Special effects and stuff

[Zebbe]

Will the game use any cool programming tricks or use the hardwares lesser used capabilites? Like for example faking a third background layer as in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, shadow/hilight mode like Ecco The Tides of Time, scaling/rotation like Granada, FMV like Red Zone or 100+ colours on screen like Toy Story? First and foremost I'd like a great game, but it wouldn't hurt if there are some cool eye candy to behold as well .

Good luck with the development!

[BigEvilCorporation]

I've looked into this extensively and I'm itching to try some of them out, finding the time is tricky though.

- The third background layer would be nice but at the moment we can't afford the VRAM space for any extra tiles to fill it, plus most of the tilesets have been designed with two layers in mind so it would be an authoring nightmare to redo them to spec.

- Shadow/highlight mode is a complex beast, I don't fully understand its quirks yet, and would involve some really clever offline computations to get the very best out of it.

- Scaling/rotation involves CPU time we don't have spare without some huge optimisation passes.

- FMV would be cool! But the game's design doesn't really allow for it, unless it was a cool company/game intro logo or something.

- 100+ colours would be a dream come true, but again requires offline computation and designing artwork in a particular way to get the best out of it.

This won't be our last game, so perhaps by the end of Tanglewood we'll have the knowhow and tools to show off something more akin to a demo scene release with all the tricks of the trade under our belts!

[Zebbe]

Ah yes, with the game planned so well already I guess it's hard to fit in anything new to it. I think you mean Tanglewood won't be your *LAST* game at the final sentence? Indeed, development is always a learning process for making more complicated use of the hardware for future games.

Thanks for the reply!

[nEPiC3do]

Good to hear ur already planing on hopefully more games! I hope all your future endeavors all make it to the Sega Dreamcast!? If so i know ull have me as a lifetime backer.

[BigEvilCorporation]

Good to hear ur already planing on hopefully more games! I hope all your future endeavors all make it to the Sega Dreamcast!? If so i know ull have me as a lifetime backer.

Yep, that's the idea. It's too soon to tell for sure what the process is going to be like, but so far the Dreamcast port is coming along amazingly quickly, and I'm really enjoying myself to boot, so I hope to be able to do this for all games.