Wasteland 2 - Update #19

[RPGWatch]

inXile has posted an overdue Wasteland 2 update on Kickstarter. There are a couple of portraits, a music sample from Mark Morgan and lots of information about the development itself. Apparently the script is on track to be finished this month and here's Technical Director John Alvarado:

As we weigh different approaches to a challenge, we attempt to gaze into the future and discern how the consequences of different decisions will play out with respect to design requirements (known and potential), content pipeline, run-time performance, and development time/cost. Fortunately, our engineering team has decades of experience over dozens of successful projects that help us make most of these decisions with confidence. So far we have made engineering strides on the following systems:

· World Map System

· Movement and Turn-Based Combat System

· Saved Game System

· Character Animation System

· Inventory system

· World State Tracking system

· Story Scripting System

· Localization System

We now have a player-controlled Ranger character moving with animation in a game-level and interacting with NPCs, triggering conversations and changing world states that affect future interactions. This is where we wanted to be at this time and we are right on schedule. Brian stressed to the engineering team the importance of having this ready by the time the writers are finishing up their level designs and story so we can begin implementing, testing and iterating. That priority and the desired iteration process informed some important engineering decisions.