I should have done it sooner but better now than never.

While we were working on Onlink 0.3.0 we were considering going progressively to Kite. It would have been smoother than a full rewrite (which stopped when Miah pulled me back on Onlink). The transition would have started by rewriting interfaces in Python, allowing anyone to do their own. Further examination revealed that it would take as much effort than a full rewrite in the end.

In the end, we were left with a choice ; Kite or Onlink. Since most of Onlink core has already been rewritten, we all switched to Kite.

Now you probably think this will take years and you'd be right except that we made a few changes within the team. First we are now 6 persons working on Kite, which helps a lot. Also, since I'm done with university and didn't find any job, I decided to focus completely on Kite.

So, on the progress side, we have the core almost completely rewritten in c (the save game synchronizer is one of the last pieces). The sound system currently supports mod,ogg and flac. It might support mp3 in the future but it is not a priority right now. The window manager support multiple screens so you'll be able to play Kite on all your monitors.

Kite progression is slowed down but the world model can already be done. Instead of using Python, we decided to use Lua (LuaJit to be exact) because of our no dlls policy. This slows the progress but we will have better performances in the end (plus Python/c API is less friendly than Lua/c API).

I should have screenshots ready for end December. Until then...

That's good to hear. I think I speak for everyone when I say I'm interested in what Kite looks like.

This is pleasing.

Ho ho ho...?

I might have been a little too eager for the screenshot part(and Christmas made the whole week unproductive ). I do have screenshots but it wouldn't mean much at this point.

I'll try to do a weekly progress thing instead. Since the first post, I managed to progress quite a bit on the core and started dev on Kite.

core:
We now have a multiple backend renderer (OpenGL, DirectX and OpenGL ES).
The save game system has been rewritten in c and added to the core.
The console has been implemented.

Kite:
Implemented communication between the core and lua files
Set up the console to understand lua commands given in input
Widget implementation is in progress
Set the basis for style designing
Implemented inputs on the interface (keyboard and mouse)
Implemented 4 interfaces for testing (scrollbox,list,dropdown menu,message box)
Implementation of the entities in Kite world has started (Miah started working on it)

One of the widget being implemented is the textbox widget. When I was working on the widget in Onlink, I made it so that it could do this:



It's still bugged in Kite but we are getting there.

Can't fault You there mate. holiday season puts a damper on stuff regardless if you try to let it or not.

Wow that widget screen looks straight out of Onlink for sure... or am I being a goof and reading Your post wrong and it is from screencapped from Onlink?

That's from a unreleased part of Onlink. I was working on revamping the interface (and doing that widget) before switching to Kite. So not in Onlink but will be in Kite. And, I know, copy-pasting in Onlink would have been amazing.

oh man.. You don't know how many times I've wished for copy/paste in onlink..

Even possible?... probably make stuff way to easy though

Uplink's interface, in all honesty, felt pretty clunky at times, even with all the patches. I always wanted to do a mod to make it feel more like an actual OS, where you could just C+P and rank files in a server by size or name by clicking on the bars and other things like that. Never got far though.

So this is pretty good news.

There wasn't much to report last week as were we busy cleaning the code. Here's what's been done:

Core:
implemented options.
Fixed bugs in save system.
Fixed bug where the console wouldn't close.
Implemented double click
various performance improvements

Kite:
regrouped every Kite functions into a common table.
Garbage collection of images done.
Style switching implemented.
Language switching implemented.

These last two weeks were focused essentially on bug fixing, 3D rendering and procedural generation. This time, I'll put a screenshot instead of actual text.



Note 1: The style will be fixed in due time.
Note 2: all the windows in this picture are moveable/resizable.
Note 3: It is a work in progress.
Note 4: The building is procedurally generated, I simply rendered it.

Next steps are doors,windows and corridors on the plan side and better display on 3D side.

3D buildings? We going Subversion?

Maybe .

More like the next obvious step of progression.

Onlink had been for a while planned to do something to the tune of this starting with a IMF-esque facility and moving from there. It was always too flat and throwing in a bunch of vertical cross connects into a LAN or whatever would only distract from the problem, which was that Onlink (and Uplink) just wasn't meant to be a 3D game.

Fun fact: We've had this GDD going since before Subversion was announced. It's just only recently that we decided to stop making the current game core into something it's obviously not. Basically we could easily make an Onlink world in Kite, but not the other way.

Also I wanted my own storyline going.

Miah, how is the Onlink world going to be referenced in Kite? I'll be honest, i'm intrigued... Although i'm still hoping for a continuation of onlink, and i know that's impractical.