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[October 2003] Chris and
Andy now focussed on bringing our one and only level
to life. At some point the rich blues of the previous
versions were lost and replaced with a cold and empty
red, which was probably a mistake in hindsight, but
we had only just created the Virus and suddenly everything
had to be Red. Perceptive readers will notice this
level is actually the Escort level from the finished
game, and the objective was the same...to safely escort
some Laser Troopers accross the map and fight off
the Virus as they came at you. At this point the Player
STILL controlled a group of around 100 Laser Troopers
at once, which meant despite all our best efforts
over the past few months, the game was still shit.
[November 2003]
Chris had a flash of inspiration about how to generate
trees using simple fractal algorithms, and was more
than willing to invest serious time investigating
this issue rather than dealing with the underlying
gameplay problems. Nevertheless, the resulting trees
were beautifull to behold and gave us some wonderful
early screenshots.
[December 2003]
It's important to remember the original design for
FutureWar called for battles with tens of thousands
of troops per side. After many months of work this
was reduced to thousands per side, and then eventually
to hundreds per side. Each of these reductions were
made due to gameplay issues - the lack of control
over large numbers of troops, rather than any technical
limitations - we already knew we could have tens
of thousands of troops on screen from the first
tech demos. It is extremely difficult to let go
the initial ideas and preconceptions when working
on a game. Which is why it took us so damn long
to finally accept that if we actually wanted a playable
game, the Player would have to take direct control
of a very small group of entities. Maybe five, just
like Cannon Fodder or Syndicate. Any more than that
and you lose all hope of controlling them responsively.
So here we are, an amazing 19 months after starting
the project, with the first version of the Insertion
Squad. We still only had one level, but it was finally
starting to feel playable. The Laser Troopers would
amble across the landscape to the safe area behind
the laser fence, while you tried to protect them
with your Squaddies. At last, we had a game, and
this made up our "First Playable".
Continue
to part 5 of 6
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