The DreamSphere prototype brought up some interesting information. Mostly that the game runs terribly on Macs, we’re not really sure why that is being that we aren’t Mac users ourselves. However, I’ve been taking steps towards improving the speed of the game. Other then that, those who tried the little prototype generally liked what they saw. So we have been pushing forward with a lot of new awesome stuff. I’ll go into more details once more of those things get implemented.

On another note, in the next few weeks ChompServ Hosting will begin offering automatic site hosting services. Right now it just does WordPress sites but there are definitely plans to extend the functionality. The system lets you automatically setup sites with the click of a button and lets you assign domain names (that you’ve already purchased) to your sites. It also allows you to make automatic backups of your sites. I’m currently testing the whole system but it seems to work really good and really fast. It literally takes about 20 seconds to setup a fully functional WordPress site! Best of all it’ll be a free service, with an optional premium plan that’ll probably cost somewhere between $5-15/mo.

DreamSphere will have it’s very first release on December 15. It’s the DreamSphere Prototype #1 and will be a demonstration of what the game currently has to offer. Everyone who ‘likes’ Chompy Creations on Facebook will have an opportunity to try a brief sample of the game in the first Prototype. You can also contact me (you can find the info on the About page) if you’d like to participate.

Note to potential players… this is “Prototype” release meaning it’s not polished or anywhere near what should be a final release. It’s very much a ‘pre alpha’ release. We’re release it at this stage to hopefully get some feedback on how we might proceed with development.

So here is how the game is currently looking…

He see's you!

UPDATE: The above image was changed… here is the original… ds_11272011.jpg.

Not really all that different… it’s what’s inside that counts!

We added a damage log that shows the last 8 damage events (seen on the right). It’ll need to be tweaked but we both agreed that removing the damage info from the chat log would be a good idea. We’re currently in the process of redesigning the HP/MP status area of the Hud. We got a nice design coming out for that.

UPDATE: Added the image with the new Hud! Thoughts?

Loading a UCM file should produce this message at game launch.

There is a now a Windows UpChomp installer available to make playing UpChomp on Windows quite simple! The installer also associates UCM files with UpChomp so playing a new map is as easy as double clicking. Now is the best time to try UpChomp! Feedback is very helpful, we really hope to get this game’s quality up to snuff!

A Linux binary has yet to be compiled but that should come in the new few days.

Download it on the UpChomp page!

Chompy Creations finally got a twitter account. Yeah! I also bought the domains chomp.co and nso.me to use for URL shortening stuff… chomp.co…maybe someone will buy that off me for 1 million dollars…yeah right…I can dream! So at the top of every post there will now be a shortened URL for use with your tweets… cause Chompy Creations stuff is totally the happening thing to tweet about! Mainly though, I’m stickler for tiny URLs… people rarely seem to be able to even remember something like chompycreations.com, but how about chomp.co?!

The links to the Chompy Creations Facebook page and Twitter account are at the top right of every page. If I might ask a favor… like the Chompy Creations Facebook page!

UpChomp, being the open source project that it is, and developed using Git version control is now on GitHub! It’s an even easier way for folks to quickly check out my awesome/horrible programming skills!

DreamSphere’s website and Chompy Creations page has been updated with the latest version of the game. We’re calling it ‘rendition #3′ as it’s gone through essentially three notable different versions. Check it out here!

The Service’s page makes a return! We’re teaming up with designer Chad White to give our customer’s more professional looking website designs! All our WordPress packages are hosted on our very own ChompServ with the backend pages secured behind SSL! Feel safe knowing your password and content are secure!

A week or two ago I posted about getting all my servers IPV6 ready. I am happy to say that almost all my websites and the sites that I host are accessible over IPV6 now. As I said before this doesn’t really mean anything to anyone at the moment… but it’s always good to be ready for something that everyone will inevitably have to have.

Finally DreamSphere’s website has been updated with some new information about the game in it’s current state. Check it out here… dreamspheregame.com.

On the second one I rotated it around a bit to show that it’s a fully 3D system. So that’s the particle system, I’m already using it in DreamSphere and it’s been working pretty well!

Another thing I’ve been keeping my eye on is IPV6, eventually everyone will have to use it and I would like to try and get all my servers compatible. Currently my home server at chompy.co appears to support IPV6 connections. My production servers which are hosted on Amazon EC2 don’t appear to have full support yet, hopefully Amazon will get on that soon.

So if you are the least bit impressed by the above and need your website hosted I can do that, see hosting.chompy.co for the details. Keep in mind my hosting is for people who don’t want to do it themselves, if you want to setup everything and essentially have complete control then you should consider a service like 1&1 Hosting.

Check out his blog at anthonydm.net and be amazed! …or at least consider contacting him for help with your project!

UPDATE: Renoki has found work! In fact he might be quite swamped for a while, he joined a team working on an MMO and got a job at EB Games (not a bad place to start if you’re looking for a game industry job)! We’re routing for him but hope he still can find time for DreamSphere once the project is in need of his talents again!

We’re got weapon combat and enemy AI in place…mostly… we still need to implement skills, inventory, and a lot of other stuff! We’re really happy with how the game is starting shape out. We’re making a game that we actually want to play and hope that others will want to play it too!