I’m taking advantage of the next week to break away from writing nonstop and concentrating more fully on Star Merchant 2.  It’s been a long time coming, and with a lot of the delays caused by other matters of life, it finally looks like I have a break in the storm.

It feels good to get back into this, at least for a little while.  This is also good practice for when it is time to gear up for Chromasphere hopefully around the end of the year.  I still have a strong attraction to the 2D realm, even while every major game studio pumps out 3D titles.

I know that Star Merchant is seen by many to be a relic and wasn’t much more than a learning experience for some.  Although I never received any feedback about it, I know the lack of it speaks just as many volumes.  So why make a second one?  Because it was fun.

If Star Merchant achieved the goal where somebody did in fact learn something about game programming, then I am glad.  That was its original intent.  Now it’s time to make it more fun.  Even if anybody else doesn’t download and play it, this will be fun.

Star Merchant 2 is not being built using C and ncurses.  While text was great and fun in the first game (and made for quick play) this one is going to be a bit more in-depth.  I’ve already started designing the graphics and porting the trading and commerce pieces from C to Python with some great results.  It’s amazing how fast the code has ported over even in the last 2 days I’ve been working on it in earnest.

There were a few features that were left out of the original that will be included in Star Merchant 2:

• Space Pirates with combat
• Multiple ship types with upgradable slots (armor, shields, weapons, engines)
• More starports

And like the first Star Merchant, source code and assets will be made available for download as soon as it’s finished.  Hopefully that will be soon, but as I also know, making a graphical game vs. a text game can take a lot longer.