A manically busy few days, as ever, working on Taskforce. The amount of work on a computer game is immense. It's no wonder that I practically had a nervous breakdown working on it last time, and the work just seems to grow. Yesterday, I almost thought I was near the end, but I still had a lot to do. My main job was to read and edit the main mission text as one, an overall view. After two days, I still haven't done that, but have completed a few other jobs.
I've finalised the lighting for two missions, and developed a backstory for the game. I wanted something with depth and went back to an old idea I had, decades old, for a sci-fi series about some crusading knights (which in my case included a Shaolin Monk) who stumble across an alien computer which they mistake for an angel. Before I got too far into this; this isn't my backstory, but it does involve knights.
The Taskforce backstory is about 'Teuton Arcanum', or to give it the full title: 'Teuton Arcanum Special Knight Force', a secret society of knights which are a bit like the Freemasons but with a central base of operations and a military wing. The story goes as follows:
It is the 9th century, and Charlemagne, keen to spread culture and preserve his new Holy Roman Empire, creates an order of elite guards to protect his new great library, a cultural archive as extensive as the Great Library of Alexandria, and replete with holy relics and treasures. This organisation is called Teuton Arcanum, and consists initially of nine knights. To this day the organisation is administered by the 'Nine Unknown Knights'; unknown because even the nine do not know the true identity of the other knights - historically they would wear full plate armour during the meetings. It is an independent secret society which seeks and recruits the best of humanity to help the world and preserve order and global culture, a sort of chivalrous fraternal organisation.
The order is known as the Teuton Arcanum Special Knight Force, or Taskforce, and after being initially based in Aachen in Germany, and then St Gallen in Switzerland, is now based in an underground city beneath the Swiss Alps called 'The Cathedral'. Each of the Nine Knights controls a different department:
1. Military is the one the player commands in Taskforce, taking control of Knight Force 1. This is the active military and adventure wing of Teuton Arcanum. Any job in the real world that needs doing use this. Recruits are generally from any country's army or from an athletic background.
2. Philosophical, The Taskforce theoretical division, responsible for ideas, mathematics, culture.
3. Archival. The Knight's Clerical; this department is responsible for storing and preserving the knowledge and treasures. The archive is called The Labyrinth and is administered by a supercomputer.
4. Esoteric. Responsible for investigation and observance of the religious and magical.
5. Political. The political department monitors and influences global events on a country level, and has a network of agents, diplomats, lobbyists and influencers.
6. Active Scientific Operations. Originally known as the Knights Alchemical, this department is the active experimental wing of the Taskforce organisation, responsible for inventing, building, and testing. Leonardo da Vinci was one notable member.
7. Sentinel. The military wing responsible for guarding Taskforce property.
8. Financial. The financial guild monitors and regulates the Taskforce finances and commercial exploitation of any inventions.
9. The Dark Order. An independent monastic order. All members take a lifetime vow of silence and live exclusively in The Cathedral. They monitor other Taskforce members with their unique network, and chronicle the activities of the Teuton Arcanum.
Taskforce recruit members by invitation. Throughout history many notable figures have been part of Taskforce, thus, the knights are an organisation of infinite depth and possibility.
Anyway, before I write too much on this. I spent yesterday adding lots to the game. Now you can left and right click on icons, which allows me to remove one option from the menu; this is good, simplicity is always my aim (yet, with depth).
Today I've added the ability to shoot though windows after a suggestion from Andrew. This wasn't even possible until I added the 'cannot step on' flag because height determined where you could walk. Now height effectively determines where you can hide or shoot, so you can have windows of zero height that can be fired though as though they were air. Detecting a bullet passing though them and transforming the block was really easy, just one line of code, but the visual effect was rather poor, and I needed a smashing window sound effect... all complexity. Well, now this feature is in.
I feel I have so much to work on and write. I will end this blog post with the new Taskforce logo, the Arcanum Knot, a star of nine points for the Nine Unknown Knights which control the world.
