Apollonia v0.04 released!

Posted by Glenn on Sunday, 7 June 2009 10:05pm

Pleased and relieved, we have released our entry into the Dashhacks Homebew Idol 2 competition.

The changelist is as follows:

Features

• Chase camera - The default camera view is from behind the helicopter, rather than from isometrically above. The original (retro) camera view can be selected from the controls screen.
• Player profiles - Player names and data can now be saved to a database.
• Enhanced particle effects - These are used for missile impacts and bullet to ground impacts.
• Airstrike! - An A-10 Thunderbolt II can be called using L+R trigger. Includes audio.
• New Apache model.
• Ingame messages can be printed to the HUD.
• Briefing screens - To add meaing to the madness, there are short mission descriptions for each mission (excludes Instant Action).
• Three new missions.
• Friendly tanks.
• Player Statistics - Mission data is saved to a player's profile. This includes flight time, accuracy, deaths etc.
• Post mission score board - The score board summarises statistical data of a just completed/failed mission.
• New Ammo and Health display on the HUD.
• The player helicopter can start some missions airborne.
• New factory building.
• Existing buildings have been scaled more accurately.
• Tweaked existing missions so that the player is less likely to be overwhelmed.

Under the Hood (for your interest)

• Particle Engine, Terrain and rendering optimisations.
• Splash Screen fixes.
• You can now shoot through destroyed buildings so that units inside them can be hit.
• Using the sqlite database for player data.

Known Issues

• Sometimes there is incorrect textures loaded (very elusive).
• Three Player Profile limit.
• High memory usage. Beware of too many PSP background processes.
• Suspend mode not supported.
• There is a delay between the mission being won/lost and the scoreboard being visible. This is because of the time taken to write data to the database.
• Slow load times; about 8 seconds (minus Sony logo).
• Some instances of near plane clipping of the terrain resulting in small amounts of unrenedered terrain.