pyrokinesisstudio/loopdipole

A whimsical driving/flying puzzle game, made with the Blender Game Engine.

Loop Dipole and the Chaoties

Created by R. Bassett Jr. www.tpot.ca

Loop Dipole and the Chaoties is a 3D driving/flying puzzle game built in Blender Game Engine 2.69. Part racing game, part puzzle game, part shooter game, “Loop” is a single player experience designed to be rewarding, persistent, and just plain fun!

Project Scope & Gameplay

This is a long term project to create a game that has the specific game play elements that I have in mind. In its finished form it will be single player, have persistent progress between play sessions, and generally be a “low stress” experience. The nature of the game play is to collect energy and use that energy to fight the bad guys (Chaoties) and balance the chaotic fountains of energy around the world (puzzles).

Character movement, specifically “going fast” with wacky physics, is a big part of the fun in the game. Just “driving” around the world doing nothing is an enjoyable experience. Managing your energy types, by way of looking for them, collecting them, storing them, and using them should allow for endless organic gameplay. Beating the game, by solving all of the fountain puzzles (in no particular order), is ultimately what happens in the end, but there’s no time limit or punishment for taking your time and enjoying the journey. In fact, the whole game is designed to just be enjoyed.

Documentation

You will find all of the current documentation for the project, including an explination of how the project is organized, where it's been, where it's headed, and how to use it, in the /doc directory. I've also included old documentation and scripts in /doc/archive, in the off chance that they may prove useful to anyone studying the project, Blender, Python, or game development in general.

Art Style

I am shooting for simple, clean, and fun. The world is made of wild energy constrained by coloured lines. The characters are beings of pure energy. Visually, the main character is made of anglular shapes and is of solid, reflective colors which change depending on the lighting. While this is simple to do in Blender, it also looks cool and easy on system resources (as far as I can tell).

The shapes that Loop takes on are that of sci-fi inspired vehicles. Planes, jets, and cars. He's a multifacited little guy! :)

Platforms

Thanks to the Blender, the game will run on Linux, Windows, and MacOSX!

Timeline

This project will be completed some time before the heat death of our universe. Probably. I hope.

Contributions

Overall, this project is being released under the GPL v3. As such, I will quote what the SuperTuxKart folks had to say about contributing to their GPL project, because I think they really "nailed it"...

http://supertuxkart.sourceforge.net/Licensing

"Considerations to always keep in mind:

If you wish that your contribution be included in STK main or add-ons, always note down the author's name, website where image was found and full license name of everything you use (textures, models, sounds, etc.); when you make something yourself also note that you did it yourself and which license you release it under; we recommend making a file named "License.txt" to contain all this information; if we do not receive this information along your track/kart/etc., we will be legally unable to use your contribution in any way!

Also be sure that you have the right to actually release the art work under the license you chose. Some (typically commercial) software might restrict what you are allowed to do with anything created with that software."

With that in mind, if you have code fixes/suggestions/help, I am open to your feedback - I'm not a programming genius! However, when it comes to visual art, sounds, music, etc. I do not want unsolicited materials. Artistic advice is welcome though. The bottom line is that I am doing this project, with all of its parts, as a hobby, because I enjoy doing these things - I want to do it by myself, even it it takes forever. Journey, not the destination... that whole thing. :)

So, if you do contact me with contributions or suggestions, first of all THANK YOU for taking the time, and secondly, please take a few extra moments to cite your sources we can ensure credit is given where credit is due.

Credits

See the CREDITS file in the project root and the README files in the various the asset directories for credits and additional licensing information.

Sources

The source code is available on GitHub at https://github.com/Tatwi/LoopDipole. Graphics, sound, other source files, testing files, and screenshots are mirrored on MEGA.nz at https://mega.nz/#fm/CUcQyY6J