Hey all! Have an update for you all.
First thing that's changed is there's a new, much larger map! Although, I still have to populate it with more buildings.
In addition, I've fixed the graphical glitching when buildings collapse. I used to have 2 stages of destruction on the original house, I plan on re-implementing that again before the final release, but for this update I prioritized functionality over a single feature. The yellow house has incomplete destruction implementation, the roofs will collapse to the ground but walls and wood debris will not appear, this is not a bug.
Speaking of yellow house, my real-life storm chasing partner Moss re-designed the red bricks, it's a subtle change but over time I hope to have very few assets left over from Lenny!
I also prioritized making hail melt thanks to a comment by TwisterGuy:
I wanted to mention a few plans for near-future updates and share some of our footage of the real life storms and tornadoes the ones in the games are based on!
+Make Tornado Outbreak Mode toggleable from the main menu
+Add tall, "destructible" grass
+Add NPCs - NPCs seem to be lacking in the modern storm chasing genre, and speaking of the storm chasing genre. . .
Originally I only set out to make a dynamic weather system for modders and developers using modern ZDoom forks, but after a long-awaited storm chasing game recently slapped fans of the genre in the face with poor performance, entirely preset weather, and a price tag you'd think would be a joke, my long-term goal with this mod now is to make a sequel to my 2005 Storm Chasing game for TI-86. I have not found a single storm chasing game that pre-dates mine, the closest I found from my research would be the original flash version of Storm Chasers - The Chase, which corresponded to the Discovery Channel show that first aired in 2007, although I never found a specific release date for it.
Although I titled the game "Storm Chasing" when uploading to ticalc.org, the title screen said "$torm Cha$er." Considering "Storm Chasers" is now in two game titles, I think I'll be naming the sequel "Storm Chasing 2."
Difficulty was determined by the "Tornado Strength" selected by the player. The player then had to survive driving past a tornado of that "strength," the stronger tornadoes were more likely to kill the player, it was really all just RNG driven though!
Something I want to bring back for the sequel that's in all the modern storm chasing games is currency! In the original you did earn money for surviving a chase, however, high scores were not saved and money wasn't cumulative. Just like dying, the amount of money was somewhat random, although higher F-scale difficulties would generate larger sums of money than small ones.
For the sequel I want money to be earned by selling photographs, saving civilians with warnings, and taking contracts from NPCs (such as retrieving lost probes, deploying UAVs, taking them on tours, etc). I want the player to own the house with the indoor area, and lose money if the house is destroyed, as well as making other houses for the player to buy with money they earn. Of course, as a storm chasing game there will be a vehicle to drive and maintain, fuel to consume (and possibly food), and new equipment to purchase!
Happy cloud watching!
