It’s been quite a while since I posted specifically about CIC so I thought I’d give a quick update. Last night I made my first check-in since September (before the wedding). I’m beginning work on the ‘3D movement’ part of the game which I’m hoping will be one of it’s main features. Homeworld 1 & 2 have been the best games to use 3D that I’ve played so far, however I still didn’t like their interface. It was predominately 2D with the 3rd dimension being an added extra. CIC is going to be fully 3D and there are no major and minor axis (z/up being minor in Homeworld). This has two advantages, firstly, you have all dimensions to use in your strategy and you’re not disadvantaged by attacking along a minor axis. Secondly, it’s far easier for the player to comprehend what’s going on in true 3D as they only need think about where enemies are relative to themselves, not relative to a given coordinate system. Will this work? Time will tell. I’ve already rewritten the tried and true chess rules for my mini-game, I may as well try rewriting the way games handle 3D while I’m at it.

The big question here is why am I adding ‘true’ 3D to my game, is it just a gimmick? I’ve been thinking about this recently and come to the conclusion that it’s not. If I go back to my initial reasons for adding true 3D, it was not to try and sell more copies or add more features, it was to allow more strategy in my game. Not only that, it was to add true strategy to the game. Space combat (as explained very well in Ender’s Game) will be truly 3D and we’ll need to unlock our minds from thinking about ‘up’ and ‘down’ being relative to the world (or planets) around us, instead they are relative to where the enemy is. Hopefully this will make for engaging gameplay, I’m willing to bet it is and I just hope I can make the interface to pull it off.

So that’s where things are at the moment. I’m hitting the books with design and working on some more complex 3D math problems. I’ll keep you posted on how things are going and will start to set out a schedule soon for Alpha 2 which will include 3D movement.