To Do

This is my updated, prioritised to-do list.
Items in the priority section are not in any order.

High - Must Have

• aAbility to move from one Level to another
  
  • Beginning Levels should be short, and get progressively harder and longer
• Ability to show a story line either via pre-rendered videos or by using the engines DX generated 3d characters.
  If using pre-rendered videos, it maybe worth making it an optional download, as the videos could end up being 30MB or so.
• aParticle Explosions
• Save and Load game progress
• Raster Pictures:
  
  • Backgrounds - Level, Menu
  • Level loading
  • End level - Completed, died
  • Intro/Splash screen
• 3D Meshes - Create or find some free ones
• Sounds - sound effects and/or voices
• Music
• Resource Manager - to hold and load meshes, textures, sounds, music, etc.
  (Updated 7/Dec/05)
• Rendering (Updated 7/Dec/05)
• a Lights - Number limited by cards capabilities
• Effect files - vertex and pixel shaders

Medium - Would be Good

• A pluggable architecture. Allow the additions of extra (3rd party?) weapons, upgrades, particle systems, levels and other features such as expansion packs.
  I really would like two versions of the game, one semi-realistic looking and one cartoon looking complete with the Smack and whallop star shaped onomatopoeia explosions and comic style story.
  * A useful plugin would be to allow scripts to be run, if not just for the cinematics. Perhaps even make this fundamental to the internals of the game?
  I've read that reflection can be slow when used in the game loop. So need to measure speed before implementing the plugin architecture(dynamic loading of assemblies) and after to see how much of a performance loss the plugins cause.
  (Updated 7/Dec/05)
• Online updates - Allow the program to download updates.
• Multiplayer - via a LAN or internet
• Animated 3d meshes - This is trickier to do so I might leave it until version 2 or make it an upgrade at a later date.
• Physics engine - so players ship could have a grapling hook/tractor beam and drag enemy ships around. Accomodate for ships being dragged into a black hole or at least dragged slowly, like a magnet.
• Possible Pre rendered animations (AVI, WMV)- Player Died, upgrade received, medal received, players face during combat, introduction and story
• Rendering (Updated 9/Dec/05)
• Bunp Mapping
• Environment maps
• Shadows - hard line shadows to begin (shadow volumes) , with Soft Shadows (Shadow Mapping) later on. The game won't really have any major need for shadows, so this isn't a high prioority, perhaps not even a medium.
• Progressive meshes - Level of detail changes depending on how far away mesh is from the camera

Low - Would be nice

• User Level editor - A level editor an end user could use
• Story editor - Allow the user to make their own stories and then package it up with their levels to effectively make their own Expansion Pack for the whole world to enjoy