Proun - OUT NOW!

[Oogst]

New blogpost! This time a real programmer's topic: it is about the difficulties of getting a game to run on all kinds of different videocards. We launched Swords & Soldiers for PC and Mac last week, so this is a hot topic for me right now, and I am also working on this for Proun and worked on it for De Blob. Pretty nasty topic, actually, and hopefully an interesting read!

The horror that is PC development

[spacegaier]

Interesting and fun to read as usual ! Keep up the good posts!

[Jabberwocky]

Yep.
PC game programming is kinda like trying to build a carburetor that will work in any make and model of car built in the last decade.

[Xypher]

Have you yet considered porting this to a mobile platform? I'd love this on my droid x!

[Oogst]

Yep.
PC game programming is kinda like trying to build a carburetor that will work in any make and model of car built in the last decade.

Heh, nice comparison!

Have you yet considered porting this to a mobile platform? I'd love this on my droid x!

Nope, no plans to do that. I am considering porting to Mac and that's about it. The fun for me is in making cool things, not in platform specific development. I get to do enough platform specific stuff at Ronimo Games already (Wii, PS3, 360).

[reptor]

I comment on the MaxVertexIndex limit. I also posted this to your blog - I hope it isn't too off-topic here.

The DirectX SDK has a file called CardCaps.xls in Samples\C++\Direct3D\ConfigSystem.

It tells a lowest value of 65,534 for the MaxVertexIndex for video cards Intel 915/910, Intel 945, Intel G33/G31 and Intel Q35.

So you should stay below that value and you should be safe from this problem. I don't think a small game with simple graphics should break this limit. These kinds of graphics cards are in wide-spread use and I don't think it's a good idea to ignore them all when the game is otherwise not very demanding for hardware.


Oh, and congratulations on this project, Proun. It does look interesting. It reminds me of some game or games from the times of the Amiga 500 and C-64. Of course this one comes with greatly better graphics. Did you have any old similar games in mind when you came up with the idea to create this game?

[Oogst]

New blogpost! This time mainly about the settings system of Swords & Soldiers, but also a bit about how that same system was used in Proun.

Blogpost: All the settings

I comment on the MaxVertexIndex limit. I also posted this to your blog - I hope it isn't too off-topic here.

The DirectX SDK has a file called CardCaps.xls in Samples\C++\Direct3D\ConfigSystem.

It tells a lowest value of 65,534 for the MaxVertexIndex for video cards Intel 915/910, Intel 945, Intel G33/G31 and Intel Q35.

So you should stay below that value and you should be safe from this problem. I don't think a small game with simple graphics should break this limit. These kinds of graphics cards are in wide-spread use and I don't think it's a good idea to ignore them all when the game is otherwise not very demanding for hardware.

Oh, and congratulations on this project, Proun. It does look interesting. It reminds me of some game or games from the times of the Amiga 500 and C-64. Of course this one comes with greatly better graphics. Did you have any old similar games in mind when you came up with the idea to create this game?

I agree that it would be better to support these old graphics cards, but since this is a small game I make in my spare time, I don't feel like actually spending the time to do this. I think I would need to process all my meshes for this, since Ogre stored all of them with 32bit indices. And I would need to split some meshes in each track and re-export them. The lightmaps for those meshes have already been baked, so I would need to build something for that to work as well. All in all, it is a lot of boring work for computers that won't make the game's graphics shine anyway.

Proun's graphics were only inspired by abstract artists from the first half of the 20th century, like Mondriaan, Kandinsky, Rietveld, Schwitters and El Lissitzky. So similarities with old games are kind of accidental. Do you have any particular games in mind that is reminds you of?

[Oogst]

Last week I did a presentation in Amsterdam at Ignite, about a point that is really important to me: how many game artists seem to only do realistic styles or cartoony styles. Hardly anyone experiments with truly different things. So I turned my talk into a visual blogpost. I hope it is an interesting argument!

The endless possibilities of art styles

[Oogst]

I love perspective. I love her so much, that I keep looking at her. Perspective thinks I am a stalker. I guess I may be, but at least I have written a blogpost to explain myself! Maybe perspective will understand...

Meta-shapes emerging from perspective

[Oogst]

It's been a while since I have shown anything new of Proun, but I am still working on it! Actually, I finally have all the content in and only need to do some final polish and bugfixing. To prove that I am indeed making progress, here are a couple of new screenshots of the new track I made:







And this shows all five tracks that will be in the game (and are finally all finished, woohoo!):

[Oogst]

New trailer! Be sure to turn on sound for this one.

[youtube]4zmuj_BdV-E[/youtube]

[Jabberwocky]

Trippy!
So that's what it feels like to be inside Picasso's brain.

[dudeabot]

very nice trailer

i had one idea here, to fill some of the scenarios with more objects even if the player doesnt have to avoid them

[Danoli3]

Looking really amazing Oogst!

Some great improvements since I last saw your development.
Keep up the great work

[Slappy]

The last trailer looks amazing!
I am looking forward to this game

[CoreDumped]

heh just saw this game became famous in reddit
http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments ... _gorgeous/

Gratz and good luck with the sales

[Oogst]

Indeed! Totally forgot to post it here as well: Proun will be released for PC on June 24th and it will be Pay What You Want!

New trailer:

[youtube]nh2uBxie3Kc[/youtube]

[spacegaier]

And the respective blog post, explaining why he went "pay what you want": http://joostdevblog.blogspot.com/2011/0 ... heres.html

[jacmoe]

Trippy!
So that's what it feels like to be inside Picasso's brain.

Mondrian's more like it.

Splendid work, Oogst.

<edit>
See the similarity? ->

Mondrian_CompRYB.jpg

[Slappy]

And the respective blog post, explaining why he went "pay what you want": http://joostdevblog.blogspot.com/2011/0 ... heres.html

This is my favourite way of purchase!!!
I hate when I pay 50 bucks for some game and it is less worth than $5 indie game!

[Oogst]

Trippy!
So that's what it feels like to be inside Picasso's brain.

Mondrian's more like it.

Splendid work, Oogst.

<edit>
See the similarity? ->

Mondrian_CompRYB.jpg

Yes, Mondriaan! I initially wanted to get the vibe of this one:



But the curvature doesn't work with that, so I switched more to Kandinsky.

[betajaen]

Ruddy Awesome! I was reminded today by a thread showing off the game on Reddit.

I shall be opening my wallet on the 24th.

[Crashy]

Juste to note there is a news about Proun on this french website

http://factornews.com/news-32119-Nouveau_jeu_Proun.html

[Slappy]

Is there some preorder for Ogre users available?

[Oogst]

Since Proun is launching next Friday, I would like to run a final test to see whether it really works well on all kinds of computers. So I am hoping as many people as possible could download this installer and let me know whether it works:

Proun installer test version.exe

This version contains only one track, which can be played by 1 to 4 people. It is really a test version to see whether the game runs. I am especially interested to know whether the online highscores work!

Thanks in advance!