What fantasy RPG is complete without magic? Today’s Alpha v0.7.2 release introduces spellcasting. The current implementation is preliminary and incomplete, but a handful of spells are provided, primarily for playtesting purposes.
In addition to spellcasting, v0.7.x includes streamlined weapon crafting and simplified character abilities. The gameplay continues to come into focus with the game design, with the goal of being feature-complete for Beta.
I’ve posted a minor Potential RPG update for Alpha playtesters (v0.7.1). The core experience remains similar to past Alpha releases, but several gameplay subsystems are in the process of being streamlined, improved, or generally updated. In fact, several elements are currently in flux, as gameplay is not the primary purpose of this release.
The real motivation behind this release is to evaluate a new server hosting environment, potentially for Beta (and beyond). Alpha playtesters should be on the lookout for behavioral changes or technical issues that may arise from the new hosting environment.
My immediate attention remains focused on game design, with the goal of becoming gameplay-complete for Beta. Afterward, I will turn my attention to evaluating technical issues, including stability and scalability under this new hosting environment.
I have returned from my voyage of game design discovery. The preceding software development gap represents not a wasteland of non-coding in the SLOC graph, but a vast sea of game design. Setting out Jul 31 from the lands of Alpha, on the high tide of game system capability, but in the rough surf of gameplay unrest, I navigated the wide ocean of potential game design. Through swells of concepts and torrents of rules, I sought for the tranquil waters of design simplicity and steady wind of compelling gameplay. Having charted such a passage, I struck land Sep 20 upon the shores of Beta, committing the first of my design discoveries to the travel log (software repository), as chronicled under Recent Improvements (see the sandbar… er, sidebar). The fruits of this journey shall be had by all, as I venture forth to forge new Lines of Code, as progress progresses anew.
It seems that I’ve overlooked August. Actually, August was comprised of summer travel, summer activity, summer cold, and summer game design. Despite other activities, I’m really and truly making a push for complete and final beta-worthy game design. The game systems are now (on paper) simpler and more cohesive. The bulk of the design integration will be tweaks to existing Alpha code, but some new development will be involved. Consider the prior (current) Alpha release to be a palette cleanser. It’s now finally nearly time to implement Beta gameplay.
Potential RPG Alpha Playtesters (PRAPs) will find the Alpha v0.7 client and server have been deployed. Upon entering the world, enjoy the new terrain edging. You’ll soon notice the lack of much else in the world. I’ve disabled several components for pending gameplay improvements. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve been so busy improving the game world that I haven’t even taken time to write about it lately. There are several significant improvements that are almost ready for Alpha testing. For the moment, here is a glimpse at a new rendering capability: Terrain Edging.
The world surface is composed of hexagonal terrain tiles, which, despite the elevation in complexity they incur, I’m quite pleased with in general. In practice, they do tend to create rather pointy, unattractive edges. The purpose of terrain edging is to provide visually appealing (see artistic disclaimer below) transitions between terrain.
Inspired by the article Handling Terrain Transitions, the world now automatically computes where to place edge tiles where terrain types meet. The system can support general-purpose edging for each terrain type, as well as special-purpose transitions from one terrain type to another. For example, grass edging may include general-purpose crinkly edges, but provide an embankment when next to a lake.
To make this work, each terrain type must include a set of edge tiles. More to the point, all the terrain and edge tiles must be drawn, preferably by someone with more artistic capability than myself. The screenshot shows the potential for terrain edging, but Alpha testers will have to tolerate my graphics until I can procure better art. (Note: Trees not drawn by me.)
As mentioned previously, my current focus is to prepare the game to support improved graphics. At this stage, I’ve adjusted the way graphics are managed by the game, making it easier for me to add new terrain and scenery (and soon, creatures, items, etc.).
Alpha Playtesters should read this forum topic regarding broken maps. Other than that, today’s Alpha testing release (v0.6.3.5) includes a few tweaks. There are likely some new glitches due to the new tileset system, so, as usual, have at it intrepid Playtesters.
Technical tasks have momentarily waylaid gameplay integration. I’ve restructured the graphic rendering routines to make the entire painting pipeline more stable and efficient. Instead of independent timers and redundant repaints, world rendering is now driven on a single timed thread, which carefully coalesces all collected dirty regions to repaint as little as possible on each rendering cycle. Most of the rendering cycle is no longer performed on the Swing/AWT event dispatch thread (only the painting portion), making the client more responsive in general.
The immediate benefit is a reduction in (complete removal of?) some avatar blips and jumps I was seeing during world navigation. Any remaining graphic issues will be easier to debug in the cleaner pipeline. The improved design will allow for future performance testing and tuning, as more sprites and effects are added. In fact, aside from general improvement, the motive for these updates is to begin a graphics enhancement process, which will finalize the handling of sprites and effects in the rendering system, allowing integration of better graphics, with the goal of providing a richer world environment.
Gameplay integration continues. Alpha testers will see a timed task queue pop up upon certain actions (such as drinking potions and changing equipment during combat). This functionality provides the game engine with the capability to coordinate character actions based on situation (such as combat) and game rules (such as attack speed). Actions that result in lingering effects (such as potions, spells, and afflictions) show how long they will last.
Under the hood, character navigation and combat attacks are also integrated with this timing queue. As more rules are integrated, this will allow the player better control over the combat situation. The goal is to ultimately provide a more strategic combat experience. Until then, Alpha testers can have fun attempting to break the new feature.
I’ve been taking some time to solidify the game design. Alpha Playtesters will start to see incremental updates, as I integrate the latest gameplay decisions. Some simple adjustments have rather fundamental impact, such as altering character ability computations. In addition to these enhancements, there are a number of new gameplay features in the pipeline. The goal of this next wave of updates is to bring Alpha a significant step closer to a feature-complete Beta.
