be "a huge waste" otherwise, but there you go.
Extremely looking forward to this! I really miss platformers, and by the looks of things you and Luc have done a great job!
A question though; In the PC version, will the music be in an easily accessible mp3/music file? If not, would you and Luc consider releasing the music? Will there be a way to view character sprites and the background images?
Anyway, thanks to you both for adding an imaginative game to all the crap, and I hope all my questions weren't terribly stupid/annoying.
Thanks for the comments, ty.
The music is in .ogg format (that's a close cousin to mp3 for those who don't know). It's not DRM ridden, because everybody knows that doesn't do any good anyways. The music is already available free at http://seanbeeson.com/ , which you can check out.
The background images are not hard to view, but they're pretty boring without all the decorations and stuff we've placed by hand in each level. The sprites are not viewable outside of the game, because they're up to a dozen seperate images each, generally 2 or 3 per limb.
Any thoughts on having steam achievements?
I put 3 achievements in, but they don't seem to be triggering. I'm working with valve right now to troubleshoot this one last problem. Hopefully it will be fixed before it releases. Release is still supposed to be today.
Just bought the game on steam. It crashes when I click options. :(
Actually it crashes no mater what i click... :( My PC should have no trouble with this game. I run COD4 with all the eye candy.
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