My Summer Project

[NightrainSrt4]

These pictures aren't going to show you what is really going on. There is so much more under the hood here than before. The characters entire body has been chopped into individual pieces and animates independently yet still in synch.

Parts are drawn when and where necessary. The armor system is now implemented. Now when you equip a piece of armor, assuming I've drawn the texture all up, you can see it. No longer is the player limited to always looking like the default character I've made. If you equip that iron chest piece, the character will now be shown wearing that chest piece, and that chest piece will animate with the character.

With the mining helmet equipped.

With the mining helmet unequipped.

Now I just have to program the equipment interface, draw up some armors, and it will be good to go. I know, feature creep right as I said the alpha exploration build would be soon. I wanted there to be more than just digging up blocks and building houses. At least when this is finished you will be able to craft some armor to change how your character looks.

[Stonerboy779]

Is it just me or is anyone else reminded of terrania when they see this?

Btw this is great any plans for a beta test of the game using tbcs members?

[NightrainSrt4]

It is similar to Terraria: mining blocks, 2D side perspective, monsters, etc.

Where I hope to differ is the Diablo style loot generation, Castlevania / Metroid styled farmable dungeons, and Legend of Zelda styled story / progression. My initial focus is on single player, as I'll have to change a few core functions to accommodate multiplayer, but if the game gets popular it will become a feature I will push toward. I've got to get the main functions and features down before I focus on the dungeons, but from my tests before, they should work.

I've had the concept for this game brewing shortly after Minecraft released Alpha. I wasn't confident in my ability to program something of this level until sometime after Terraria came out and I learned that such a small team made that game. I figured if a team with one programmer could do it, then I could too. So I set off to make my take on the genre.

I've come a long way, and I plan on chugging right along. Once I finish up the equipable armor, improved weapon swinging, and get base type blocks made for the other regions, I will be releasing an exploration alpha to some testers. I'll try to not let feature creep push that release back to far. I just want people to enjoy my game, and if I release an alpha test too early, people might not see my vision just yet.

[NightrainSrt4]

I know, feature creep. Shoot me, lol. This will make life easier and faster though.

Dev Console. XNA doesn't have any text input handling, afaik, so I had to code it myself.

You type as usual. Pressing the up or down key flips through the last four commands and inserts them into the current text field, so you don't have to type the same thing over and over again if you are need to do it more than once. The cursor blinks as you would expect.

Now I just have to parse the input string for game commands and execute them. Testing is about to get much easier.

[NightrainSrt4]

That is all finished, well at least as far as I needed at the moment.

These most likely won't be exposed to the player. They definitely won't be exposed in multiplayer, but I may choose to leave some commands in for single player a la Bethesda games.

additem (int)itemID
additem (int)itemID (int)quantity
goto (int)tileX (int)tileY
goto spawn
goto spawnpoint
setspawn

These should be pretty self explanatory. Mostly for me to get around testing easier.

additem adds one item of the input ID if a quantity is not explicitly stated. Additem with a quantity will add up to one stack of the item per call. If you type 2000 for quantity, it will put a stack worth in your inventory if there is space.

goto x y, warps the player to tile x, y if the tiles encompassing the player aren't solid (so the player won't get stuck and do funny things).

goto spawn / goto spawnpoint both warp the player to its defined spawnpoint.

setspawn defines the current location as the players spawnpoint.


Tomorrow I have a bunch of class work I have to get done, and study for a set of tests this week, so this week's updates may be slow.

[NightrainSrt4]

I've been busy with school this week, and likely next week, but I wanted to try to make an enemy today. Still needs tons of work, but it is a start.

It is a take on a medusa head, like Castlevania, but wearing a porcelain mask. These would be in the petrified forest, and I wanted to get an idea of what they would look like in game, so I made a quick and dirty mockup. If they hit you they will turn you to stone.

Full Size

4x Magnification

Coming up with enemies for the overworld is difficult. I need enemies that can either fly, teleport, or hop in order to traverse the oddities in the terrain and still look alright doing it. For the dungeons I can use more flat spans so that opens up a whole lot more possibilities. Code for me is black and white, I can just bang it out, but the art comes in spurts. I wish I was an artist and could just bang out the art as quickly as code.

[NightrainSrt4]

Again with the short on time thing, so I leave you with another quick mockup.

Full Size:

4x Zoom:

[AmEv]

Might I suggest some sort of crazy bird (like a crow) as a surface enemy.

[NightrainSrt4]

Yup. It was part of the plan. The issue is drawing up all these enemies and then animating them. I should just be using my free time to work on more blocks so I can get this playtest out, but . . . just going with whatever motivates me at the moment.

[CrazyTeaPot]

This looks really cool! I haven't read through much of your posts, but I've skimmed through the pictures. It looks like a 2D side scrolling minecraft game! WHICH IS AWESOME! :o

What platform will it be on when finished? How close to being finished is it?

Very cool project, can't wait to see the finished product! You know... so I can play it. :p