a new level: lunar pilot & maybe a new modeler

These lasts 40 hours of work I've been working on a new level: matrix, that will be a mix between one of my firsts level: matrix & my new abilities: lightning, particles, modeling etc ... I'll work soon on a new one: lunar pilot where half of the scene may take place in a transparent dome on mars with beautifuls space skys, and the other half, exiting the dome, surfing beetween mars mountains with loopings etc
... The other good news is perhaps the fact that a new modeler Florent has joined us, but maybe it's too soon to talk about it, hope he will keep working with us !!!

Good News

Yesterday brought two good news:

-I'm now an official JGN developper (Java Game Networking) "An extremely light-weight framework for game networking in Java" , and I hope I'll make great changes to JGN for betterment of both.

-I took a second look to MonkeyWorld3D (now version 4.1), a scene editor, and it's getting better and better. There is still a lot of improvements to make and some bugs to fix, but's it's already quite "playable" and useful, especially the terrain editor. All my modeling and level editing was directly from blender to Bolidz. Now there is a great intermediate that will make me gain hundreds of hours !! Keep up the good work !!

Bolidz is

So here starts Bolidz's blog: an open source indie game I(Kine) started to create during my free time.

Bolidz is a fast arcade racing game, coming up with a lot of weapons, speed sensations, jumps, loopings etc. Different game modes are proposed: powerup mode, race mode, cash reward mode, weapons choose mode, destruction derby mode.
Other interactive events may be coded too like for example the possibility to raise or lower a bridge when firing a bullet at a switch in the level, basic obstacles, rolling stones (what?), things like that...

The graphic background of the game is not clearly defined at the moment, I had different ideas, tried different things successfully or not ... psycho levels, futuristics, Kart ( as the blog's main picture), urban jungle ... ( see screenshots link). I'm trying to keep the best and compose.

It is a multiplayer game, with IA players, split screen and networking mode. It may be internet playable, with dedicated servers.

It will be available during summer 2009 under windows linux & mac system, if we stick to the dev plan. I(Kine)'m working on it 6 hours a day since april 2007, the day I decided to take a look at game programming after having readed an article on JMonkeyEngine, a Java 3D engine... At this moment, I hadn't coded a java line of my life, neither had game coding or modeling experience, but I decided to challenge it. Soon the team was growing bigger:

Perick (Brazil) made the actual car physics simulation.
K4N aka Kanchi (France), musician composer, joined me recently and will make the music of the game.
Dinh (Vietnam) is coding with me since two months (to be true more giving me advice (I really need) for now).
We are currently in touch with some artists to make drawings. There is obviously a lake of modelers, and I hope some will join the project, otherwise I fear the poor visuals may reduce the game quality and hide all the coding and game designing work... e-mail Bolidz@gmail.com if you have some 3D or modeling experience ...

KevGlass from CokeAndCode.com made Bolidz famous here. :-p
Here is the link to Bolidz code and here the one to JMonkeyEngine forums Bolidz page

So essentially this blog is a development diary to discuss a bit about the game, and keep trace of how it is builded day after day.

Feel free to post any observation, criticism, idea or question, and keep in touch !

Kine