A humorous video

As I was working on Xsera today, fellow developer GameFreak showed me the fact that I had the ability to make allied ships spin around my mouse pointer if I so pleased. After watching it for a while, it reminded me of the Aquaria intro screen, so I decided to put the game to the Aquaria music while I watched the ships spin...

Enjoy!

"As if from a dream I awoke to reality of my existence, Earth had been invaded. Now With my fellow crewmates I must fight my way back across the galaxy, using alien technology to free my home."

The ocean just got vaster bitches.

This post has been edited by Two Jacks : 19 January 2010 - 01:20 AM

That would explain the unusually high number of commits today. At least morale is high. In all seriousness, that's pretty awesome.

As an extension of this, would it be possible to have a group of ships follow orders through a keystroke and a mouse point, perhaps setting things up for a possible, eventual iPhone port? Such as have cruisers A, B and C attack target X while cruisers D, E and F attack Y and cruisers G, H and I defend Planet Z (or yourself) by pointing and pressing something unused on the keyboard? I know that's probably pushing it.

Example:
Hover over target and press G (or other unused key). ABC are nearest and attack X.
Do the same to target Y with G (next unoccupied nearest allies attack). DEF attack Y.
Then hover over Z and press H. The next unoccupied units (GHI) will defend the planet.

Even if this were just one ship at a time, it would be fine. I apologize if this is confusing. If this is a bit too much, it doesn't need to be done. I was just wondering if it is possible relatively easily.

This post has been edited by gavin83209 : 19 January 2010 - 01:29 AM

QUOTE (gavin83209 @ Jan 18 2010, 10:28 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

<iPhone port>

This has come up before, but the Xsera team simply doesn't have the time required to port Xsera to the iPhone. Such changes would involve OpenGL, which would have to be ported to OpenGL ES (the mobile version), and a lot of features would have to be taken out. If somebody else wants to dedicate their time to it, they can, but it would be too much additional work for the Xsera team to accomplish.

The other problem with Xsera being ported to iPhone is that Xsera has far too many controls for effective control on an iPhone. I'm sure that the iPhone's gestures could help with this, but I just don't see it being feasible without changing the fundamental gameplay mechanics.

QUOTE (gavin83209 @ Jan 18 2010, 10:28 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

As an extension of this, would it be possible to have a group of ships follow orders through a keystroke and a mouse point, perhaps setting things up for a possible, eventual iPhone port? Such as have cruisers A, B and C attack target X while cruisers D, E and F attack Y and cruisers G, H and I defend Planet Z (or yourself) by pointing and pressing something unused on the keyboard? I know that's probably pushing it.

Despite what I said above, I like the point and click idea. We'll be looking into it.

This post has been edited by adam_0 : 19 January 2010 - 02:13 AM

What about the iPad? Assuming a mobile port were feasible, it would have enough screen real-estate to support enough gestures and buttons to play Xsera with a minimal loss of features, right?

My thought would be a Defcon like system were you select a group of units and then give them targets in batches.

QUOTE (JacaByte @ Jan 30 2010, 08:57 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

What about the iPad? Assuming a mobile port were feasible, it would have enough screen real-estate to support enough gestures and buttons to play Xsera with a minimal loss of features, right?

My thought would be a Defcon like system were you select a group of units and then give them targets in batches.

There's a possibility in that, considering that they're allowing Bluetooth keyboard support. Even with the keyboard, though, you'd still have to port all of the graphics-related functions, which is no small task. So for a short answer - no. Long answer - we probably won't be doing it, but if somebody has the energy and talent when we're done with Xsera, more power to 'em.

The iPad is a much more interesting potential target. Maybe some day.

An iPad version would be cool.
I'm trying to think of a reason to get an iPad when it comes out. (I think of it more as an iWant or an iUseless atm).
Playing Xera on it would be such a reason.

But please, do finish Xera for computers first , nice and all as the iPad is.

This post has been edited by Lord Commander Anic : 12 February 2010 - 07:26 PM

You just made me think of how cool it would be to play it on one of those Surface computers.
So then I thought that if Xsera is ported to iPad or Surface it would be neat to do smooth zooming with pinch/unpinch.
EDIT:
Immediately after I wrote this I realized smooth zooming could be done with the scroll wheel.
EDIT:
Feature added!

This post has been edited by GameFreak4321 : 15 February 2010 - 12:31 PM