Good news everyone, we finished our first internal prototype! As you may be aware, the core coding team is doing this project as their final project in software engineering. This work is split in two school terms. By the end of the first term, which just finished, we wanted to have a clear idea of what the game would be, so that mappers could get going with maps appropriate to the gameplay. The prototype was completed, and we did the first public presentation of Troy: Divine Playground at our school.

Now I’ll try to be a bit more specific than “prototype” or “alpha 0.250” in a brief overview of what that version does. We were able to do some testing using a prototype version of a map we quickly created in Hammer.

AI – Created soldiers with simple behaviors: they go to their objectives and attack the enemy on sight.
Classes – Most of the 12 skills are coded. We need to add better visual effects, but the actual in-game consequences of the skills are mostly done.
Weapons - Pretty much every weapon was coded, with temporary models / animations, and temporary projectile effects. Now we will need to rework and balance them a bit, depending on how testing goes.
Attack strategies – Did some good progress in that area. The ladder and the grappling hook are coded; we now need to limit their usage on the maps. We worked on the battering ram, but we’re waiting on the final model before completing this one. You can also sabotage doors and ladders to help accomplish your map objectives.
Spirit mode / respawning system – Mostly done. You choose a soldier of your team, and you get possession of his weapon and health. Two things to work on for the next term: a better visual effect, and ameliorations need to be made to the soldier selection system.
Interface – Some menus were created, such as the class and the team selection menus.

On another subject, I posted a summary of the Skill section of our Game Design Document. The skills / classes are under test and might still change in September, when the coding team comes back from their internships.

We've got two new weapon renders to show you, and an early concept for the battering ram. Fruity-Music also composed a good song for the mod, available here. There's also a background available in the media section.