Previous: Progress Update #9 - Play Testing Needed - #17 by popstarfreas
If you want to give gameplay feedback, the link above will take you to the last play test build, it is not updated with these changes. I will be running another play test at some point when I reach the next milestone.
Terrain Visuals
To make the world feel less blocky, a few changes have been made.
Blending
The first change is better block merging, where different blocks are blended at the edge, removing visual discontinuities and also getting rid of straight lines:
becomes
We actually have two blend types. For distinct blocks we have edging, like dirt and stone:
For similar blocks, like these two dirt variants, we have gradient blending:
Carving
The second change is in the outline of the terrain. Any tile can be carved pixel by pixel, this is part of the pixel physics. The world generator now uses this feature to carve edges in generated terrain. To enhance this look further, the edges of carved tiles now use highlights and shadows so that it looks seamless.
See the difference below
Old:
New:
Multiplayer
Fairly soon the first draft of the dungeon will be finished with its boss. The game is also being updated towards multiplayer support as this is a key feature and will provide a challenge in optimising certain aspects of the pixel simulation to remain performant.
The goal is to support 8 player coop, meaning that the minimum specs should be able to join a server with 7 other people and not experience performance issues.
