Sorry for any downtime or other problems this site has been having lately. It is hosted off my PC, and I had a hard drive crash among other things (PHP reinstallation, ...)

Oblivion has been released!

http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/323/32318.html

For anyone who is wondering, the Oblivion game content has been finalized since early August. Since then, the game has been in beta testing. Six release candidates have been sent out and critiqued, and almost all the bugs are gone, but there are one or two minor issues remaining. Of course, this page [and probably many others ;-)] will be updated when the game is available to the public.

I'm working on the last 8 or so levels for the game. I'm aiming for the game to be out by the end of summer, so that it will be on everyone's calculator for the new school year ;-)

I'm working on a new project, a psuedo-3D extreme racing game. For more info, see http://trgenius.free.fr/extremeRacing (or the link in the sidebar if there is one). There's one screenshot up, plus I have a file up of the current internal version! It's updated about everyday, whenever I work on the game. Check out the project, and see http://pub26.ezboard.com/ftichessteamhqfrm10.showMessage?topicID=99.topic for a forum thread where you can post comments.

I'm testing a new news system for my calc site; email me or reply to this if you have any comments.

Progress continues on Oblivion. I'm working on levels with an 'escape from jail' theme right now, I think it's pretty cool.

Yesterday, I went through the Oblivion code, reorganized a few things to keep it structured and easy to understand (33[!] header files), and enabled a few random optimizations with the compiler to shrink/speed up the game a tiny bit more. The game isn't much slower than the 1st FAT Technology Demo, so I guess my code is working pretty well :)

A Corridor 99 (see link in sidebar) Super-Alpha (as in really early) has been released to select testers. Jeff Wilcox (the creator) chose to send the game to those who posted their email requesting it on his site; congrats to those who got a copy. If you'd like one, you can still try, but I think he may have left for the season already (see his site for more information).

Also, Jeff showed me how to optimize storing sprites a little more, so the size of GFX is about 2/3 of what it used to be. Thanks again, Jeff.

BTW: I reimported the news items from the old news system, but not the comments; so sorry if your comments disappeared.

I'm testing a new news system for my calculator site. Be sure to reply with all comments, praise, and/or criticism.

I'm updating the screenshots right now.

I finished up the beginning of the game story, which should help to give the game more direction. Basically, the player is Kevin Powers, and his main goal is to fight and explore his way across the planet to find the main communications center, so he can contact Earth and tell them if the planet is safe for resources or colonizing. (See the prequel to that below).

In other news, I'd call Oblivion about 'v0.3'. There are 16 levels, including outdoor exploration, arena-type battles, a vehicle map, and indoor industrial complexes.

Current (beginning of) story: (NOTE: Subject to change)
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The year is 2144, and Earth has become polluted and has dangerously low levels of natural resources. The CES (Coalition for Earth's Survival) has deemed it necessary to find new sources for coal and oil, or even a location to colonize. With little time to spare, Earth sends Kevin Powers, with a team of researchers and miners, to explore the stars.

One day on the ship, the crew is relaxing and making bets on sporting events going on back on Earth. Suddenly, the ship hits a small asteroid. Ironically, the ship's resources are damaged, and it begins to run low on oil and fuel. Kevin Powers desperately tries to steer the ship to a nearby planet, but realizes that a fatal crash is inevitable. Just before hitting the planetary surface, Kevin ejects from the ship. His crew is not so lucky.

Kevin looks around him. He is badly injured, and sees no signs of civilization. He pulls himself together and looks around anyway...

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If you would like to comment on how the story begins, feel free. More importantly, if you have suggestions for cool things to add to the intermediate levels (mainly tiles and level structure, not engine concepts), but mainly an end to the story. If it's a story ending, please email it to m@malcolm-s.net, so that the story isn't ruined for anyone in case I use it.

Thanks for visiting the Oblivion site!

The first part of the story is written, and the ~10 levels that follow it; doors that you unlock with buttons, but you can also open and close; walking/ shooting enemies; extremely simple vehicle support, etc. I need to plan out the rest of the story on paper before I can make all the other levels (I'm thinking at least 30 total). But the game engine is pretty much done, I just need to finish the content. Maybe I'll add a standard way to do cutscenes.

Currently, I'm thinking of intermediate story parts (i.e. level ideas and cutscenes), and a final end to the Oblivion story.

I've decided to adapt my multipurpose weapons code from Oblivion, and 'port' it over to Arena 3D.

So, the next version of Arena will have multiple weapons. *Possibly* linkplay, but programming the linkcode for support for 2 humans, 5 bots, and all their instant bullets and projectiles will be a nightmare, so that probably won't be in the next version :-)

Expect these new weapons:
-Foot (Kicking), for if you run out of everything else
-Pistol
-Machinegun
-(Rocketlauncher)
-Plasmagun
And they should be balanced, too.

I added a link to my forums from the "TRgenius's TI Site" portal page. Please visit and leave comments on any of my programs.

P.S. The forum loads in an inline frame. If your browser somehow doesn't support them, the link is: http://members.lycos.co.uk/jesystems/phpBB2/ .

There is a bug in v0.5 of the Arena level editor. If you make a CTF map, close it, and reopen it, it is seen as a DM map and becomes corrupted. This has been fixed. If you need a copy, please email me.

The 92+ version of SkyRacer would not correctly work on a Voyage 200 in Version v0.3. This has been fixed, and the will be included in the next release. If you want a corrected copy, email me.

Oblivion has 4 levels right now, and 2 weapons that can be switched between. You start with no weapons (besides yourself), and have to find the weapons. Oblivion levels vary in size, so there will be at least 25 in the full game, I think.

Also, I doubt there will be a demo, because it would spoil the storyline.

Welcome to TRgenius's TI Site! This page will be the home for status updates of all of my projects.