Shortly after the 11th, I'm going to have a big chunk of time I'll be able to sink into one of my projects, and haven't come up with which I want to put work into just yet. Now that the Hope Afloat Remastered engine is, for the most part, polished, with a few exceptions, I can start work on some projects that were halted purely by limitations of the original engine. So here's my options;
Hope Afloat Remastered
The original demo for Hope Afloat Remastered was a lot shorter than I would have liked, but I wanted something out by Halloween, and it's good to see the engine working as it should and that there wasn't too many issues. There are a lot of systems I've hinted at here and there. Along your travels, you'll meet a lot of people who can help you out. who knows, maybe the Shangri-La you're searching for may be one of your own making. For example, the person you meet in the demo will be able to press and craft different bullets for you, ranging from regular rounds, to primitive incendiary, hollow points, and so on. One may be an engineer, and he may be able to turn scrap supplies into equipment for you. One may be a medic and can make medical supplies for you from things like alcohol and herbs.
There is a lot I'd like to add to Hope Afloat, but an update would mean adding a new town to explore and new people to meet. I'd like to get a proper quest system in there, and missions to drive the storyline along. In the original, it was simply going to the newest unlocked city and clearing it. I'd like to be able to return to towns as often as you'd like, but there would be quests and storyline here and there to actually drive you.
Legacy
I don't think Legacy would have been on the list if I didn't play it myself the other day. I always thought it was really damn fun. What really killed Legacy's progress was a harddrive error in which I lost a tonne of code, a tonne of events and, most importantly, the .psd file I was making the actual map on. That basically hit the breaks on what I wanted to do with it, and I didn't really revisit it until now.
What I'll probably have to do is come up with a new heist to do rather than the old concept, which is a shame, but I'm a bit spiteful about making all the progress again. Eventually I will, but not this soon. I will also add a new class or two to the system, and maybe even revamp the systems a bit. I'd like there to be something additional to just selecting classes and weapons. Originally, there was going to be a store, in which you would have to complete a heist and then buy the equipment for another heist, and contractors. For example, you may have to buy a specific saw blade to get past a tougher material, or you may have to hire a shady zombie hunter to acquire the eye of a now-infected bank manager in order to get into the vault silently. There's a lot of places Legacy could go, and, with the foundations up, I believe I'll be able to make some really cool additions to it. I'd really appreciate your suggestions on this, too, by the way. I think, unless people desperately want an update for Hope Afloat, I'll default to this.
Shh, it's a secret
There's a few secret projects that I pour an odd hour or two into every now and again. I don't really plan to show anything yet, but it's coming along slowly but surely. I could always put more work into this, but these are mostly just projects I put a bit of spare time into and not really focus much on.
Anyway, all your suggestions and ideas are appreciated, and I'll start up work on projects again really soon. Until then, take it easy.
- Tomo2000.