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Star Wars: Avian Hunt is a turn-based strategy/3D flight combat simulator game created by C3PO the Dragon Slayer on the Pro Edition of Game Maker 7. The game, which follows the story of the pirate league known as the 1337 N00B5, will be played mostly as a strategy game, building forces and commanding units, until opposing units clash, and the game puts the player behind the controls of the cockpit as they dogfight.
Avian Hunt was developed using Game Maker 7.0 Pro, along with Ultimate 3D 2.1 and GMCap Beta, both extensions of Game Maker.
Avian Hunt first started after production on CUSWSS II was halted, and C3PO the Dragon Slayer expressed interest in creating a Star Wars game that allowed the player to be more creative in his approach to winning. Eventually, after weeks of planning, the gameplay was decided to be based loosely on that of Star Fox Command, a turn-based strategy game for the Nintendo DS that had a player control a fighter whenever a member of that player's team would collide with an enemy squadron. (There are significant differences between Avian Hunt and Star Fox Command, however. Instead of the Move phase for both factions being conducted simultaneously, they're conducted during their respective player's turns. Also, both sides, computer and player, have more equitable forces.)
For much of August 2007, C3PO the Dragon Slayer worked on drafting the basic story and gameplay for the game. The title was decided on Avian Hunt, as the story followed a gang's quest to find Vergere, an avian Jedi-turned-Sith who had left with the Yuuzhan Vong several decades before they invade the galaxy. Soon afterwards, C3PO the Dragon Slayer started building the strategy engine, rendered in 2D, to begin technical production of the game.
After a rough idea of the strategy engine was presentable, C3PO the Dragon Slayer started to work on modeling 3D objects for the flight shooter. After researching a wide variety of modeling programs, it was decided that Blender best suited Avian Hunt. Up through much of January 2008, C3PO the Dragon Slayer worked to model the many starfighters and ships that were to appear in the game. As all this was going on, C3PO the Dragon Slayer was also beginning of the script for the game.
Once the models were finished and textured, C3PO the Dragon Slayer started to create the first demo, which featured purely a 3D flight simulator in the vacuum of space. This demo was released on yoyogames.com on May 29, 2008.
Over summer 2008, most of production focused on switching from Game Maker's d3d functions to Ultimate 3D, an extension for Game Maker that uses a DLL. By December 2008, a second demo was completed, which featured mouse controls, random terrain, collision detection, and enemies to shoot. This demo has not yet been released on yoyogames.com because the site's virus scanner repeatedly rejected the file.
Sometime after the failed attempts at uploading the second demo to Yoyogames.com, C3PO the Dragon Slayer started creating an original game, Star Wars: Ace and Commander, which was to be a "faux-Avian Hunt" that would help practice programming AI and other critical facets for Avian Hunt. Ace and Commander was released in August 2009, and continues to be updated bi-weekly. C3PO plans to finish Ace and Commander by adding a campaign mode and porting major components of the engine to Avian Hunt, which will make continued progress on Avian Hunt much easier. Though a comprehensive timeframe has not yet been developed, Ace and Commander will likely be finished around December 2009, at which point production on Avian Hunt will redouble.
Because the next demo of Avian Hunt is modeled closely after Ace and Commander's Skirmish mode, it is likely that the "third" demo will be published soon afterward.
Avian Hunt uses Game Maker 7.0 Pro, written by Mark Overmars. It also uses the Ultimate 3D 2.1 software development kit for rendering of 3D graphics and physics, made by Dr. Best. In addition, the Avian Hunt cutscenes are filmed using GMCap, an extension written by Ravotus, which records frames from a window or screen into an .avi file. In addition, the original demo used a flight simulator system based on TAB's flight example. An unreleased extension of the first demo also uses hanson's collision detection DLL.
Sprites and backgrounds[]
Most images for the game were developed independently, especially for the 2D versions. C3PO the Dragon Slayer used several different programs to make these sprites, including Game Maker's internal sprite editor, Microsoft Paint, and the GNU Image Manipulation Program. In addition, the character portraits were made using this online Portrait Illustration Maker.
C3PO the Dragon Slayer composed the original music for Avian Hunt, which includes fully original melodies and remixes of classic Star Wars themes. The prelude to the main theme is an homage to the title music of The Legend of Zelda, and the end of the piece is an homage to Pirates of the Caribbean.
Besides the original music, Avian Hunt lets the player customize the soundtrack with a sampling of classic Star Wars music from this database.
Models and textures[]
The models for Avian Hunt were all created using Blender, a freeware modeling program written in Python. These were exported to Ultimate 3D model files using an extension written by Dr. Best. The original texturing was done using Model Painter, a tool made by Gamer3D.
Many of the terrain textures were created by C3PO the Dragon Slayer using Adobe Photoshop; the rest were either created on Game Maker or based off of example textures that came with Ultimate 3D.
Most ships in Avian Hunt are based on ships from the Star Wars movies or novels. Other ships were designed by C3PO the Dragon Slayer. One original ship, the Eta-3 Jadis-class light TIE starfighter, is based on a fan-made image illustrating the Eta-5, from the novel Betrayal.
Several ships appear in the game that were designed by I really love yoda. These include the Invictus-class Star Destroyer and the Improbus, as well as all of the Chiss designs. In addition, I really love yoda created designs for several bases to appear in the game, including the 1337 N00B5 space stations.
Behind the scenes[]
Though the game is a serious contribution to the Star Wars universe, and is intended to fit with canon, there are several jokes and homages. The most obvious is the inclusion of 1337, a real-world "language" used by hackers and MMORPG players. This was justified by the use of the word "noob" in the Star Wars: Legacy comics. The usage of 1337 in the game both serves as comic relief and an artistic representation of the contrast between the "elite" and the lower classes, where the roles are ironically reversed.
The game pays heavy homage to the game Star Fox 64. The gameplay of turn-based strategy turning into a flight shooter was inspired partly by Star Fox Command, and many lines that are famous from Star Fox 64 appear as Easter eggs in the randomly-generated battle chatter. A famous gameplay mechanic borrowed from Star Fox is the barrel roll, which deflects enemy fire. The line, "Do a barrel roll!" has become an internet meme, and appears in several variations in Avian Hunt several times. In addition, there is a cheat code to unlock an Arwing, the ship used in the Star Fox series.
The story also pays homage to Timothy Zahn's Star Wars novels, incorporating characters such as Kinman Dorianna and Thrawn. The plot ties together many plot holes in the Expanded Universe, explaining Palpatine's knowledge of the Yuuzhan Vong, Darth Vader's motives, the origins of the Zann Consortium, the reason the Republic Star Destroyer Guarlara attacked the Invisible Hand even though Palpatine and two Jedi were aboard, the history of Garm Bel Iblis, and backstory for the planet of Utapau. Avian Hunt is meant not only as a bridge between the Prequel and Original trilogies, but also a bridge between the movie eras and the New Jedi Order.
