Questions...

[Reaver]

Have you ever thought of properly <I know this sounds oh so insolent...> developing this game within a true 3d engine? Kinda like Mechwarrior meets Street Rod meets Mechwarrior 3? >>

Because, if you could, it could then be fully retailed as one of those great games you see and go "Oh, I wish my PC could run th-- Wait, it can? *Wallet*"

This is just an idea for expansion, nothing more.

[Anticheese]

The SDL version uses sprites that were created using 3D modeling software, It is possible to port the gameplay mechanics of Gearhead to a true 3D engine but at the moment the only people who are active in the programming of the game are Joseph Hewitt (The developer) and Peter Cordes (Famed code reader and patch writer)

Personally I think it would be a great idea if GH could be made into a true 3D, But with limited resources we are pretty much limited to what we have.

Then there comes the fact that with 3D there might not be as much Roguelikeyness in the game, People pushing for real time FPS action and all that...

All the same, If you can somehow pull GH3D out of a hat, We will all be extremely impressed.

[Reaver]

I just tried, and regrettably I found it more than difficult. So I quit.

Then why not try and pitch the idea <After copyrighting> to a new medium?

[Joseph Hewitt]

I've thought about pitching GearHead as a pen-and-paper RPG setting to some publishers, but so far have just been working on my childrens books and sitcom idea. I'd pitch the idea to one of the few gaming industry professionals that I know, but they all have mecha universes of their own. ^^;

GH2 uses OpenGL for its graphics. The characters and models are all still 2D, but the backgrounds are rendered in 3D. If I were serious about 3D, though, I wouldn't be writing my own graphics routines... the best thing to do would be to find an engine that does everything I want, and plug the GearHead rules system into that. Unfortunately I don't know of any such engine for FreePascal and I'm too lazy to convert all my code to C.

Even though I normally like turn based games, I think it'd be cool to have a realtime GearHead game. When designing new mecha I usually think about how they're going to move, and it's hard to express that in a turn based game. Especially one that doesn't feature animation. And that many people play in ASCII.

For right now, I think my efforts are best spent trying to make GearHead look better using the current technology.

[Tung Nguyen]

Are there still plans to add the old GH1 SDL camera to GH2? What about a smooth(er) scrolling chasing camera for turtle movement?

GearHead in C? Sounds like an interesting experiment. Might poke around, see how far I get. Which of those SDL headers do I need again?

[Joseph Hewitt]

Quoting: Tung Nguyen

Are there still plans to add the old GH1 SDL camera to GH2? What about a smooth(er) scrolling chasing camera for turtle movement?

Yes, I will add that. It's been on my to-do list for quite some time... sometimes when I'm playing I'll think to myself, "drat! I should have added isometric mode!"... but still I haven't.

I've also come up with a way to add smooth scrolling movement, but once again haven't done it yet.

Quoting: Tung Nguyen

GearHead in C? Sounds like an interesting experiment. Might poke around, see how far I get. Which of those SDL headers do I need again?

SDL, SDL_ttf, SDL_image, OpenGL, and the units used by them.
Have fun.

[Epsilon]

I think it would be massively cool if Gearhead got made into a DS and Wii game. The DS game could be like a combination of GH1 and GH2,  the Wii game could be more of a MechWarrior and FPS combination. You could hold a pair of Wiimotes like throttles, maybe get a special pedal controller...

Wishful thinking.

But seriously, think about it: GearHead DS. I'd imagine it would be really cool with a touch-sreen interface. There's NethackDS, or maybe it's NethackGBA. Can't remember. There's also Powder for the GBA. I would jump out of my seat to buy GearheadDS, even if I couldn't add custom mecha. You'd really have to pad it with features, though: after all, it seems that all the "meat" of GearHead is stored in .txt files. Maybe if you got the GH1 story transplanted into GH2, with all the coolness of factions and batteries. What's also cool is that the DS really features 3D graphics, which means you could make 3D models, and you could even (possibly) see changes in things like heads and arms. The problem with that is that GearHead itself dosen't mind if you slap 8 legs on a mek. I have no idea how big DS cards are in terms of storage, but I'd imagine you could easily fit all the stuff from GH1, GH2, and the upcoming GH3: Terraformers. (Joke, of course.) There's also the problem of porting the programming bits to the DS, which is again something I can't speak on at ALL. I am, however, thinking of getting some devices that would let me get Powder and NethackDS up and running in the near future, so if you decided to try it, I could test. Maybe. No idea. It would probably help if YOU had a DS.

Just don't make it a PSP game... I'm still raw about the PSP getting Cave Story.

[macksting]

Interestingly, although a Wii development kit is well beyond my monetary capabilities, it's not that staggering a cost. Was it $2000?
I suppose, on that weird idea that this was, in fact, turned into a Wii game (is a DS development kit similarly or more cheaply priced? but then you'd need multiplayer capability...), you could just put GH1 and GH2 in the same game (using the as-yet unfinished GH2 system) and have the player complete GH1 before they begin GH2.
Or something.

Could make it downloadable.