Making easy easier – AirMess R9 – RT/W8/W7
October 25, 2014
AirMess R9 is now available, on Widows 8 RT, Windows 8 Desktop and of course Windows 7 !
Windows 8 RT
Windows Desktop (Windows 7 and 8)
What’s in the box?
Incremental little update as I’m currently on holidays 🙂
- New racing mode: Time Trial.
This is the classic WipEout Time Trial. You have to finish the laps as fast as possible and you are given one boost item per lap.
Currently the leaderboard is local only but in the future I want it to be online 😉 - Improved the collision detection and response of ships with road walls
- Easier opponents in Sub-Digital. This one is a little trickier…
The problem arise because the AI used to be way too good when playing on the easy mode, never giving you any chance to improve yourself.
The AI now in Sub-Digital (and only Sub-Digital) was thus slowed down in order to give a chance for the player to keep up the fight.
Once again, feedback highly appreciated 🙂
Have fun!
Reinventing the wheel – AirMess R8 – RT/W8/W7
September 26, 2014
AirMess R8 is now available, on Widows 8 RT, Windows 8 Desktop and of course Windows 7 !
Windows 8 RT
Windows Desktop (Windows 7 and 8)
As usual, if you are using it on Windows 7, you’ll need to make sure to have the latest updates:
- Platform update for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, which update the DirectX API
- .NET Framework 4.5, that the game uses
What’s in the box?
This time, the revolution is for the Desktop 🙂
AirMess – Release 7 – RT/W8/W7
August 9, 2014
The AirMess August (R7) Release is available, and is the first to be available both on Windows 8 RT, Windows 8 Desktop and Windows 7 with the same features! 🙂
Windows 8 RT
Windows Desktop (Windows 7 and 8)
Note that in order to play on Windows 7, you need to ensure that your OS is up to date with the latest DirectX and .NET Framework updates. You need to have at least:
- Platform update for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, which update the DirectX API
- .NET Framework 4.5, that the game uses
Windows 8.1 already includes all of the needed dependencies so it will work just out of the box.
What’s in the box?
Lots of new features in this release:
AirMess on Desktop
August 2, 2014
Deep Blue
July 25, 2014
Again, a new stage that was in the previous AirMess (at that time, Frozen Canyon) completely redone for this version. Will be included in the August update 🙂
Icarus
July 14, 2014
Just trying out the new (old, as it existed in the previous AirMess) Icarus track that will be available in the next AirMess Release (sometime in August :))
AirMess – Release 6
July 13, 2014
AirMess July (R6) Release available in the Windows Store!
AirMess
Main focuses for this releases where in improving performances on low end devices and adding new weapons:
- When running in DirectX 9 mode, greatly increased performances to deliver 30 fps. Note that AirMess is still running too slow on the first Surface RT, but it’s running way faster for x64 tablets and small laptops. You can still run at 60 fps and use DirectX 10+ visuals by selecting it in the options.
- New weapons:
- Cannon : fire a salve of 30 bullets which bounces on walls and slow down targets
- Mines : drop 3 mines which stop any colliding ships
- Rockets : fire 3 rockets that which bounces on walls and hit any ships in front
- A shield is also available now. It protects from everything (including collision with walls) for a limited amount of time.
Next month I’m planning to work on more races, so stay tuned!
Here’s the new update in video 🙂
I haz motion blur :)
July 6, 2014
I coded a little motion blur effect that will be available in the next AirMess release (if you are running a DirectX 10+ level graphic card). It was implemented using this technique from nVidia.
I also greatly improved the performances of the game when running on down level graphics by having both a DirectX 10+ renderer and a DirectX 9 renderer but … this isn’t a perfect solution:
- The rendering quality it obviously less than the DX10+ one
- Can achieve a solid 30 fps on some x64 tablets but I couldn’t get more than 12 fps on the original Surface RT. On that one I’m actually CPU bound rather than GPU bound …
- The game will try to auto-detect the best settings but you can still override them later on
But still, the next monthly release should happen this week and also brings new weapons 🙂
AirMess – Release 5
June 10, 2014
AirMess June (R5) Release available in the Windows Store!
AirMess
This time:
- A completely new MENU UI (yep, the old one was ugly anyway)
- HIGHSCORES!!
To emphasis a little more on the actual work that happened on the UI, it went from this:
To this:
And now the game is actually rendering 2 DirectX surfaces, one for the background of the menu and the other one for the game content. Each one is activated at the right time not to be burning the laptop away 😉
Special thanks to Alexandre Saint Martin who helped with the design.
Have fun! 🙂
AirMess – Release 4
May 14, 2014
New release of AirMess available in the Windows Store!
AirMess
This time:
- A completely new stage is now available: Canyon
- A way simpler handling: the ships are now easier to drive and the turns have less inertia
- A new game mode: Infinity.
In this mode, the ship accelerate by itself but you loose shield when you hit the walls.
The objective: go as far as you can without loosing your shield!
Because a video is always better, here’s AirMess R4.
Have fun! 🙂
ecogamedesign 