My first update on my progress with Danse Machina. As soon as it's been submitted, you can have a look. I think its quite nice.

Anyway…

First off, I actually began work on this last year as an assignment. It took six months, and turned out kind of… crap. So after the mourning period, I'm back into making this thing good.

I've revamped all of the graphics. They look much nicer now. A thankyou has to go out to the guys who made 'Wasted' for style inspiration. I love the new look.

I also redid the menu system. While the menu doesn't really work yet, and the loading bay isn't in th game yet, the new menu design is much better. It's cleaner and consistent.

A lot of the crap was cut. The briefing movies have been replaced by an ingame dialogue system, which works wonders. You can only change the weapons now as well. Being able to change the chassis and drive unit was all well and good, but in the end it didn't really change the gameplay.

On weapons - different tools will come in handy throughout the game. You can use a servoarm now, to pick things up and interface with consoles. I'm not sure how I'll balance the levels to make it useful compared to a second weapon, but we'll see. Weapons will include miniguns, pulse rifles and missile racks, among many others.

Level design and story is crucial to the game now. Puzzle-like elements will come into the game (basically interesting ways to 'collect the blue key'). The dialogue system is fantastic, and it would be remiss of me if I didn't take full advantage of it. The characters in the game will have their own personal stories and relationships, which will unfold as the game continues.

Well, long post short, till next time! If you want to comment with ideas or suggestions, please feel free!