Using Unity 3, I am creating the game again from scratch (except for reusing the existing 3D models). It’s looking good.  The control system is easier than ever to use thanks to a joystick/pad tilt system. Maybe there will be a video soon. Stay tuned!

Using the instructions from Thierry Brault on the Soya mailing list (which were excellent and only required a few small amendments), today I successfully built Soya 0.14 for Python 2.5, with gcc-4 and pyrex-9.7.2, on Windows.

I then installed and built Flyin Irons using Python 2.5, and was able to play the game on Windows using Soya 0.14 and Python 2.5 for the first time!

It worked remarkably well – it looks “better” in general, the main thing that I noticed first was that text looks much better in this version.  Is it me, or is the smoke system looking a bit better too?

Another major change that you might notice in the above screenshot is the grass texture – I have made the colours much brighter and sunnier, perhaps more cartoony, and I think the new look fits in with the style I’m aiming for.

However, there is no sound (a problem that I am attempting to rectify by reinstalling OpenAL), and currently (worryingly!) no collisions, not even with the terrain.  Also, it seems that our problems of random crashes (usually when the iron is flying fast, manoeuvring a lot and using thrust) might be back.

The next step is to solve these problems and make Flyin’ Irons work properly. Mark at OpenLander should consider switching to these new versions also – as someone somewhere said, “Python 2.4 is getting long in the tooth”. The possibility of scalable, collideable terrain in Soya 0.14 is something that I plan to take advantage of in Flyin’ Irons – the terrain, while quite beautiful in its rolling detailed smoothness, is just too detailed, and it’s currently too much processing power to just increase the terrainmap size for a bigger level. Scale is the solution here, and upgrading Soya is going to be the only way to fix that.

First thing, though, is to fix those new problems. One step forward and two steps back? Sir Alan’s search for his apprentice continues.

New logo!

When you set a new lap record, the path you take around the track is saved as a series of points for the Ghost Iron to follow.  Then, when you next play Time Trial, the Ghost Iron (currently a Kensworth Drake but soon to be a unique Brawn Ghost) will race you along your record-setting path!

Head over to Sharesource to download the newest revision!

Here’s a screenshot or two of the ghost iron in action:

Here’s a screenshot of another development: the Debrief screen, which will appear after a race.

Debrief screen as of 20/12/08

There are a number of fundamental things that still need to be changed before the game can be “released” as even a playable proof-of-concept, and foremost is that it needs to be a hell of a lot more accessible to Windows  users (like me!).

Mark has suggested the next step to be upgrading the version of Soya3D we use to the latest, 0.14, to take advantage of its bugfixes and so on. Our terrains need to be much larger, and we need some kind of level of detail code to reduce the quality of visible items and significantly speed up graphics rendering.

The fun has just begun!

I am, of course, still very keen to hear your comments and suggestions, and even your encouragement!

Stay tuned, for when Flyin’ Irons will return, bigger and better than ever before!

-  Fully functional menu system, including a new Options menu, in which players can change game options in-game! Currently, the only adjustable option is the mouse sensitivity, but this will expand in the future to include lots and lots of options.

-  New iron! The Kensworth Drake is low-powered, but its relatively light weight and low air resistance makes up for this.

- Count-up timer in Time Trial mode (replaces the static 30-second countdown timer), so you can see how your current lap is progressing as you fly.

The Kensworth Drake - third flying iron in Flyin' Irons

A solution, or at least a workaround, to this, is to set Python’s default encoding to UTF-8. To do this, go into python24/Lib/site.py and change line 352 from

    encoding = “ascii” # Default value set by _PyUnicode_Init()

to

    encoding = “utf-8″ # Default value set by _PyUnicode_Init()

 - this should allow Flyin’ Irons to load up properly.

- Download Cerealizer 0.5

- Extract the archive (use 7-Zip ) to your python folder, so there is now, for example, python24/cerealizer

- In the Command Prompt, navigate to that folder, e.g. cd\ then cd c:\python24\cerealizer

- Run python setup.py build. This will create a new directory build/Lib/cerealizer in the python24/Cerealizer folder.

- Move that build/Lib/cerealizer folder to python24/Lib/, so the path is now e.g. C:\python24\Lib\cerealizer

And that’s it! The game should now run. Let me know if this helped you!