News

I like this new version of the Alliance tunnel-digger.
It doesn't actually appear anywhere in the game (well, not yet, anyway).
I also fixed the levels and backgrounds for the concept drawings for the buster cannon (aka. quantum blaster).

Had some thoughts on how to re-work some of the sketches that went into the production of the game.

[ 2020.05.16, 14:16 PM ]


Dai-X Junction [ 2020.05.18 | 21:27 ]

I had some other images of the StarDart (along with its carrier vessel), which I added to the sketchbook.
I enjoyed getting the ships to fire at eachother in the last one.

Watching the 'New' CGI Captain Scarlet, something about those Angel aircraft reminded me that I had an old outline of a streamlined little ship, that I found when moving house, last year.

The idea was for an anti-piracy vessel that got from where it was to wherever it needed to be in the shortest possible time.
The ship has a powerful but not particularly diversified weapons loadout.
This can be expanded with mission-specific underwing pods.

I've been working on the interior of the space fortress; adding a lot of alien symbols and graphics.
At first, I had a bit of difficulty setting that up the way I wanted but it's working great now.

Happy week-middle!
For X-Bomber the Game, I did quite a lot of work on the player special weapons.
The gunboys, lock-on-lightning and plasma grenade launchers all received attention in different ways.

I also made the last outstanding special weapon; the arc sabre, for the Dai-X.
I noticed that Multimedia Fusion seemed to have some new expressions which made the geometry and formulas amazingly quick and easy.

The game's onboard screenshot engine has yet to capture a really good image, illustrating it, but I'm very happy with it.

In the meantime, here's a doodle that I did ages ago, of the minelayer ship that I will need to sprite for the last level.
I also added an image of WingBlade to the website quite some time ago but it was never announced on the front page.

The space fortress reactor is nearly finished and quite cool.

I suddenly had to do a lot of work on the xbomber.co.uk site.
I upgraded the SFXB forum, and it now needs PHP 7.
Unfortunately, PHP7 helpfully has all the MySQL functions removed.
The re-working of the website is reasonably far along.
I should have the forum running alongside the website again within the next several days.

I promised a new X-Bomber version at the end of the month but I don't think I'm going to make that.
Once the PHP situation is fixed, I'll finish the gun ports/missile launchers for the reactor.
After that, I'll do a playtest and tidy up what's there before uploading the first new version in well over 2 years.

Here's a further update on X-Bomber the Game ...
L16 - Space environment and transition to fortress exterior improved
 - Cruise missile vapour trail fixed and engine glow added
 - Energy net behaviour and textures improved
 - 'Eye' laser emplacement graphics improved
 - Work on main reactor started
Engine - fixed chatter glitches
Briefing - GUI improved

X-Bomber Update Wednesday ...
 - Level 16 - High security area
 - Level 15 - Battlecruiser damage indication improved
 - Messages subsystem - fixes and improvements
 - Updater - fixes and improvements
 - Game engine terrain and ground-object handling improved
 - Mission briefing - improved
 - Scorekeeping improved