Not much to report for last two weeks, with holidays and other life issues.
I’ve been mostly working on Sproxel and some other development tools.
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Water simulation in Arcane Worlds
I’ve finally decided on the name for my Magic-Carpet-like game. It’s called Arcane Worlds now.
This week I improved old water simulation and implemented water rendering with flowing foam. It still needs some work on shallow water (make it transparent) and improvements where it touches the coast.
Sproxel progress
I’ve been working mostly on Sproxel this week.
Changes so far:
- Python bindings for Sproxel palettes, layers and sprites.
- New project format that can store multiple sprites and palettes.
- Palette widget and improved color editing.
- Creating and editing 8-bit indexed (256 color) sprites.
Still to go:
- Reworking undo/redo system to support multiple sprites and palette editing.
- Sprite list widget.
- Initial python plug-ins framework.
- An example plug-in: LEVEL UP! level blocks exporter.
LEVEL UP! Pre-order Available
I’ve finished LEVEL UP! prototype, and made a demo you can download.
Here’s a video:
Also, you can buy LEVEL UP! now for just $5 and get free updates up to the release version.
I’m now improving Sproxel so I can make all those numerous voxel blocks for LEVEL UP! levels, and more enemies too.
Against the Wall
Not that many people read my blog, but still.
Against the Wall is an interesting exploration game. I think it has great potential.
And now you can support it, since the author has launched a Kickstarter campaign. $10 will get you a copy of the released game, and $20 will provide access to early beta versions, if you are curious.
If you’re in doubt, there’s alpha version to try out on the site.
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First enemies in LEVEL UP!
Finally, some enemies to kill and be killed by
Also, a lot of “invisible” code improvements.
Things I still need to do before I can release first pre-alpha demo:
- “LEVEL UP!” elevator effect.
- Some UI to select upgrades between levels.
- Some level design.
- Technical improvements – all voxels are rendered dynamically now, which is very slow.
The goal of each level in LEVEL UP! is to reach the exit platform. When you do it, the platform raises your character up to the next level, and you can choose some upgrades: increase attributes, get new skills, new weapons, that kind of RPG stuff.
I also plan to make levels procedurally generated, Spelunky-style.
Oh, and huge bosses that you can “dig” through and destroy them from inside.
Water erosion on heightmap terrain
I’m back from vacation, and I decided to write an article as a warm-up exercise.
This article is for those who know what a heightmap is, and who are familiar with some basic heightmap generation. If you aren’t one, you can still enjoy the screenshots and skip most of the technobabble here
Examples
Here is some fault-formed terrain:
| before erosion | after erosion |
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Some news
I’ve spent a lot of time studying Intel TBB, designing new game loop and dealing with some life issues.
LEVEL UP! now runs smooth both with vsync and without it, while updating game logic only 20 times per second. I was afraid of input lag issues, but it looks like they aren’t really noticeable.
And the new game loop will allow me to parallelize both game logic updates and rendering when I’ll get to it, so multi-core processors will get a boost.
Otherwise, the game still looks the same, so there’s nothing new to show for now.
Now I’m going to design plug-in system for Sproxel. I’ll need good tools to make enemies (especially bosses) for LEVEL UP!
Voxel destruction video
Finally, character control and voxel destruction are implemented!
Next: some enemies to blast holes in.
LEVEL UP! early prototype
LEVEL UP! is a crazy mix of side-scrolling platformer/shooter and some role-playing elements.
I’m going with “new retro” style for it, for several reasons. So, I decided to try voxels (3D pixels), and it turned out quite well.
Special thanks to Sproxel – it’s in early development, but already very useful.
Coming soon: character control and shooting, resulting in a video of violent voxel destruction!