Things are starting to get to a much more sedate and relaxed pace now that we are safe in the knowledge that we've got the demo out of the way. The problem is, now of course, our demo is now in Tokyo for the Tokyo Games Show, and now in the public eye. I haven't checked out when the proper date of the show is, or anything else, but the Hellgate media train is about the leave Platform Yipe! and we're on board for the entire ride. Burt is organizing publicity for all Jester projects next week, appearing first in CTW and then everywhere else. The Dreamcast preview could be pretty soon as well, though I'd rather have a preview shot of the game with vertex colour, thankyouverymuch. As for the Dream On demo...

Workwise, I've been concentrating today on refining some of John's city textures, as has Nick who is busy working on some of the structures for the city. John has managed to get much of the texturing work done already, which is great, though when it comes to actually lighting the city, it should in theory take less time than the monolith cavern due to the outside nature of the level itself. There is going to be many props to add to this level if we get a higher poly budget. At the moment, the whole level has been optimized down to 45,000 - about the same amount as the monolith level, and I want to include a road system, stone gargoyles with flags hanging from their jaws, lampposts, advertising hoardings, etc. etc. It would be nice to have some steaming manhole covers as well, though whether we have this remains to be see yet.

Ernie has worked wonders on the game - now it plays and runs even more smoothly, with lock-on targets for the homing missiles (as, what else - pentagrams!), though as a weapon, this is extremely powerful as they hit their target extremely well. Mark has produced a biker death animation complete with comedy blood and stock Star Wars explosion, using Toks' death animation. Toks, I hope, has stopped with the team logos and is working on the end of level baddy of the monolith level. I did try my hand at some animation yesterday and today for my winged demon, and realised how much I miss hand animation. Definitely have my winged demon textured and animated by the end of the week.

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First ever top-down design for the city level. Of course, the final city level looks totally different.

Andy has produced one of the many deathmatch modes - two castles joined in a "capture the flag" kind of way, complete with (drum roll...) Quake style tongues!! Andy has worked hard on the last Lava level, though we're experiencing some problems with his deathmatch level on the Dreamcast - in other words, muggins here will probably have to optimise it down for him. There's talk that I may have to do my own PVS data as well (something to do with popping up sections of the level in line-of-sight. Am I'm worried I may become a programmer/artist hybrid overnight. Hmm.

Still, managed to get a load of (very badly made) Sega development 3D models of peripherals up and running, which I'm going to reduce in poly count and demonise for the front end which Ernie expects can be knocked up in a matter of hours. Just call me miracle worker. Team Jesus? Could be a winner...

Work on the swamp level is beginning in earnest. We had an oh-so-enjoyable meeting (I love meetings...) about how the level is going to look, and I'm happy that we're all content about the look of the level being Aztec/Inca with plenty of swampland and waterfalls. Building the thing is going to be easy compared to the building of the monolith level, because of the fact there is a very minimal amount of tunnels - unless, of course, we want plenty of tunnels. I'm vetoing against such sillyness...

Still, I've been on the internet at home (while avoiding the temptations to play Multiplayer Quake III, and which, unfortunately, have been fruitful with countless frags :) ), and downloaded a huge amount of useful textures for the city level and the swamp level - there are more Inca websites than swamp websites! Still, I'm putting together a huge texture database for any artist to delve into and use. It's only fair, s'pose...! I'd love to do some original textures for the deathmatch levels. The beauty of these levels is that you can have a stockpile of textures which can be used from all the other levels, though I would love to do some more. Skulls, intestines and blood? Hmmm. Maybe.

I spent last weekend - shock horror! Animating a character! I miss doing animation, I really do, and it's good to see I can still animate. My craft hasn't left me... you'd think optimising thousands of polygons would somehow put me off the game development world, but noooo...! I also spent some time optimising some Sega peripheral models. Because they were used for FMV, they're a bit... erm... patchy. In other words, there are loads of hidden polys to remove, plus... (nooooo!) optimisation. The front end is constantly on my mind, and I would love to be able to have something substationally gorgeous ready by the demo. Which reminds me - it might be a good idea to start producing more than is needed - example - when you select bikes, we should have more there (deathmatch) but in shadow, so at least you know there are more bikes to choose.

Europa - a classic city level texture which will never die in all our hearts.

Every time I look on the web, I check out to see if our lovely little game has managed to be covered on a Tokyo Games Show website - thankfully, it hasn't been revealed yet. Which is good, because if truth be known, as soon as Jester reveals its secrets, there's going to be interest in our game. I always liked it when we were secret about it, but soon it's going to be put to scrutiny by the gaming public. Yipe.

I think it's a good sign when I like playing the demo we have so far. Every week, it improves, and this is fantastic to see. I can't wait to put the city into the Dreamcast, because I'd love to see it and see what else we can do to it. I've just played the beginnings of the swamp level - there are some unbelievably huge waterfall drops - one bearable, the other mental. We are not talking Hydro Thunder drops here - we're talking HUGE drops!! The waterfalls will be great to produce, effects and all - it should be interesting because it's our first level where everything is going to be moving - obviously through the magical power of moving texture UVs, but it should be really effective.

Also, the bike ISN'T going to go underwater - yet. It could well be that the game might play a little strange with your rocket bike underwater. Who knows? This might be included if time allows, we don't know.

Still, the time is right to get started on this swamp level this month, and next month, the front end. It's weird, because I know that our schedule has now been amended - the city level is going to take longer than expected, but I expected that. Who knows where this game will end up in a few months time? It's exciting stuff.

Oh, Ernie managed to get the office Dreamcast robbed after he left it in the back of his car when he went to get it serviced. Doh! We now have no office Dreamcast, though seeming we never saw it in the office anyway, we don't really miss it.

We have a Deathmatch mode!! Ernie must be some kind of programming mastermind, because one day we had no Deathmatch, and the next day - we have!! Andy has produced another Deathmatch level which is titchy in poly count, but is good enough to test our new 4 player (yes, you read that right..!) Deathmatch mode. It has got me VERY excited. Why? Well, even though it was running pretty slowly (first draft, folks...!), we were actually enjoying chasing each other around the arena chucking missiles at each other.

The reason for its slowness is due to the fact that it is rendering stuff four times, and the four bikes on-screen are all 1500 (plus weapons). I've just finished a Deathmatch bike which is under half that (around 650), but that is with necessary geometry. I could get it to 500 at a push, though when you're playing Deathmatch, you don't normally check on the detail of the bike. We've been thinking about LOD (Level Of Detail) for the bikes and creatures, and this seems to be the best excuse to work into it. We need to also reduce the hefty weapon poly counts, and it should run a lot better. For a first draft, though (and a PLAYABLE first draft) it is absolutely superb.

Apartment - another city texture which is bold yet brash, cheeky yet intriguing. Or something.

Ernie, in his intimidable way, asked me for an instant front end. Hmmm. Let me just use my magic graphic wand and... pooooof! For the Dream On demo, I would love to have a Deathmatch level in there with four player access, plus the city level (or maybe the monolith level.. who knows..). Andy's lava level is going to be something rather special - I'll have to trawl the internet for medical sites with plenty of fleshy intestinal textures. I'm sure my stomach can handle it. I mean, with all the crummy Pot Noodles I've consumed, it should be a piece of cake. I did research Satanic sites on the company's Internet connection - for good reason... the FBI. Those internet-monitoring gits!

I have still to get REALLY started on the swamp level - I keep promising Toks and Mark I'll produce stuff, but I'm stuck at the moment guiding Nick and John for this city level. Nick has textured some of the main towers complete with stone gargoyles (and soon, animated flags..!) and it really looks amazing. I also have to amend some of John's textures so they have a bit more spit and polish. I need to get all the textured elements of the city together in one managable scene file (it's going to be around 50,000 polygons - 4,000 more than the monolith level, though we've been warned that anything about 50,000 is risky). AND we also need loads of props - lamp posts, flags, billboards and a road system not to disimilar to the style of road in The Nomad Soul, where the pavements are all slanted so the bike won't bugger up.

I'm also still considering the resizing of all the monsters, because even though they're all drawn up to scale to the biker, they still look small. It's weird, but if the skeletons are over twice the size, they'll appear normal size due to the camera position. The camera system needs refining quite a bit, so I don't know if this is going to affect the size visually of baddies.

Still, WE HAVE A DEATHMATCH MODE!! The possibility that we could also produce online functions is something which also really excites me - I'll probably be working on the website as well while doing my normal work.

We have a Deathmatch mode!! We hav-