This project began in February of 2013 and started off as nothing more than a pair of colored squares moving inside of a windows form. The goal was to create a networking engine that was capable of handling multiple connections across a secure pipeline and transmitting required information to connected clients. The idea was to channel information to individuals based on location, importance and without deadlocking or diminishing performance to other clients in the process.
Here is one of the earliest looks into the networking engine.
This is where the concept started to take shape.
Now obviously there was a much bigger picture behind developing a network processing engine capable of handling hundreds of connections simultaneously. This is when I started implementing a 3D graphics engine which required me to refresh my memory on a programming language that I haven't used in several years. I chose to use a engine called OGRE3D, which is written in C++ and has great 3rd party modules that really help to escalate the development cycle.
Here are some of the early screenshots from when I first began creating the game client.
At this point the vision and direction of the game was really starting to take shape! Not only was I able to implement the backed networking system, I now had a way to visually represent player avatars in a 3D environment. During this process the main character was replaced by a generic human male model. After implementing a few new design aspects I started work on various tools. I established a process for account creation and even a lobby system to allow players from all over the world to establish a connection to my virtual game world.
A few screenshots of the human male character and the lobby system.
On December 20th 2013, Realm Zero has it's very first Alpha release! We had around 40 players show up for the alpha release and while there were some bugs (which I expected), it was a success!
2013 was definitively a successful year and served as the proof of concept for Realm Zero. Moving forward the schedules will be more defined and geared towards the implementation of advanced concepts. I'm in the process of adding a new section to the website which will provide real time tracking of the development cycle and keep everyone updated as new goals are achieved. I haven't finished laying out the timeline quite yet. however I will tell you that Q1 will be geared towards improving the physics, graphics and network stability. After that the rest of the year will be focused on achieving a level of playability and creating features that will help attract and keep players entertained while participating in the alpha release. There are a lot of very exciting things in store for 2014 and I cannot wait until I can demonstrate each of these new features and other advancements in the games development cycle!
