Right now, I’m focusing on getting the missions implemented. They’ve been designed for some time, so it’s a matter now of creating the data files and scripts that are required by the game to bring the missions to life.  To this end, I’ve been working on a number of  tools to make it easier to build them. Here is a grab of the tool that lays the missions out. Not very pretty, but it’s a whole lot better than handcrafting XML!

Mission Tool

I’m also working out whether I want to use real-time or pre-rendered cutscenes. Cutscenes might not be the best description – I want to have short animations before and after a mission, just to set the scene, or show the results of the players awesomeness when they succeed. These will only last for a few seconds (well, maybe up to minutes, but certainly no longer). I’ve worked up a fair amount of a system to do cutscenes at runtime, however the problem with using it is generating the data to drive it.

To move an object (like a spaceship) from point A to point B needs the information about point A and point B be generated and stored somewhere. I could make a tool to do this, but I think that would take quite a while. If I go down the pre-rendered animations path, I can easily use a 3D program to position the objects in a scene and move them around – that’s what 3D programs are for!

Ideally, I’d like to use a 3D program to position everything and generate movement/animation data, but none of the programs I have have a scripting interface to allow me to export the data. (I’m open to suggestions, btw )

At the moment I’m erring towards pre-rendering. Although pre-rendered animations will be bigger (storage space wise), I think they’ll also look better.

Oh, if you’re interested in following day-to-day progress (and why wouldn’t you be???), feel free to subscribe to the Black Lab Games Twitter feed

I think the idea of using gaming technology to train people to do there jobs is awesome. I mean, given a choice between sitting in a classroom being talked at about the theory of how something works, versus interacting with a simulation, I know what I’d prefer!

As the entertainment focussed game market gets more crowded and competitive, I expect more game developers to look to training games as a way to survive and grow.