While we wait for the Dream Build Play 2008, we keep working on our game Polpette. For those of you that are new new to our website, Polpette is an XNA RTS featuring strange little creatures fighting for survival. Every player controls a group of creatures with the purpose of wiping out every other player from the map. While the creatures may look cute, it is a game about evolution and the survival of the fittest. :)

Prototype tiles with test “microscope” shader.

Since our last update on Polpette we added new behaviors traits to the creatures AI, such as aggressiveness, obedience and altruism. Last time we wrote about the game they had only a simple path-finding algorithm, and a basic “hungry -> get food -> wait -> get hungry again” philosophy.
Now we have our little bastards running trough the map in search of something to eat for themselves or some food to share with their brothers. They attack without fear (for now) the enemy faction and sometimes they even obey to their queen, of course when they feel there is nothing more important to do :).
To better understand what they are actually doing, we implemented “intention” icons that float above the creature’s heads, so it is easy to know when they are hungry or when they think it’s time for a little carnage. Knowing the creature’s attitudes is the key to choose the right “specimen” you want to be the template for the creation of new units.
As a finishing touch we decided to give a name to every creature, so that you can recognize your favourites, and you can be really sorry when they are killed.
With the creatures basic behavior working, it was time for the queen to make her appearance in-game. The queen act as a mobile “base” as many creature behaviors refer to the queen’s position to operate. The queen is the only creature mouse controlled directly by the player and has the ability to spawn new units assimilating the DNA of the creatures chosen as genetic “templates”.

With two groups of creatures and their queens roaming the map, our 3×3 play-field was a little too small, and one of the two factions was systematically annihilated in a matter of seconds. Looks like even in Polpette small spaces lead to aggressiveness ;)

We needed to build bigger and more complex levels, so we had to stop the development of the game in order to build a rough but functional level editor … Too bad we could not use the Puppeteer … but it was built for an entirely different engine.
However, in a matter of days the mini-editor will be ready, and we will finally move forward to the multiplayer part of the game.

Nick Gravelyn, that all the “XNA crowd” should already know for his constant presence at the XNA forums and for libraries like EasyZip; sent us an email to tell that he has just started a new serie of video tutorials on 2D tile maps in XNA.
Nick was so kind to feature our TNOTP Texture pack in his tutorial, and made our little evil eyes very happy and proud. :)
Evil textures apart, his first video-tutorial is an excellent introduction to 2D tilework in XNA, and if you are interested in learning some game development basics with XNA you should definitely check it’s video out (and those that will follow shortly).

Now, let me run a little test with a super secret mesmer-o-pattern i accidentally blended into those textures … “Would you kindly …” :P

While the team is almost completely focused on the development of Polpette, we still manage to find some time for IMPACT!.
Just to show you that we did not forget our game with starships we updated our website … you can find a very misterious screenshot and some concept art visiting the game page.
Well that’s all for now, I’ve got to go building some tiles for Polpette, or else Duke is going to test our collsion engine with my face, with 500+ real asteroids. :P

Small update

We found thet the G installer was corrupted and re-uploaded it. Please let us know if you encounter any problems installing the game.