Progress

Welcome to the second status report on the GBA version of Payback. If you haven't read the first report then you'll find it here. Since last time, most of the focus has been on optimising the game (it now goes about 30% faster than before despite the extra features that have also been added) and getting the gameplay up and running. The key advances this month have been:

• The people, weapons and vehicles are now drawn and move correctly. All of the objects in Payback are fully 3d and the vehicles' shadows follow the contours of the ground.
• The missions do work, although the status bar is currently unimplemented which makes it difficult to test them at the moment.
• Special effects, such as the explosions, shockwaves, lens flares and skidmarks, are now working correctly.
• The code was very buggy before, mainly because of the dramatic recoding of some routines to make them fit in the GBA's memory, but now most of the glitches have been fixed.

Gameplay

So, what's the gameplay actually like? The game is inspired by Grand Theft Auto, but is considerably more advanced than any version of that game to have yet appeared on a Game Boy. Aside from the engine (which gets a fillrate comparable to a PSone), the key advances are:

• More complex physics. Every vehicle not only has unique handling characteristics, but mass and momentum as well. This means that heavier vehicles (such as a bus) can push aside lighter ones (like a hatchback). Hit a vehicle hard enough and its fuel tank will burst into flames. Squash it against a wall and it'll explode, generating a shockwave that will throw back nearby vehicles and possibly make them explode as well... causing carnage is a lot of fun in this game!
• Attention to detail. The game has been developed over a period of 4 years so it's got a heck of a lot of neat little features. For example, pedestrians leave footprints in the snow and make different sounds depending on what they are walking on - and you can even see their breath on the colder levels. Vehicles make sparks when they scrape against each other, buses beep when they reverse and ice cream vans even play tunes.
• Varied missions. As well as the usual gung-ho missions, the game also features levels where the player must avoid being seen or where they can go inside buildings. The game also features a random mission generator - which helps keep the game fun even after you've completed the official missions.
• Multiplayer mode. The game has a deathmatch multiplayer mode for up to 4 players. Payback's complex gameplay encourages spectacular and highly involving battles.

Since Payback is a port rather than a total rewrite, all of these features have already been implemented which means they don't need to be recoded from scratch. This allows a lot more time to be spent optimising and fine-tuning the gameplay. There's still a way to go until the GBA version is done but it should be worth waiting for! [Note: The next status report is now online here.]

Please feel free to email us with any questions, suggestions or enquiries. We do not yet have a publisher for the GBA version of Payback. For general information about Payback, please click here.