#pointless game

Engine Madness

One of the many exciting things about the game engine we've developed is that it can be used as a base for serving several different structures of game. At the current stage of development, it's being used for developing two different games, Pointless and another that shall remain nameless at this time. So, what's the upshot benefit of this?

Log-in information will persist between games - what this means is that the system will basically use one log-in to rule them all. This can be controlled from the in-game options menu, but if enabled(it is by default) to register with another one of our games all you have to do is log in with your username and password. It's that simple!

If disabled, however, registration will work as normal. In the end it's a optional, but highly encouraged feature.

Another interesting feature that this universal engine will enable is "synargies" between games. One of the first planned synergies is a cross mini-game between this and a in-dev game of mine called zombie towns. The mini-game will be completely accessible from in game and, if enabled in zombie towns, will generate additional resources as well as the bonuses gained in pointless for playing the daily mini-game.

Minigame - McBurgerQueen

How could a McJob ever be interesting fodder for a minigame, you ask? Well, it becomes interesting when instead of being a time-trial or timing game, we instead make it a physics game.

Wait, what? That's right, physics.

The entire goal of the McBurgerQueen minigame/job is to throw the food into the customers mouths. The general theory being that either the customer is too lazy to get the food themselves and have outrageously large mouths or you've just become so disgruntled you don't really care anymore.

So, how does the game work?

You'll start each day at the job with 100 coins(this is tennative, as the game is still being balanced), and you'll be able to choose between different types of ammunition that cost more points, but at the same time offer more of a reward if scored. Once the ammunition is picked, then it's just a matter of hitting the targets mouth with the food.

Insane? Yeah, a little bit. It's fun though.

Dev News

Other then the aforementioned updates, nothing particularly of note has happened this week in development. Zoey got a new computer, and I've been restructuring the rendering part of the engine to run a bit faster and use less resources. Hopefully by the end of next week we can get all this business sorted out and get back to finishing the last few things with the forums. The laundry list is surely getting shorter...

State of the Project

This week has been another week of setback, as the day before yesterday the database to our development environment got corrupted after a unexpected power outage. While most of the code that I've been working on was safe, the last week has resulted in quite a bit of modification of the structure of the database, which had to be reverted back to a old backup thanks to a few complications with a number of recent back end updates.

Most of my work has been assessing the damage, but it's nothing major, just annoying data entry.

This week's Ramble - Nightmares?

As I have stated before, one of our most excited features is the simply dazzling amount of hidden content the game willl contain, and I wanted to semi-spoil one piece... I'll tell you about it, but not how to get to it.

The nightmare realm is a place that I've designed, that follows a horror-esque theme. Most of the encounters you will have will be distorted versions of places and characters you already know, but warped and twisted. It's up to you to evade these creatures and survive. Die early, and your character will still get a sweet consolation prize, but make it to the end and you'll get a special reward.

The rewards will change and the length of the area will change as well as more areas are added on, introducing new characters and new pitfalls, but new prizes as well.

The link to this adventure will only be available randomly once or twice a day, for about a half hour. It will be available for everybody at the same time though, so watch those message boards!

In closing...