Games, games, games
Looking back at a recent blog, I talked briefly about my plans for 2016: My goals were the following:
- Paid Workshop items
- Release Game Launcher on Steam proper.
- More features.
These goals are actually linked together. Let's focus on the amount and quality of games being released for the game launcher. Right now, we have a lot of variety of simple games, and some that are very fun, but we don't have any must-play hits yet. As long as the reviews look like this, the game launcher isn't ready to release.
What can we do to facilitate better and more complex games? From what I have seen, reusable scripts have given Leadwerks users a huge boost in productivity, especially when combined with a 3D model. For example, the zombie DLC, FPS weapons, first-person player, and other reusable items have gotten a ton of use and allowed creation of many different games. Continuing to build a deeper more robust script environment will allow developers to easily set up more advanced gameplay. The SoldierAI and the way it breaks down the bullets into a separate script are a good example of this direction. For example, the same projectile script can be used for a turret. Our design of self-contained Lua scripts with inputs and outputs will prevent the system from getting overly complicated, as a complex C++ hierarchy of classes would.
In the future, I think releasing more game-ready items in the Workshop, first with official Leadwerks scripts, and then with third-party scripts, will allow us to leverage the design of Leadwerks Game Engine and the tools like the flowgraph.
Features I implement next are going to be specifically chosen because of their capacity for increasing the gameplay potential of Leadwerks games. Easy networking and a GUI come to mind.
When I feel like we are really hitting our stride in terms of the games you can make with Leadwerks, that is when game launcher will be released. Leadwerks Game Engine is all about what the user can make.
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