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.

Finally we are back with some new stuff for our website! And for “new stuff” i mean a new project.
The project name is “POLPETTE” and it’s a mini-RTS we initially designed for the Silicon Minds contest. During the development we decided not to rush to complete the game to meet the contest’s deadline, we wanted POLPETTE to be a complete game, and so we decided to skip the Warm-up contest this year.
Now we will be able to explore the stange gameplay we are building in POLPETTE and to develop a complete, fun, and polished game.

Both IMPACT! and POLPETTE will use our “EVIL engine” and share the same tools we are building to improve our production pipeline. This situation should allow us to bring them both near completion within this year.

POLPETTE looks like an RTS, with two opposing factions of “creatures” fighting fo supremacy. The player does not have complete control over them, they will likely act accordingly to their “personalty”.
Every unit has a peculiar set of skills and properties, that you can clone or mix in order to produce future generations of units. Cloning or mixing creatures with different behavoirs the player decides how it’s “swarm” is organized and behaves. Cloning the aggressive or the obedient, mixing the strong with the smart, will they obey your orders? Will they be aggressive? Will they be strong and Brave? Fearful but fast? It’s up to the player, and his decision will determine the evolution of the swarm and it’s survival or total annihilation.

We can’t show you any complete screenshots of the game, but here is our first game concept, and a screen taken from the prototipe playground in action.

Our other “super secret” project is a really very simple game, IMPACT! is a multiplayer and expanded version of G.
It will feature team battles, several game modes other than the basic “deathmatch”, different starships with different abilities, multiple arenas and powerups, and a faster gameplay.
IMPACT! is really giving us some headaches, expanding the ultra simple orbital-smashing gameplay of G is not an easy task as we initially thought; every addition will likely ruin the “flowing” of the game or make it too complex and less responsive … but testing ad reinventing this game is teaching us a lot.