[AltF8]

Yes, it's been nearly a year since my last SotD post - I continue to strive for inadequacy. ;)

As anyone reading this probably has figured out by now, PG is no longer a popular place. I take full responsibility for this, as I have neglected it. To be perfectly honest, I lost all interest for quite some time. Now for an update.

Domain Knights v3
As a bit of reassurance, however, for those of you who play DK to this day - we're not going to take it down any time soon. It costs us very little, and we use the domain for other things. DK will live on for the foreseeable future. Resets will happen occasionally, as long as people continue to play.

Thallium
Development on Thallium has stopped, for the most part. I recently ported it from VB.NET to my new favorite language, C#. After this, I lost interest in the game, so it hasn't been touched much since then. A lot of the groundwork for the hardware system is in place, but we ran into a mucky mire when working on the software. That's where we're currently stuck. I hope to get the gumption to work on it again in the near future.

Chromium
I'll bring you up to speed on the whole project. Long, long ago at the beginning of time itself, I started work on a side project during the development of DK3. I wrote a physics engine to simulate drag racing. It was written in VBScript then, which still makes me shudder today. In its original form, it ran at nearly real-time, taking approximately 15 seconds to calculate a 14.5 second quarter-mile. We ran with that for a while, up until I learned VB.NET. Fast-forward to today, where the engine has a catchy name (RSpec), and is currently resting inside C# (after being ported to PHP at one point). What used to take 15 seconds to process now takes approximately 10 milliseconds at 120 fps. Due to a brilliant light-bulb moment on Gravity's part, the engine now uses a specialized system for storing torque data. I won't reveal any of his super-secret stuff, but there's a hint in my avatar. ;)

With this system, the game started to be a possibility (before it was mainly a toy). We've invented methods for handling how parts affect the power of the engine and the weight balance of the vehicle. The entire game has been mapped out (concept-wise) and I've got a bit of desire to see it through. My plan is to hit it pretty hard before the release of Forza 3. :P

Due to the "complete" nature of the game concept, I'm not going to be opening the forums for that project. As much as I value all the input I usually get from the fine folks here, I need to avoid changing the game at all to keep myself on track. It's my problem, not yours!

I'll continue to update here on the forums as I progress, if for no other reason than to try to keep myself focused on the project.

Stay tuned,
- Alt

[CGD]

Yay update!