Dirk Dashing 2 Progress

My Game Company has posted their newsletter for February 2011 and in it has written about their progress of their platform game Dirk Dashing 2.

QuoteDirk Dashing 2 Production Update

This month, I'm pleased to give you an early preview of some of the first levels in Dirk Dashing 2!

At this point, I have completed the first 4 levels in the game. It has taken me an average of 3 weeks to finish each level, but I have invested a lot of time creating background art, experimenting with the new lighting effects, and figuring out how to design levels that showcase Dirk's new abilities. The more levels I create, the faster I should be able to crank them out. In fact, the fourth level, which I just finished, only took me about a week to do.



As I've mentioned before, one of the criticisms I hear occasionally about the first game is that the building interiors are too bland. So I've spent a lot of time drawing furniture and decorations to populate each setting. As you can see above, I've drawn cubicles, office chairs, computers, filing cabinets, potted plants, light fixtures, signs, and sprinkler pipes. And there are around 30 other objects that I've drawn that appear in other parts of the level. It takes a long time to generate all of these things, but it really makes the backgrounds look interesting. And the good news is that I can reuse many of these objects in other levels.

Another nice side effect of having such a wide variety of objects to place in the backgrounds is that they can serve as landmarks to help you find your way through the level, especially when you have to backtrack. Hopefully that will help keep you from getting lost in the bigger levels.



One of the new robots, which you can see above, was inspired by Apogee's old spy side-scroller, "Secret Agent: The Hunt for Red Rock Rover". That was one of my favorite DOS games back in college, so it was fun to give them a nod by drawing this robot for my game. I've made a few improvements, though - my robot will change direction and follow you when you run past, and if you stand still, he will park overhead and continue shooting down at you. So he's a bit smarter than Apogee's robot. (I think mine looks better too.)

I learned a lot when I worked with Ryan Sumo on the artwork for The Adventures of Rick Rocket, and I've taken what I learned and applied it to Dirk Dashing 2. I've used cell shading and gradients in painting all of the characters and objects. I've even animated many of the hazards, like the flame in the screenshot above. I'm hoping that those of you who have played the original game will be able to see and appreciate the improved visuals that I'm doing for the sequel.



This shot shows one of my more successful experiments the new lighting effects. The toxic slime really looks like it is glowing! The slime texture is the same one from the original game, but I think it looks a lot better here. The drippy pipes are also back, but I did a new drawing for the pipes that looks much nicer. On the left, you can see the new spider character that I drew yesterday.

I hope you've enjoyed this sneak peek at Dirk Dashing 2! I still have a long way to go before the game is done, but at least you can see I'm making good progress. I'm still not ready to estimate a release date, but as I mentioned last month, I can say with some confidence that it will definitely be available later this year. When I do announce the release date, it will be right here in one of my monthly newsletters. So stay tuned!

Also covered in the newsletter
Fashion Cents Gents for the rest of this month will be available for 50% off using the coupon code "GENTS2011"


Newsletter:-
http://www.mygamecompany.com/Newsletters/february11.htm

Website:-
http://www.mygamecompany.com/linux.htm Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.