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I have now implemented almost all of the basic gameplay features of Star Commander, and the game is more or less completely playable. There is still a lot of work to do, but this is huge progress, especially given the fact that I have only been working on this for a matter of weeks.

This week I spent a lot of time debugging the game, and tracking down various long-standing issues and minor glitches. There is still some more work to do on this, but the game is a lot more stable now.

I also added game rules to determine a winner. The game ends in one of three ways: All players one one side are killed, All of a teams control points are captured, or the time runs out. I have added a 15 minute timer to the game, which isn’t a lot, but I think it will be easier to build up a user base if I try to encourage short, casual gameplay as opposed to long tactical games. In the future, I intend to expand this project and add more features, including the option to play longer games.

I created some gui’s to make navigating through the game’s menu’s easier, and a post-game summary gui. I will add a point system to the game in the future to allocated points to players based on various factors. These points can then be used to purchase better equipment, weapons, etc. The end game summary will display the points allocated for that mission. In addition, I implemented a timer in the lobby. Once more than one player has joined each team, the timer will start. Originally, the game would start once all players clicked the “ready” button, but this was problematic, since the server didn’t know how many players would be joining the game, and a malicious player, or a player with a poor internet connection, could avoid pressing the ready button and hold up the game. Having a timer prevents this, while still allowing players time to join the game, and select spawn points, etc.

The weapons in Star Commander inflict damage in a slightly different way than in most games. Most games have fixed damage amounts for each weapon, so a weapon might do, say 20 points of damage with each hit. Each weapon in Star Commander has the same fixed “Max Damage” variable, but when a character is hit, their armor will absorb a certain random amount of damage, within the range of that armours capabilities. So for example the weapon might do 20 points of damage, and the players armour may absorb between 5 and 10 points of that damage, so the actual damage dealt by that weapon will be between 10 and 15. This make the game less predicatable, and hopefully, more fun.

I had time at the end of the week to do some work on the level design. I created a fairly good looking skybox, using the program SpaceScape. I then added a picture of Jupiter, rising above the Europan horizon. I think the effect looks quite good.