Tuesday, July 31, 2012

(Townseed Revision Build)

(Townseed Pre-Revision Build)

(Preorder Townseed)

(Townseed on Facebook)

REVISION 04 UPDATE NOTES

I had this incredibly pressured feeling doing this update, since it's the last one before the end of the 8bit funding campaign, but ultimately there's no sense stressing out over it, so here we go.

The world map has been implemented. Unlike in the pre-revision release, you can access the world map from both overworld and local view by pressing the Escape key, meaning you can check your location from the local view without having to exit to the overworld. It has a nice, soft-edged fog of war on it now too, instead of the chunky rectangle that was there before. You'll be given an on-screen prompt to save and quit from this screen. I will further refine this to reduce the risk of accidentally quitting the game.

Hit detection in local view has been implemented, and it's been restructured so that the work system will function through it instead of the bizarre peripheral workaround I had before. This means I'll be able to do interesting things like having the player take down multiple obstacles at once, should I decide to go that route.  You can still walk over water but that'll be my next thing. On a similar note, the time-of-day water shining has been added to local view. Water shining has been added to Marsh terrain in both views. Color-blending on local area tiles is in place for most commonly-adjacent terrain types.

That's it for now. I will be posting an update on Wednesday this week (probably not a new build) to let people know what it will mean for Townseed moving forward that I haven't hit the funding goal. Don't worry, it's not that bad :)

Monday, July 23, 2012

Revision Progress 03

(Townseed Revision Build)
(Townseed Pre-Revision Build)
(Preorder Townseed)
(Townseed on Facebook)

REVISION 03 UPDATE NOTES

I was going to wait until later in the day to post this update, but a mighty electrical storm is brewing, so after backing up all my working files onto an external and not-connected-to-any-power drive, I'm preparing an update with what I've got now.

Added crazy-fast debug dashing to both local and Regional view. Press the tilde ~ to enable it.

A new, sexier-than-before minimap for local mode. You can now see the position of the map update in real time instead of the "Block at a time" method it used before.

Further improved water glittering, because I love how it sparkles.. so hypnotic..

Local exploration routines have been reconstructed and simplified, which was the bulk of the work this week, and are now being assembled in a single pass instead of from a multi-pass as was the case for the old version (whuhoo!) this should mean an overall smoother ride for the PC. I'm still in the process of instituting the color blending for local tiles, and you won't see the player in the local view yet.

The Local view is the part that is most important, and the area that was giving me trouble in the old version. Laying out the code with foreknowledge of what I'll be doing with it helps me to construct it in a way that will be straightforward for future developments.

In other news, this is the last full week of the 8-Bit funding campaign. If you wanna get in on any of the bonuses I have listed up there, now's the time!

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Townseed Revision 02

(Townseed Revision Build)

(Townseed Pre-Revision Build)

(Preorder Townseed)

(Townseed on Facebook)

REVISION 02 UPDATE NOTES

File saving and management is back in place, as well as the new Savegame listing screen. Hit detection for the overworld has been put in, and the time of day clock has been adjusted to a reasonable (and I think final) timing.

Next I will be working on reconstructing the local exploration mode, so we'll start to get the functionality of the game back to where version 0.10 was, only a LOT smarter, and a lot smoother.

As an aside, I finished up a bunch of scripts I was doing for work, and I'm waiting for business paperwork to arrive by mail, so  this coming week should be a good one for making progress.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Townseed Revision Progress

Figuring out pixel shaders, parceling out code, converting text items to icons, dealing with computer viruses, establishing Townseed as a legal business, still doing contract work - there is an awful lot going on, but you all deserve to see how the revision is going.

Note that this does NOT have all the same functionality as version 0.10. This is very much a work in progress (as Townseed has been all along I suppose) Because of the way I am simplifying the code, some items can be ported over easily from the old version (such as the portrait drawing routines) and some items need to be redone wholly (such as the world generation code and the exploration mode).
Think of this version as a visual demo. You cannot save or load characters and worlds presently, but you can see the new character creation interface, the intro cinematic, and the night/day cycle (at an accelerated clock for observational purposes) complete with some nifty pixel shaders.

Crashing is possible when wandering too close to the edges of the world. There is no collision detection yet so you can wander freely over all terrain for the time being.

That's it for now! Things should hopefully be calming down soon, and I will continue porting and improving features from the old version to get the functionality to where it was and beyond.

Here is the link to try it out - TOWNSEED REVISION 01

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

A new friend

I made a new friend this week. His name is Sirefef and he is a big jerk.

On tuesday, my computer acquired the sirefef virus. I'm not at risk of losing any data - I back up my files to an external drive regularly to safeguard against just such a thing, and the drive was not powered on or even connected to my machine at the time, but my working computer is likely to out of commission for a few days as I work through the issue with tech support, as if my update this week wasn't already slow enough.

Sorry for the delays, and thanks for understanding. Although I can't get to the files to show you right now I've just finished rewriting the overworld code to allow for time of day lighting adjustments. The same code should be easily portable to local area exploration.


As an aside, be very careful when updating your web browser's flash player. The virus was disguised as a flash player update and that's how I aquired it.

Monday, July 2, 2012

Late Update

Ladies and Gents, Just a quick heads up that the update this week will be a few days late. I had a wedding party to go to this weekend, and all that combined with the Canada day festivities made for a pretty hectic few days. I'll post a more complete update on Wednesday! Seeya then!