I'm getting close to releasing the first playable Diver alpha.  I decided it's time for a long overdue update on where things are and what to expect over the next few weeks.

What I've Been Doing

I've spent the last couple months (give or take a couple months) getting Diver ready for the alpha release.  Much of this time was spent building a Silverlight game engine that will be re-usable beyond Diver. (For future projects) This effort has pushed Diver back a bit but in the long run it'll be worth it.

I also had to wait for Silverlight 2 Beta 1 to come out as I did not want to do a release using the Silverlight 1.1 alpha. When Silverlight 2 Beta 1 did come out, I updated all the code I had to that point and continued working toward the Diver alpha release. This is where I'm at now, putting the final pieces of the alpha release together.

What To Expect in the Alpha and Future Releases

Below is a bullet list of Diver features across various release stages. All this is in flux and new ideas are always popping up but it should give a good idea of where I'm taking things. 

Diver Alpha Features

• Opening splash screen.
• Main Menu / Level Select Screen.
• 3 learning levels
• 3 to 4 game levels
• Rolling waves
• Splash particle effects for water entry. Varies by how Diver enters the water.
• Splash sound effects
• Quick level reset feature. Your dives will go astray often. At anytime, click near the center of the screen and you will teleport back to the starting platform.
• Teleport particle effects and sound for the level reset mentioned above.
• Scoring based on how well you enter the water. (Needs work but good enough for alpha)
• Level completion metrics
  • Must hit each diving board at least once
  • Must enter the water between the buoy markers.
  • Must get a dive-score > 7.0
• Score screen to display Dive statistics at the end of the Dive.
• Pause/Resume (mostly for taking screenshots)

Planned Diver Features (Very likely to be in the final version but not in alpha)

• Rag-doll effects when brutal collision with landscape occurs.
• Sound effects to go along with the brutal collisions. Bones snapping, grunts... etc...bummer dude.
• Ambient sound
• Remember what levels have been completed plus score-per-level for each user
• Lots of levels of varying difficulty

Possible Diver Features (Would like to get these in but no promises)

• Online level editor with ability to save and share levels over the web
• Record, Save, and Replay all online.
• Flocking birds and schooling fish that react to Diver's presence.
• Observer vehicle/contraption
• Scene enhancements (clouds, weather, artifacts, trees and other vegetation)
• Statistics tracking (total number of dives started, completed, etc...)

I'm sure there are things I'm missing...

When To Expect The Alpha

All that is left to do for the alpha is create some levels and fix up the website a bit.

Once I get a couple levels complete I'll release a teaser/preview video and shortly after that I will release the playable alpha.

I don't have a good feel yet for how long it'll take to make levels so I can't give a solid release date for the alpha.  My best guess is the end of April (2008 of course).

Stay tuned!