Sep
19
2012

0.1.19: Getting water from A to B

Just a quick update today to make water a bit more interesting: I’ve added water pumps. These can be placed wherever and will shift water in their tile up one, so you can stack them in a column to move water as far as necessary (though note that the water update cycle is limited to 3x3 screens centered around the player for performance reasons). When it reaches the top of a pump, it will spread left and right if both tiles are empty (or just left/right if one is empty) and stay where it is if they aren’t.

Version 0.1.19
+Added water pumps

posted 8 months ago

Sep
18
2012

0.1.18: Water water bloody everywhere

Sorry for the lack of updates: it’s not because I haven’t been working on it, but I’ve been working on a fairly big feature that’s had a few setbacks.

Dynamic water is now working in single player though! It’s not entirely physically accurate, but presents a nice model without impacting performance too much. At the moment you’ve essentially got an infinite water hose in your inventory, so go nuts and make some nice lakes, rivers and waterfalls (or, if you’re like me: swimming pools).

Currently it’s just a tool and a toy, the only negative effect is slowing your movement. However, I do plan to add other fluids such as lava, acid and radioactive slime which will be damaging to the player without proper shielding.

Version 0.1.18
+Dynamic water in single player
+’Water’ item in inventory slot 2
+Performance enhancements to collision detection

posted 8 months ago

Sep
12
2012

0.1.17: Personal Property for Pros

So I’ve managed to tick off a key feature that has been on my list for quite a while: inventory is now working! Press I to show the inventory popup and drag and drop items around between the hotbar (top of the screen) and the main inventory (Minecraft-style). You’ll probably notice a couple of extra block types have been added…These were actually there all along, I was just limited by the available hotbar space (10 slots) and didn’t want to shift anything else out.

You’ll also notice that the popup UI looks like crap at the moment, but at this stage I’m more focusing on pure functionality - I’ll clean everything up later.


   
All the new blocks are aesthetic, but I’ll definitely add a few dynamic ones in over the next few days.

Version 0.1.17
    +Player inventory implemented in single and multiplayer
    +Several new blocks added

posted 8 months ago

Sep
09
2012

0.1.16: The clock starts ticking

As it was probably the last sunny weekend of summer, I didn’t get a huge amount done this weekend - as a Brit I’ve got to make the most of any sunshine. Still, I did finally fix the last lighting bugs (hopefully), so now I should be able to add in tiles with varying light levels, rather than just super bright torches.
   
With regards to the title of this post, I’ve also added a universal clock. Since the universe is now populated by machines, I couldn’t just start from 3000AD with a standard 365 day year: that wouldn’t make much sense either off the earth or to machines with no masters, so it’s all metric now. 10 hours per day, 100 days per cycle and 10 cycles per year.

Version 0.1.16
    +Added universal time clock
    +Added user join/left status messages
    +Fixed more lighting bugs

posted 8 months ago

Sep
06
2012

0.1.15: The sky and how to reach it

Another new tile today, this one should make getting from the bottom to the top of the map much easier. Also to add to the whole day/night cycle added yesterday, I’ve added a proper sky background. At the moment it’s a greeny blueish hue, but in future the color will vary depending on the makeup of the atmosphere.

Version 0.1.15
    +Added new AntiGrav Platform, which boosts the player upwards
    +Added a proper sky background
    +Fixed bug where text field cursor would blink like crazy
    +Fixed a minor lighting issue where a tile light value wouldn’t reset after being removed if the global light value was <7 (max)

posted 8 months ago

Sep
06
2012

0.1.14: The world now turns

The major change today is the introduction of the day/night cycle. This will probably become apparent if you join the server and can’t see a bloody thing because it’s the middle of the night.
   
    In both single player and multiplayer (server-side, so it’s the same time on every client) the day lasts ten game minutes, followed by a 2.5 minute sunset, ten minutes of night time, and finally a 2.5 minute sunrise.
   
    Implementing this took far longer than I initially expected it to, mainly because I’d coded a lot of the lighting to work against the maximum light level (7), rather than the current global light level (anywhere between 1 and 7). However, now that it’s done, it should be quite easy to add a lot of variety to planets: short/long days, perpetually dark planets, planets with multiple suns, etc.
   
Version 0.1.14
    +Added day/night cycle to single and multiplayer (synced across clients)
    +Fixed bug where client map would occasionally fall out of sync with server map

posted 8 months ago

Sep
05
2012

0.1.13: engine stuff and spikey stuff

Lots more behind-the-scenes changes today, but found the time to add in a new tile type anyway.

Version 0.1.13
    +Added ElectroSpike tile
    +Player now spawns at highest solid tile at map width / 2
    +Fixed a couple of minor lighting bugs
    +Refactored a lot of the player/network player code (no front-end changes on this though)

posted 8 months ago

Sep
03
2012

Super Digbot 0.1.12: fixes and stuff

Just a couple of fixes today and minor improvements. Chat doesn’t get in the way as much now and for some reason I changed the random usernames from 3-digit to letter-number-letter-number, possibly so someone would eventually get either R2D2 or C3P0 :)

Version 0.1.2
+Further improvements to chat (less interference with player on screen, longer messages allowed)
+Random usernames changed from ‘Digbot xxx’ to ‘Digbot AxAx’ (e.g. R2D2)
+Other player usernames hidden in darkness
+Fixed bug where player couldn’t drop down a platform with an adjacent torch
+Fixed big where player would fall off right side of map in multiplayer

posted 8 months ago

Sep
02
2012

Multiplayer and more in Super Digbot

The open alpha of Super Digbot is now available. I posted to the reddit screenshot saturday post today and had a few people on multiplayer, which was fun. I got some great feedback and suggestions, so the ‘to do’ list has grown immensely.

After messing around building stuff and listening to ideas, I fixed up the chat and a couple of minor issues:

Version 0.1.1
+ Fixed various issues with multiplayer chat
+ Fixed issue where player would fall through an adjacent block when dropping off a platform

posted 8 months ago

Aug
17
2012

Super Digbot

The ‘current experiment’ is coming along very nicely. Super Digbot is a block-based mining game inspired by the likes of Terraria, Minecraft and Dig-N-Rig.

As Digbot, you activate on an unknown world on an unknown date, with no idea of what to do and where to go. Only by exploring the surface of the planet, deep below and, when you have the means, space and other planets, will you be able to unravel the mysteries of your mission.

It’s obviously still got a long way to go in development, but I’ve got the engine running quite nicely and have something akin to a ‘Creative’ free-play mode, which I’ll open up for anyone to play with soon. The full game will be very in-depth and continuously updated, so I might do something similar to Minecraft and other indie games of late, and open up the alpha version for a small donation to help fund the development.

In the meantime, a few screenshots…

posted 9 months ago

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