My sprites and other animals

There's been a bit of gap with updates to Worldcrafter since I've been working on an Android client for Stellar Forces, which is being released imminently.  I've been creating a few new creatures though, like cows and chickens; the chickens will probably lay eggs, and the cows might do something with milk if I can work out some kind of gameplay into the process.

Worldcrafter 0.8 Released!

The mini-crafting guide

Worldcrafter 0.8 has been released with the following new features-

* Lots of new crafting options
* New blocks: furnace, clay, glass, bricks, cobwebs, wool, bones, bread, bed
* Sheep & Pigs
* New game mode: Farming
* In survival mode, you can only see baddies that your avatar can see
* Mini crafting guide
* Mobs are saved with the save-game
* Guide accessible from inside the game

Worldcrafter: Farming

Part of the big update coming soon to Worldcrafter includes a new game mode: Farming.  Now, as well as being able to grow crops, you can now farm pigs & sheep.  It's turning into Farmville!  Except you can get wool from the sheep and use it to make a bed.  And you get some nice lamp chops if you kill them.

Worldcrafter 0.7 Released

Get off my laaaaand!

Worldcrafter 0.7 has been released with the following improvements:-

* Skeletons
* More "helper arrows" on screen.
* Can now walk "through" trees and jump on branches
* More trees
* Can grow wheat
* Now player throws seeds to plant them
* Can return to the same map when killed
* Slowed down the sun & moon
* New block: Girder

Keeping track of thousands of objects

The image above is a cross-section of the randomly-generated map in Worldcrafter.  You can see tunnels, dungeons (some with floors of lava, mwah ha ha!) a lake and a lava river running along the bottom.  Other purple specks are things like monster generators, tangleweed and maybe even a chest of treasure.  It's pretty big, and yet the program has to keep track of a lot of the map blocks since they need processing to check if they should do anything, e.g. if they are water or lava, then flood.

The way the software does this is to have 3 lists of game "objects":-

1) Objects that need processing every game tick, e.g. a zombie.
2) Objects that don't need processing straight away but every few seconds at least, e.g. water blocks.
3) Objects that don't need processing until the player can see them.

So the first group of objects get processed every game tick, since it wouldn't do to have a zombie just stand there while the player throws rocks at it's head (although that might be realistic).  One or two objects from the second list are processed every tick since updates aren't as urgent.  And of the third massive list, one to two objects are checked every game tick to see if they are in range.  If they are, they are moved to the second list.

Easy peasy!  Look out for the new Worldcrafter update towards the end of the week.

Worldcrafter 0.6 Released

Version 0.6 of Worldcrafter has been released with the following new features:-

* Wiki guide is now included in the app
* Adventure Mode, with line-of-sight and an objective!
* Acorns only grow in light
* New block type - Slime
* On-screen arrow icons for left/right - as requested by Manny333

Worldcrafter: Killer Wasps

Take two wasps into the shower?

Zombies are not the only enemy the player must contend with in Worldcrafter.  Killer Wasps also make an appearance, and since they are a bit smaller, the player must be a bit more accurate with their rock-lobbing.

Also in this screenshot you can see a pool of slime, and a small globule that has spurted out and is making its way towards the player.  Urgh!

Worldcrafter 0.5 Released

Mind the lava!

Version 0.5 of Worldcrafter, the Minecraft alternative for Android, has been released with the following new features:-

* The player's inventory is now saved with the map
* Improved world creation
* Darkness when going underground
* Zombies can destroy walls
* More animated blocks
* Killer wasps
* New block type: Sand
* Moved icons to give more visibility
* Health bar
* Random items in chests

Hitchhiker's Guide to Worldcrafter

Since there are quite a few block types and gameplay "elements" in Worldcrafter, the player needs some kind of reference for everything, and this is exactly what the Worldcrafter Guide is for.  It's just like a 'wiki' that runs in your Android phone, and has links to all the block types, monsters and gameplay elements in the game.  And it's completely free!

Worldcrafter: Version 0.4 Released

Version 0.4 has just been released!  Here is a rundown of the latest major new features:-

* Apples grow on trees
* New blocks - Admantium, iron ore, flint
* Shows current selected block type
* If construction mode, the player has access to all blocks
* Now collect items by clicking on them
* Zombies can drop flint
* Player can start fires

The latest version of Worldcrafter is available here.

Worldcrafter: I am the God of Hell Fire

..And I Bring You Fire!  Dum dum duuuum duum...

Here's a screenshot* of one of the new blocks, fire**.  It can be created by dropping a piece of iron ore** and throwing*** a piece of flint at it.

* I've discovered how to take screenshots now without having to run the slow-as-a-crawl emulator.  DDMS has the option in it.  Get ready for some much better screenshots coming soon.  Although this one isn't bad, as it shows a tree growing from an acorn as well as a fire.

** Note that this is feature is in version 0.4, which will probably be out on Monday 26th October due to the rigorous testing regime we have here.

** I've decided that one of the way the players can 'craft' (to use the Minecraft terminology) is to place one kind of block and throw another kind at it.  If they are "compatible" (like iron ore and flint are) something will happen, like a fire will be created.  'But how will a player know what blocks are compatible?' I hear you ask.  That's what I created the mini-wiki for, which I'll write about on Monday probably.

Worldcrafter: Dungeons

Looking for dungeons, and the treasures that they hold, will probably be a big part of Worldcrafter.  Here you can see a dungeon that the player has found, and they are currently stood on top of a treasure chest ready to open it.  However, the blue/black chequered block next to it is a rumbling zombie generator, so our hero better get a move on before one appears!

Also in this screenshot you can see the new "ID" icon, which will help the player identify blocks.  If they click on it and then click on a block, the type of block will be identified.

Worldcrafter: Name Change Required

As I suspected, I've definitely got to change the name of this game.  I can't even find it myself on Android Market, since the search results are swamped with a million World of Warcraft apps thanks to Google trying to be clever and assuming you were searching for WoW.

Suggestions for a new name are welcome.Please let me know at the Worldcrafter forums.

Worldcrafter: Released

The first version has just been released!  Feedback is welcome as to which features players want next.

One of the semi-annoying things about Google is that if you do a search for "Worldcrafter", you'll have to wade through approximately a million results for "Worldcraft", whichis a bit more popular (at the moment).  Maybe I might have to rename it for the first full release.

There are a few new features that have been added recently:-
* Zombie generators in the dungeons
* The player's health slowly goes down
* There are snow-capped mountains further on if the player explores.

Worldcrafter: Here be Zombies

Any game worth its salt must have the current "enemy du jour" in it, which these days seems to be Zombies.

Here you can see one of the little blighters trying to creep up on our hero. What can he do to save himself? At the moment he can either run, or mine some rocks and throw them at it. But more may be waiting round the corner. They normally only come out at night, but thanks to my new and patented "debug mode", I can conjur them up whenever I want. What's that you say? "Prior art"???

Worldcrafter: Animated Sky

Instead of having a static sky, I've decided to animate it with sprites for the sun and clouds. This gives far more variety, and also also for an additional game devices like day and night.

Worldcrafter Controls

Trying to optimize controls for a phone is always a case of treading a fine line between making it intuitive but simple. I've opted to make it so that tilting the phone left/right moves the player's avatar, while touching the far sides of the screen makes them jump. Touching icons obviously selects them, and touching adjacent blocks either mines them or places them. And finally, "flicking" from the avatar outwards makes them throw a rock in that direction. Now the player is almost ready to fight the zombies!

The Map

I eventually realised that the only way if I could know if my map generation algorythm was any good would be if I could see the results. With that in mind, I created the map screen, which shows the whole map to the player:-


I'll probably add some colours in the future, although I'll also probably remove it from the final game as it will defeat the object of exploring. Still, in the above map you can see the hills and water, and quite a few dungeons ready to be explored. Next stop: volcanos, pyramids and maybe a bridge or two.

First Things First

Woah! Slow down there young programmer. You're writing a game? Before you do anything, you obviously need a website for your game, a wiki and a forum. (And a blog of course). Even if you've got nothing to put in them, apart from a list of all the things you intend to do, you might as well get them up and running so the Googlebots of this world get to know about them. You never know, someone might actually read them (or, God forbid, actually write something).

The Old New Way

I'm sure I'm not the first programmer to look at my code that I wrote years ago, and rather than think "what a pile of crap" (as usually happens) but actually "What? I knew how to do that? I wish I still did!".

After writing my own 2D library using "nodes" and "spatials" (inspired by the "simplicity" of jMonkeyEngine) it turned out that it wasn't the most efficient way to do the graphics. I ended up using a simple 2D array, meaning I could easily calculate which tiles were visible and only draw those. SO now the game runs pretty damn smoothly*, which is a relief.

(* It does on my phone anyway. Other phones may have different levels of performance.)

Worldcrafter: Map Generation

The only screenshot of Worldcrafter shows the next problem - nice random world generation. At the moment it is a simple flat landscape, which doesn't make for compelling gameplay. I'm currently in the process of creating a world generator, which will incorporate hills, lakes, mountains, and maybe the odd ash-spewing volcano.

Worldcrafter: Day Zero

This is it. The first post of the new game I'm creating called Worldcrafter. I've got so many ideas for it that they're leaking out my head, so I better write them down quickly.

But what is Worldcrafter?

In a nutshell, it's probably going to start off just like a 2D Minecraft for Android, which there doesn't seem to be at the moment*, and even if there was it's probably not to my liking.



* There are thousands of apps on the Android Market, and Minecraft seems so incredibly popular that I find it hard the believe there isn't one. There's a 3D version and a top-down 2D version, but I couldn't find a 2D side-view.

As you can see from the above screenshot, I've got the basic platformer-style engine up and running. If I can work out how to do a video, I'll upload one.

Anyway, I did say it will start off being just like Minecraft, but the similarity will end soon. It will contain more variety of worlds, and also take advantage of the 2D aspect. Maybe the player might be able to enter a Super Mario world! Or build there own world. I want the world to be persistent, so players can create epic landscapes for others to play in. And emergent gameplay. Etc.. etc.. It's all a long way off yet though.