Released : GRA 0.2.0 - Test Build

As promised, the first test build of GRA has been released. You can find it in the newly opened download section of this website. It's probably not very enjoyable as a game yet, but it still gives you the opportunity to look at the modding tools and see what progress has been made during those 2 first months of development.

While downloading the file, I strongly suggest you to read this whole article.

EDIT: It has been tested with Wine (linux) and it's working. Don't forget to chmod it as a executable.

Dev Update : Last one before release

GRA 0.2.0 should be available in 24 hours.

To avoid writing a very long winded post on release day, here's the changelog.

Most changes are related to the user interface. I added a "Player Creation" (or whatever) window when the game starts, allowing you to allocate points to the various statistics and skills or your avatar. The game is entirely playable using either the mouse, the keyboard or both. Well, moving using the mouse isn't very practical but for those of you without a numeric pad it's a handy backup solution until shortcuts can be customized. I also tweaked a few windows and menus to be more user-friendly. When killed, you'll become a ghost, so you can continue to explore the world but you can't interact with other people or objects anymore.

I fixed a few issues there and there, balanced weapons stats and prices, and the usual pre-release stuff.

Also, to give you something to do, as the default game is currently kinda easy and boring without group behaviors and gangs, I added a Police State mode. In this mode, there's way more cops than usual and every citizen killed will also respawn as a cop. Given that the only place where you can heal is at a public hospital, where cops can patrol, this is quite a difficult mode.

Release Date of the first public test version

Good news!

The test version (pre alpha) of GRA should be available at the end of next week. Despite having much less free time than usual I was able to code large parts of what I intended to put in this build. So here's a quick summary of what you'll get and what you won't in this very first version.

GRA Video : Shooting Cops and Dying

Sorry for the poor quality, it was made in a hurry.
 

Dev Update : Police, combat and stuff

So, as you can see in this screenshot, the police forces and a basic combat system have been implemented. Members of the police faction are now patrolling the streets and will chase the player if he does something illegal (like here, assaulting one of them with an automatic rifle). You can also notice in the game log that the combat and the general logging have improved.When selecting or changing your target, a quick description of the NPC is displayed. 

The following part of this article explains the changelog into more details.

Dev Update : AI and a new sector type

I'm done with the "City Center" sector type. It doesn't scale very well when using custom sector dimensions, but it's sufficient for now (sector size will probably be hardcoded in the public release anyway). The first screenshot is a map of such a sector. The central blue region will always contain a park and 4 office buildings. The two green regions will contain service buildings like hospitals, police stations,  restaurants, and the mayor office. The four outer red regions are either housing blocks or large parks. Remaining buildings are randomized. The second screenshot is a game representation of a restaurant. It's rough, and more objects (chairs and such) will be added as soon as I find a good and automated way of putting things into buildings.

Now, about the AI :)

Battle System and Dev Update

Hi there,

Damn, it's 2011 already, it was a busy new year eve, and i'm still kinda sick. But hey that's part of the fun. Also (and completely unrelated) congratulations to Roguedjack! His Rogue Survivor has been recognized by IndieGames as the 4th best freeware RPG of this year. Good job. Back to business, this article will explain in details the combat system that will be used in GRA in addition to the usual weekly development update. Enjoy!

Note: From my stats, a hell lot of you come from the X-Universe community, which is good. I want to tell you something: What I'm doing now is basically building an engine. This GRA project is a first step. Other projects based on the same engine will follow depending on the success of this one. Yes, it means a X kind of game focusing on content instead of pretty 3D may follow, so i'd suggest you to put this in your RSS reader, just in case. Cheers, SK.