Weekly Penguin
April 2nd, 2008

Status report

Last weekend I reached yet another small milestone in TAGAP 2 highway and I thought this might be an appropriate time for a status report. Sorry, I still haven't got screenshots for your viewing pleasure, but we're making steady progress.

Last weekend I finished Pablo's new main weapon arsenal. Naturally lots of balancing will occur during the course of development, but the basics are now there. I won't go into too spoiler-ific details, but we now have all the number keys in use, so you should always have something to shoot things with.

I also have done the basic geometry for three levels already. There are no enemies or textures in place yet, but the levels are shaping up nicely. Later this week I'll start polishing up one or two of those levels and hopefully soon they're complete enough for the first screenshot or two. Flippers crossed.

New enemies are also getting done. Most of the enemies I've finished so far have been re-engineered originals, but there are plenty of new zombie penguins and menacing robots on the way. The robot I made last week was the first to utilize our new AI features and it turned out as genuinely fun adversary. Funnily enough, that particular robot was the first new enemy I ever designed for TAGAP 2.

Petja has composed some rockin' music, including the revisited theme song. All tracks are naturally in unfinished demo stage right now, but when we have more-or-less final mixes ready, you'll get to hear what the new TAGAP sounds like. In general, TAGAP 2's soundtrack will be more coherent than the original, sounding more like a whole yet still covering various styles and genres. In other words; If liked TAGAP music, you'll love soundtrack of TAGAP 2.

That's it for the time being, but I'll keep you updated.

Until next time,

Jouni Lahtinen, the head penguin