Bah! Now that Breakout Velocity was working, there was no way I could not update Fallout Velocity too. I may have reasoned that the changes between the two were minimal, but I needed to keep things orderly, so I got up at 7am and started to update Fallout too.
Another thing that bothered me is that Breakout Velocity was always known as 'Velocity' and Fallout as 'Fallout'. I made this year before the more famous game Fallout, but still, I wanted to make names consistent too, so I recreated a new project for Velocity called Breakout Velocity; again for the sake of neatness, an annoying obsession, but maintaining neatness and order, as I've said many times, is the key purpose of life. The work was done quickly, and by 9am I had the projects 'BreakoutVelocity' and 'FalloutVelocity' working - in record time! Actually, there were quite a few changes in Fallout. One is that the level designs were external, in text files, and so editable.
Working on both games was useful for other reasons. I found and fixed a few little things in Breakout, and I fixed the additive glows. These early games, Bool included, didn't store the DirectX blend-mode in the 3D object, but the later (and current) games do. This realisation helped me add the pretty glows to the two breakout games, and solve the problem of the black squares in Bool - so the logic of order proves its worth!
It took until 12:30 to finish the work on the Velocity games. Checking and filing everything takes longer than just getting it working, but all is done now.
The afternoon was a lot slower. First, converting the Bool objects to include that blend mode. This meant 87 load and save operations that I couldn't automate; tedious, but only needs doing once. Then work on new table textures. The old table was split into 4 quarters and 4 objects for some reason. The Future Pool and Future Snooker tables were discs, but there's no need for that; I can use a square and simply make the corners black. Then, drawing the textures (in Genetica). This aesthetic part takes ages. Here's a screenshot of the game so far, with a new test font:
I need to redraw and re-texture everything next. If I hadn't updated the engine to the 2024 standard I wouldn't need to, but the update made the objects sort by texture code, so I need to retexture everything. While I'm at it I may as well increase the graphics resolution, and therefore need to redraw everything.
After that, there are a few minor problems with how the game works, but it should, at last, emulate the 2002 game soon.
That will only be the very first step. I need to add more depth and complexity to it all and I don't know how. I'll do one more day of work, then back to music until next Wednesday. I need to rehearse for Tuesday's open mic, well more than rehearse... I need to work out what I'm actually performing and make the music for it. Monday is a major back-up day (this deadline was another incentive to update both Velocity games), so no time for programming then.
I've had four soloid and very full programming days. I must rush to get these over with. I can't afford to muse or dawdle.
