Thanks, Nullzone! Things are going pretty well now. A little slower than I'd like, but steady progress and haven't had a huge hitch in a while. Although I think I just jinxed myself...
Unit Scales! We've put together some images of the units from Diesel Tactics on a gridded board to give you an idea of the scale of the units compared to one another and roughly compared to the board. Here's our first take at the scales: Based on feedback from social media and forums we slightly increased the size of the Jagdpanzer "Wolfsspinne" (the Spider Tank) and slightly reduced the scale of the Streitwagen-Kommando (motorcycle) units. Note that in both images the motorcycle rider and passenger have not actually been positioned, so that's why it looks slightly odd! Here's the updated scales: I think these guys looking great and the scale seems just about right to me. What do you guys think of all the units?
Looking good. But the Spider should be a lot bigger. Currently it looks like a one-man mini-Mech (think Battletech's Protomechs), and not a giant tank. Can a unit occupy more than one tile?
Wow, even bigger! I actually agree, but we're currently working with trying to make all units occupy only 1 square and if we've got two spider tanks next to each other and they're both bigger than the square they occupy then they'll overlap. We're looking at trying to make it a bit taller or bulkier to make it look bigger without overlapping the square. Thanks for the feedback, it's really appreciated!
Or make it clear that it is a one-person vehicle, e.g. by adding an entry hatch somewhere. If I see that right, there is still space to make the body longer and a bit wider. If you position the front legs forward and make the backlegs lift the tail, it should look as if it is bracing for a shot and hopefully look more menacing Also, I think that compared to the human-size models, the Spinne's guns are way too small. Especially with the larger-caliber weapons surrounding it in your screenshot, they appear more like peashooters. Something the size of the tripod-mounted machinegun I'd find more appropriate.
Actually, I haven't quite decided if it's going to be a one person vehicle or some sort of automaton, but the hatch is a good idea if we go the manned vehicle route. We're working on making the body a bit bigger basically as you described, but we're running into a few issues with unit sizes and grid sizes, but I'm hoping we can sort it out. As for it's guns, we might modify them a bit, but they're actually a lightning cannon and not machine guns! They will have electricity coiling on the ends of the gun looking bits, and they join together when it fires. It should look really cool in the end!
The Lightning Guns sound good, objections redacted As for the Spider's size: Make it an Automaton, problem solved. For fun lore, it was originally planned to be a piloted vehicle, but then we ran out of dwarves to man it* . Reasons for not building it larger can vary: from production cost to needing a several-man crew, stability problems with bigger versions, Imperial decree ("bossman says we need small fast scout with lots of punch") , etc... * or, including a 4th wall breaker: during design phase, some smartass just HAD to point out we are not in a fantasy setting, so sorry folks, no Dwarven or Tinkergnome tank pilots
Glad to hear you're happy with the lightning cannon! We're working on that at the moment actually, and should have some images/video soon! I think we will go the automaton route, and I definitely like the idea of the engineers constantly reducing the cockpit space to save on energy and increase speed, until the pilots complained so much they decided to just get rid of them!
Last Unit Animated! Weve finished up the last of the unit animations today and heres the animation reel of our final unit, the Jagdpanzer "Wolfsspinne" (aka The Spider Tank)! Were working on the backgrounds and cover elements now, which are thankfully static elements so they shouldnt take us as long to do! We have some more smaller things to do art-wise (like mission objectives and weapon effects), but were getting very close to having a pretty looking game! Were very close to being in beta now, with the game being playable but not quite all the game elements in place, so Im hoping we can have some in game videos soon! I just dont want to show the game off with so much placeholder art! All of the animation reels weve made for the units can be seen here!
Looks great, and really brings across a feeling of "that thing is dangerous". Icing on the cake would be poison dripping from the fangs... ah, machineoil from the lightning guns, of course
Thanks! We're trying to do a sort of dancing lightning thing going on when it's not firing for the lightning gun, but we're worried it might make it a little 'busy' looking. None of the weapon effects have actually been added to any of the animations yet, so there's still definitely space for cool little effects like you mentioned!
Maps and backgrounds! For a while now we've been implementing and testing Diesel Tactics combat on a featureless grid board, seemingly floating in a sea of grey nothingness. Now, as awesome as the gameplay itself is, it can be a little off putting to see these unit models looking better and better while the world they live in remains the same strange, barren battlefield! Well, technically we have been using plain cylinders of differing heights to represent different terrain types, but even that fails to spice up the battle screen! Finally, we've had time to get to work on the game's backgrounds and terrain objects, and a lot of it already looks really good! It adds a lot to the game to get a feeling of where you are fighting and what you are fighting for, so it's great to start seeing the world that I've been picturing in my head for these many months finally come to life! You can see the everything that we've made so far in the Diesel Tactics Maps WIP Gallery, though as the name suggests everything is still a work in progress. Here's a couple samples for you to check out: Cityscape WIP Factory Terrain Objects WIP
One World One Dream. Recently, My good friend Feng who is a unity engine game designer, and he is concentrate on the windows phone system game designing. I hope you can give hime some suggestions here. Thanks again.
What kind of suggestions do you mean, DavidSmith? Nothing we're doing is particular to Windows Phone (though we do hope to launch the game on that platform at some point as well!), so I'm not sure how much specific advice I could give.
Splash screen & icon! Were still hard at work on implementing the combat part of Diesel Tactics (the game part of the game!), but heres a new splash screen for T-Go Co Games! Also, this is the icon were currently working on. What do you guys think? Thanks!
Personally, I really like the icon. But if I was a consumer scrolling through the store I would probably have no idea what the picture was. Although, this could be a positive as it gives an incentive to find out more.
Nice to hear you are still alive and kicking I like the splash screen. The icon looks good, but does not tell you anything about the game, unfortunately. My first thought was "one-eyed robot". What did you base it on? Like madreviewer said, zooming out might be an idea.
