Because I've gotten a few messages and comments inquiring about the nature of the new game I'm working on, I guess it would be nice of me to shed some light on it!

The new project is a bit of a departure from any of my other stuff, and marks my first venture into the realm of Real-Time Strategy games. While being of a genre that is fairly well developed, I wanted to do something with a slight edge of originality, and I think I've found something that will be easy to learn, but also a challenge to master, and I'm proud to say that what I've come up with is (in my opinion) quite original. It has little to do with buildings and town control, mostly because it takes place not on land or space or anything, but in the vast microcosm of unicellular organisms under a microscope!

Instead of constructing buildings to gain access to different units and upgrades, you combat the enemy through a much more natural process - by evolving your cells' DNA and splitting them grow your ranks. You must stay ahead of your enemy, evolving specific defenses and attacks to counter their own evolutionary paths. Special abilities, recognizable creatures of neutral factions, a few immovable structures, and a random map generator will hopefully add to maximum replay-ability, that is if the hundreds of DNA combinations you can create just isn't enough.

As of now, I'm nearly finished with programming the basic motion system. I'm getting the difficult part done first because everything else ties in with it. After that, the only programming that remains is to make the AI and an algorithm that reads the DNA sequence to update creature stats. Lastly, the user interface and finishing details of the art will be completed. So, I think I'm about 30% finished, and that's with just over a week of work. I'm hoping to complete the game by the end of the year so....

...stay tuned for my upcoming game, SporeCraft.

This may, perhaps, pave the way for another, slightly larger effort - I'm thinking... Kingdom Fire.

~Matt