With August half way past and summer slowly drawing to a close, our deadlines for Dark Avatar are beginning to loom. Luckilly, we've kept at a steady pace the last few months, meaning much of our hard work is starting to really come together nicely.

Here are some of the major features we're working on right now....

Race Logos on Ships

That's right, this is MY ship.

Jesse, the man behind the "rotating jewelry" solution (for those that don't know, 1.0 didn't allow you to rotate the pieces of jewelry in all directions...it was pretty lame) has come up with a way to get your race logo on your ships! In Dark Avatar, you'll just have to place the appropriate peice of jewelry (comes in 2 flavors, square and rounded) and whatever logo you picked for your race will appear on your designs (and yes, this includes custom logos).

Needless to say...it's pretty cool.

Everyone wants to show off their Logos.

Epic Generator

I've been heading up this stupid feature for, what, like 2 years now (note to self: you suggested it, so technically you aren't allowed to complain).

Luckily progress is being made, and while there's still TONS of writing to still do, the foundation is being built and the end product should be pretty impressive. Here's a chapter from a game I recently played. In this particular game, the final weighting system would probably ignore a battle like this, but it's still kind of neat to read...

Arcea Defenseless

ScooterT had always been known as a ruthless tactician. "Strike first, strike fast, strike hard." was the motto all soldiers in the Terran Military had taken to heart.

To them, every battle was a chance to prove the might of the Terran Alliance. To ScooterT’s soldiers, losing wasn’t an option.

A fleet of Terran warships rumbled into orbit of planet Arcea, the longtime homeworld of the Arcean people. Hyperdrive engines were cut and communication channels were opened between the ships.

'What do we have, admiral?' one of the crew members of Plasma Squid 117 requested from their fleet leader.

Admiral George C. Pitamus was aboard the lightweight Plasma Squid 147, skimming over the scanner display and comm readout. The only ‘blips’ on the data charts were theirs.

'Nothing to report, soldier.' the admiral barked, adding, 'Musta’ turned yella’ and went crying to Lord Vega!'

The crew members got a good laugh at this, but were cut short by the admiral again. 'Wait...we have a bogey.'

A new blip had made its way onto the radar, slowly approaching the 4 Terran warships.

'A single hostile with a death wish, gentlemen.' the admiral remarked, the excitement of a quick kill unmasked in his voice.

'Take him out.'

The Terran fleet broke formation and targeted the small Arcean warship. Maneuvering to its best ability, the Arcean Defender M3-5 111 powered it’s hyperdrive core and shot past the oncoming vessels, dodging blasts from the Terran Phasor II’s. The vessel, as lightweight as it was, couldn’t keep its dance up forever. One of the Terran pilots grew tired of the chase and turned to face their wily adversary.

'I got this one.' the pilot yelled.

Phasor Squid 146 whipped past the other ships in the Terran fleet and quickly gained on his target, Arcean Defender M3-5 111. Hyperdrive engines were in full maneuverability cycles, pulsing in mini-bursts as to not send the small Terran ship veering out of orbit.

Displays showed the analysis computers had found a marginal weak-point in the Arcean’s structure. Taking advantage of this, the Terran pilot charged up the Plasma II coils and carefully positioned the turrets.

A single shot ripped out of the Phasor Squid 146, connecting directly with the target’s engine casing. The resulting explosion tore through the Arcean Defender M3-5 111’s fuel conduits, bridge, and weapon chambers. Shards of ship hull were launched in all directions.

The single Arcean ship had been laid to waste. The Terran vessels regrouped to survey the field of victory.

'Is that the best you got, Lord Vega?!' admiral Pitmus crowed into the comm receiver. Headset units throughout the Plasma Squid 147 erupted in the cheers from the fleets’ crewmembers.

'Send ScooterT word of our success.' The admiral ordered one of his officers, 'Arcea is defenseless...our enemies world is open for invasion.'

The chapter was built from about 7 different interchangable snippets, each pulled from a library based on battle conditions, galactic conditions, ect. I'll be excited to see what full stories it generates for you guys...but for now, it still has a long ways to go. 

Spies

To the approval of, I think, every GC2 player in the universe, the espionage system in Dark Avatar is getting overhauled. Now, as you spend credits on espionage, you acquire spies which can be used for various tasks.

This is really going to tick of the Torians...hehehe.

Our brave new developer Charles has taken this task upon himself. Will he survive sifting though our painfully dry and messy espionage code? Or will this be the last time we see Charles work on a video game? Only time will tell his fate, but one things for sure, the new spy system is gonna' kick butt.

More to Come...

As stated before, there's a whole whiteboard of new features that have to go in. I've only covered 3 of the ones that...well....I have screenshots or text for, but in the upcoming weeks you'll be seeing a tidal wave of new information regarding the expansion pack, leading up to the official release this Fall.

Get excited....I know we are!

edit: Also, for anyone interested, we're hard at work on a free holiday game that will be released later this year. Check out the latest journal here.