Not almost there, actually. :) This is just a progress update.
I hooked up XAudio 2 sound support. It's good to hear those tiny, little feet thumping around again. My wife is helping me make some music now. :) The editor is also quite functional. It has undo/redo, you can place and erase tiles, save and load levels... I don't know what else more you would need! I even added support to rotate the camera, using Maya-like controls (alt + mouse button). You can see it in that screenshot below.
I recently finished adding frustum culling for the rendering. Now I plan on looking into sharing that spatial partitioning code with the physics system (right now collision detection is O(n^2)). Once that is done, I think I can start working on the game...
In other news, I finished a real-life Gnomon course for Maya awhile ago. Below is my finished, programmer art and the reference picture it is meant to be based on. Nothing great, but I did learn the basics of using Maya.
It was a pain making the trek down to Hollywood for class. After work. Twice a week. On top of a fairly heavy homework load. But I think it was worth it. It has given me an insight into what real 3D artists do and a greater appreciation for their work. It has also been a great help for my real work (which I still can't talk about). No, I don't make art, but knowing how Maya works helps with debugging.
My 2013 New Year's resolution is to release "something" around the end of each month (whenever the weekend falls, as that's my only free time). So I plan to release a "game" by the end of January. It won't be Battle Balloons, but something else. So that I can actually reach this goal, I have something simpler in mind (but hopefully still pretty cool). I can't wait to reveal it!
Anyway that's it from me... until the next post!