Updates since summer 2014

The game changed a lot in the last month. Sorry for not updating this blog.

Here are some ingame-screenshots of the current game state.
It is still in early Alpha and full of bugs....but hey....it now uses multithreading :-)

There is no download available, because I am aiming a Steam-release for Windows, MacOS and Linux in the next year.
This will be a hard way with lots of work to do.

...a nice, little campfire and water pressure (water gfx not final)

...underground lava and collecting and placing lava with a bucket




...digging around and some crafting stations





...the crafting window




...a small mushroomcave and deleting an item by use of the trashcan


















...a poison basin - cooking and eating (in a [u]very[/u] early stage)




...much more underground lava

...hey, i found an old watchtower





...some mushrooms can be dangerous - a nice little place to live inside the hill


















...part of a map
 



















 ...walking on the surface

Changelog:

Edit: 11.06.2014
- Added:           Crafting recipe for Glascruet


Edit: 17.08.2014
- Added:            First version of new crafting window
- Bugfix:           Player is facing correct in mouse cursor 

                    direction
- Bugfix:           Crafting was possible without having  

                    the required ingredients


Edit: 20.08.2014
- Added:            More work on new crafting window
- Added:            TNT-Explosion harms player
- Added:            Player gets some basic equipment 

                    (Axe, Hammer, Pickaxe) on respawn after dying
- Changed:          TNT-Explosion effect slightly improved
- Bugfix:           Crafting sawmill items was possible 

                    without having a sawmill near the player
- Bugfix:           Some minior crafting errors removed
- Bugfix:           No delay before TNT explosion
- Bugfix:           TNT could be mined by Pickaxe
- Bugfix:           TNT could not be removed by Hammer


Edit: 21.08.2014
- Added:            More work on new crafting window
- Added:            Fortress stone, for building a fortified place
- Added:            Steelsteps, more robust then Woodsteps
- Added:            Massive steel door, much more robust then a 

                    wooden door
- Bugfix:           Corrupt glascruet image forced game to crash
- Bugfix:           Leafes disappere on loading a saved game


Edit: 27.08.2014
- Added:            Some more gras deco
- Added:            Hanging plants


Edit: 27.10.2014
- Changed:            Teleporters are placed on both sides of a 

                      map (important for later game content)
- Changed:            The way pre-build structures are placed on

                      the surface
- Changed:            Chunk update system rewritten. Chunks now 

                      update randomly and not linear.
- Changed:            Plants will grow slowly around the map
- Changed:            Water is calculated with the chunk updates

                      and not only near the player.
- Bugfix:             Very nasty bug with game-time and skycolor 

                      fixed. Both was not updated on loading a

                      saved game.


Edit: 02.11.2014
- Added:              Campfire
- Changed:            Sometimes stone drop small-stones if mined, 

                      small-stones are needed for campfire
- Bugfix:             Removed several memory leaks
- Bugfix:             Removed some multithreading errors       


Edit: 12.11.2014
- Added:              Potatos
- Added:              Wooden buckets, can be filled with water
- Added:              Fireball when an item is destroyed by lava
- Changed:            Some calculations optimized
- Changed:            Max. pressure in water calculations

                      decreased
- Changed:            Much less mushroom-caves
- Bugfix:             Plants grow during a paused game


Edit: 13.11.2014
- Added:              Iron buckets, can be filled with water, poison

                      and lava
- Added:              Wooden buckets can also filled with poison
- Added:              Big glowing Mushrooms
- Added:              Small cave mushrooms
- Changed:            Increased glow effect for lava and poison
- Changed:            Less water on map. Caves where always full

                      of water.
- Bugfix:             Graphic bug in inventory


Edit: 13.11.2014
- Added:              Added regions
- Added:              Explosive mushrooms
- Changed:            Improved teleporter image


Edit: 18.11.2014
- Added:              Some plants on the surface are waving

                      in the wind
- Changed:            Slightly improved mining particles

Updates since Sept. 2013

' Edit: 09.09.2013
' Changed:        New texture for sand- and graveltiles
' Added:        Gravity affects sand- and graveltiles


Edit: 24.10.2013
- Bugfix:        Particles not visible on the right side of player
- Bugfix:        Gun is rotating during walking
- Bugfix:        Bullets flying in wrong direction
- Changed:        Light calculation gets more CPU time because of a nasty light bug
- Changed:        Entrances to Caves are more common at the surface and the entrance has a bigger size


Edit: 26.10.2013
- Bugfix:        Player takes damage climbing Woodsteps
- Bugfix:        Can´t open door
- Added:        New resource: Coal
- Added:        New lightsource: Fluorescent Tube
- Added:        Tooltips (for inventory, storages and crafting), shows the name of items or material
- Added:        Crafting an item can require a workbench or an oven. The player has to stand near these tools to craft.
- Added:        Flintstone, can be found in gravel. Needed for crafting ovens.
- Added:        Crafting recipe for workbench
- Added:        Crafting recipe for classic torch
- Added:        Crafting recipe for glas
- Added:        Crafting recipe for oven
- Changed:        Less Sand and Gravel on Map


Edit: 27.10.2013
- Changed:        Player can walk over small blocks without jumping


Edit: 23.11.2013
- Changed:        TNT is placeable everywhere


Edit: 15.12.2013
- Added:        Gras deco
- Bugfix:        Working with tools fixed
- Bugfix:        More frames for ressource graphics
- Bugfix:        Cave Mushrooms are collectable now


Edit: 20.12.2013
- Changed:        Scaling size Backgroundimage dependent on the selected screenresolution
- Changed:        Arm movement on tool activity
- Changed:        Chests can only be opend when player stands near them
- Bugfix:        Selecting Screenresolutions is possible again
- Bugfix:        Material can be placed on small plants without removing them


Edit: 15.01.2014
- Added:        Config-File for Gamesettings
- Added:        Config-File for Tiles and Items
- Changed:   Player must stand close to a chest to open it
- Bugfix:        Screen resolutions are changeable
- NewBug:        If Player destroys a chest with the pickaxe then he will get up to 4 chests in inventory
- NewBug:        Sind beim craften mehrere Rohstoffe in verschiedenen Slots vorhanden, so wird das benötigte Material mehrfach abgezogen


Edit: 09.06.2014
- Added:        Crafting recipe for Bulb
- Added:        Crafting recipe for Fluorescent Tube
- Added:        Crafting recipe for OrangeLamp Standing
- Added:        Crafting recipe for IronLamp
- Added:        Crafting recipe for Lamp rustical
- Added:        Crafting recipe for StreetLamp
- Added:        Crafting recipe for TNT
- Added:        Crafting recipe for Washer
- Added:        Crafting recipe for Trashcan
- Added:        Admin-Command for Debug-Mode
- Added:        Admin-Command for showing FPS
- Changed:   TNT-Explosion has been slightly improved
- Bugfix:        Solved some issues regarding the pause-mode
- Bugfix:        Teleport-cheat is functional in big maps
- Bugfix:        Crafting - if inventory is full the crafted item will be dropped near player

Bugfixes and code optimizing

Phew, that has been a lot of work.
I changed the whole programm-code by changing many, many variables from tiles to Types. That saves a lot of memory and the code is now slim and optimized.
It is also easier to add features to the game, because the code is much easier to read now.


Edit: 07.09.2013

• Changed:
  Many Tile variables now saved as Types. Another 50 MB of memory saving on a small map.
• Bugfix:
  You can now walk on glass-blocks
• Bugfix:
  It is no longer possible to place background-glass-blocks over (solid) background-blocks
  
  
• Bugfix:
  Open doors does not block light from lamps anymore
• Bugfix:
  A lot of Bugfixes all around Doors

a closed door is blocking the light from the bulb, an open door does not

Crafting is now possible

The development progress has been very slow during the last month due to real life (job, family). I have still fun programming this game and with every small step it is getting better.

Crafting is now possible, but at the moment there are only a handful of recipes. The crafting is very similar to the one in "Terraria".



Edit: 15.04.2013

• Changed:All sorts of Tiles, Items and Tools are now saved as Types. Saves a lot of lines of program code. 

• Bugfix:Items placed on furnitures got lost when building a background tile

• Changed:Save-files are much smaller

• ToDo:Daylight-Calculation is still not optimal, to much calculations during dusk and dawn

Edit: 23.07.2013

• Added:Furnace for crafting items

• Added:Different Hitpoints for Back-, Foreground and Items

• Changed:Classic Torches can be hung up on background tiles

• Bugfix:New Material-Typ "Transparent" for glas-blocks or background-glas

• Bugfix:
• Chopping trees is only possible with an axe

Edit: 06.09.2013

• Bugfix:Mining-particles occurs only on mining front-tiles or user-build background-tiles

• Added:Three deco objects. Two vases and one small cup.

• Changed:Item SizeX / SizeY is not longer saved in every tile on the map. Saves some memory.

P.S.: It looks like i have been working on this game on only three days in the last months. This is not right, this is only a summarize of the work i have done.

Inventory with crafting and some new items

Fixed a lot...

Edit: 10.04.2012
- Added:       Flashlight (movable lightsource)
- Added:       Sandcoloured Backgroundtile
- Changed:    Damage by falling reduced
- Bugfix:        Night and day cylcle fixed
- Bugfix:        Light-calculation during walking at night fixed
- Bugfix:        Movable arm rotation fixed
- Bugfix:        Throwing away items fixed
- Bugfix:        Storage handling with chests fixed

- ToDo:         To change handling of tools, because of the new movable arm
- ToDo:         Crafting
- ToDo:         Mobs
- ToDo:         Weapons
- ToDo:         Adding more Tiles / Backtiles
- ToDo:         Adding more Items
- ToDo:         To reduce size of Savefiles

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As you can see there are many ToDo´s on my list.

The size of the Savefiles is a big problem, because i am saving information about every single tile in the game. At the moment the biggest mapsize is 5200 x 1200 tiles / blocks wich comes to a filesize of about 60 MB!
A smaller Savefile would greatly reduce the loading and saving times.

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Since December i have played around a lot with Weapons and Mobs.
Weapons are build in as draft. A weapon can have so much power, that it can destroy blocks. Some weapons can only smash dirt blocks and some heavy guns can demolish stone blocks. It is very simple, every tile has some kind of hitpoints and every weapon has a power value. If a bullet hits a block the guns power value will be subtracted from the block hitpoints. No hitpoints means no block anymore.

But the weapons will be divided into several categories. It won´t be possible to destroy a stone block with a small pistol by shooting many times at the block. Only guns with a heavy impact will be able to destroy blocks.

The functionality of (simple) weapons like pistols and guns is allready build in, but the weapon images must be adjusted to the movable arm of the players character.



Weapon testing









Flashlight at dusk

 

Flashlight in a cave



....still in development

The game ist still in development, but time for that hobby is very rare.

Edit: 09.04.2012- Changed:    The arms of the player character are now movable. This is important for using flashlights or weapons.

Changes in December

Here you find my changes in the game during the last weeks.
It is still far away from a real playable game, but with every change I made it is going one step further.


Edit: 12.12.2012
- Feature:    First try of a simple Weapon / Bullet system (handled like particles)

Edit: 12.12.2012
- Bugfix:        Chests should now work properly on opening

Edit: 26.12.2012
- Bugfix:        Selected screen resolution in Startmenue-Options is now correct
- Added:        Version Info in Startmenue / App-Title shows game name
- Changed:    Particles optimized
- Changed:    Items lying on ground optimized (now only calculated when visible)


In Addition to the listed changes I had a lot of fun playing around with some simple "mobs" in the game (I added them allready a few weeks ago, but that version was unplayable buggy).

These baby chicken are currently not created by the game enviroment. They are only placeable with a shortcut. But it is funny to watch them walking and jumping around....and sometimes they pick on the ground searching for food....very cute.

I created this little chicken as an first test for the mob system in the game. The chicken are small, so the collision detection system is very simple and easy for them. At the moment there is no chance to interact with the mobs. But they have a functional Hitpoint System like the player so they can die, if they fall deep enough.
They are only updated by the program if the player is near and can see them. If the player moves away the mobs will be standing still until the player returns.


OK, this was the funny part....
I still have some very nasty light bugs in the game.
Some only appears in the daylight system, but most of them are visible on the lights the player can place.

Sometimes the light looks very crappy.
I did not recalculate daylight and other lights for every single tile everytime a tile is build or removed. This would be to slow. So only the tiles in a special radius around the modified tile will be recalculated every second if something has changed.

Until now I did not find a satisfying solution for this problem...


After having so much trouble with my daylight calculation on the surface some weeks ago, I wrote a simple map-screenshot function wich shows me the daylight values on the map. Very helpfull for finding incorrect calculations.
Here are two details from the map screenshots.
On the left side the map on the surface and on the right side the light values for the tiles (blue is sky = lightsource).

I think I also should write this function for placeable lightsources for debugging.


Very difficult.....especially because I am not a trained programmer....but I won´t give up!