Here's Johnny Powell!

Here's the latest trailer for the game I've been working on for the past two years, The Darkness II. It's the best one yet, IMHO. :) My life lately has been focused on hammering out those final bugs for certification (where we send a build to Microsoft and Sony to approve). We're almost there!

WIP on placeable tiles

Quick video on initial placeable stuff (with snapping) for the level editor. I have been messing around with engine/low-level stuff for such a long time now, it's refreshing to see signs of my game returning again! Left to do is code to merge tile meshes together (no seams) and hooking it up to my barely-tested output serializer.

In unrelated news, my fiance wanted me to make a simple website for our wedding. So I took the opportunity to learn and mess with the Google App Engine and Go programming language. You can go to it here, but there is not much to see, unless you have a Google account that is actually invited. :(

What I can say though is the experience working with the Google App Engine has been pleasant. Quite easy and fast to get things up and running (compared to Java EE).

UPDATE: I put up a newer vid showing actual static boxes being placed! That's pretty much all I could get done with the little spare time I had for the weekend. :(

Scrolly thingy

Nothing special today: just a scrollable list box for selecting types (to place on the level). It has been interesting dabbling in implementing my own UI controls, but I am also happy I will be moving on to actual editor things now!

So apparently Ludum Dare (LD48 for short) is on right now (this weekend). For those not familiar, it is a competition to quickly create games in 48 hours. I have always wanted to participate in one of these, but never seem to be free on the weekends it's on...

Maybe I can show this off at a LD17520. Yep, that's right - according to the revision history, I have been working on Battle Balloons for two years! To be fair, in that time I have also been busy working on releasing BioShock 2 and soon-to-be-released The Darkness II. These commercial titles put the food on the table, so they have always taken priority. :)

Anyway, time to drive to Toronto to visit some buddies for the weekend!