Alpha 30 Build Notes

Recipes
* (Fix) “Make All” button would not, in fact, make all. It would make, for all intents and purposes, none. This was happening for stackable items.

Sentient
* (Change) “Add Inventory GUID” function was doing too much. Leaned and cleaned it. That is, removed the check for “stackable”, as we are able to assume that with the GUID passed, it either exists in the Inventory (is stackable) or it doesn’t exist (not stackable).

Item Drops
* (Add) When more than one item drops onto a block, you see a “Treasure” image, rather than the top-most item image.

Alpha 29 Build Notes

Steel Armor
* (Add) Steel armor has been added to the game (recipes). Helmet, Boots, Chest, Hands and Legs. Five pieces, as opposed to three for the Copper armor, and two for the Leaf armor.

Recipes
* (Change) Some changes:
– Brick ingredient is 1 Dirt (down from 5).
– Steel ingredients are now 1 Iron and 1 Coal.
– Wooden Pickaxe no longer requires any Copper Coins.
– Wooden Pickaxe ingredients have been adjusted, 2 Trunks (down from 3), 5 Leaves (down from 10).
– Tree Trunk ingredient in “Wooden Block” is now 1 (down from 2).
* (Fix) In the Make Recipe code there was a possibility of using the old “qItems.GUID” field, without the queue record being retrieved.

Saving
* (Update) “Save” button enabled in the menu and now calls the “SaveGame” function. So you can save the game and IF (planning to fail) the game GPFs, your progress is saved.
* (Add) The standard quick-save “F5” key now saves the game.
* (Update) “SaveGame” function now lets you know the game was saved by putting a message on the game screen.

Interface
* (Update) Messages that were previously at the bottom left of the screen moved up to accommodate for the XP bar.
* (Fix) When a Tool is unequipped, the HUD is now notified correctly.

Game Items (Including Items)
* (Change) Removed the Items queue from the World class. Replaced with a series of Groups in the Game class AND a memory file for the “Game Items”. Game Items are made up of Armor, Weapons, Items, Trinkets and Tools. MASSIVE CHANGE. REALLY COOL. COOL BANANAS EVEN! UPPERCASE!

Item Pickup
* (Change) Removed the check on whether you were doing something else (and so were not allowed to “pickup” because of the GPF that would happen, because of the global items queue – which has been replaced with the memory file).

I’m Actually Doing Something!

With Build 27 came the visible recognition of harvesting (and item durability).

The first time I harvested and the little “lifebar” appeared on a block, going downwards to nothing, my heart leapt!

In my Minecraft playing history, there was always the durability display.

But in Ballikin, my brain had been going thus far without any muscle memory of this, because it didn’t exist. Duh.

So, seeing the little bar appear and steadily shrink sent big-props-endorphins running to and through my brain. This is REALLY COOL!

It’s a visual recognition system.

I’m actually doing something!

Alpha 28 Build Notes

Durability
* (Change) Durability of some items changed. Flyswats down from 50 to 15. Wooden Pickaxe down from 50 to 30. Stone Pickaxe and Stone Sword down from 300 to 150. More adjusting will come as we find balance in the .. course?

Recipes
* (Fix) “Make All” button was only ever making one if the item was not stackable.

GPFs
* (Fix) Moved the “Z” key logic out of the Notifications and into the Event embed code .. Means that the Z key will now only work if no other keys are being pressed (or actions being done). Removes the GPF of global queue accessing. Obviously would be better to actually Critical Section the global queue. Obviously.

Alpha 27 Build Notes

Harvesting
* (Update) The density or life of a block is now shown when harvesting.
* (Update) Big change to the POWER function, which retrieves how much density to remove from a Block. This has led to an overall increase in Power (now includes the STR calculation).

Block Life!

Block Life!

Durability
* (Add) Durability added to Items (includes Weapons, Tools and Armor). Armor functionality not in yet. Weapons and Tools – Yes! Go team!
* (Add) Durability level shows on HUD (Inventory coming).

Item Durability

Item Durability

Help
* (Change) Url changed from the wikia page to https://ballikin.com/manual/.

GPFs
* (Fix) Shoddy dodgy coding had led to the possibility of a global queue being accessed at the same time from two or more places (without any of the wonderful Critical Section magic). Silly boy. I hope I’ve tracked them down, but have a niggling feeling there’s a few more places left.

Alpha 26 Build Notes

Doors
* (Update) Doors now correctly show as vertical or horizontal, and are set that way when put down (between blocks).

Block History
* (Fix) Doors could be overridden by Grass/Dirt/Sand.

Player
* (Add) Attributes added into Player structure – STR, DEX, CON, SPD, WIS, INT.
* (Add) Following attribute functionality added in: STR – Damage, Power (planned); DEX – Critical Hit, Dodge; CON – Health Regen, Total Health.
* (Add) “Base Health” added, to help with calculating Max health.

Character
* (Fix) Error in code (wasn’t remembering qItems position) when dropping items onto Equipment slots meant that incorrect items would be placed (and original would be overwritten).

Recipes
* (Fix) When “Create All” clicked, was added all into one Inventory slot, regardless of whether the item was stackable or not.

Alpha 25 Build Notes

Recipes
* (Update) Overhaul of the interface. Similar to the inventory, better placement, images for what is being made and for the ingredients.
* (Add) Filter for Recipes upgraded to include weapons, armor and tools (along with blocks and items).

The New Recipe Interface

The New Recipe Interface

Doors
* (Add) The invaluable Wooden Door has been added! When CLOSED it is impassable (not for long), when OPEN it’s .. open.

A couple of doors to keep out the bad guys!

A couple of doors to keep out the bad guys!

Sentients
* (Change) Attack radius changed, and standardised (uses globals rather than actual number in code).

Block History
* (Update) Worked on the code, although it’s hard to know .. a bit too complicated. Placed blocks (eg. Wooden Crates) would go missing on save/load.

Bad Snails
* (Add) A new mob has been added .. watch out! Bad snails (they have red eyes, thusly, evil) come out at night (and hide away in the day). They have super-enhanced tracking ability, and won’t give up easily!

The red eyes .. Reeeeddddd eyeeeesss!

Mean and nasty, covered in slime .. Bad Snails!

Player
* (Fix) On dying, the current health of the player is now set to their max health (as opposed to the level 1 beginning health).

Alpha 24 Build Notes

Character
* (Change) Removed the Creating and Harvesting abilities.
* (Change) Harvesting, Creating and Combat (potentially) receive experience.
* (Add) Experience bar appears next to the health bar on screen.
* (Add) Popups added for Health and Experience bars.

XP Bar + Popup

The Experience Bar and it’s Popup

Items On Ground
* (Change) Only those that are visible will be drawn.

Harvesting
* (Change) Levels adjusted down for Coal, Copper, Iron, Silver, Gold.
* (Change) BIG CHANGE .. No more Harvesting Ability, so all Harvesting checks are made against the Character level.

Creating
* (Change) Each Recipe now has a “Minimum Create Level”, meaning that until your character level equals or surpasses that number, you won’t see the Recipe in the list.

Repopulating
* (Add) Every 5 minutes the game will repopulate the sentient creatures throughout the world.

Currency
* (Update) For all the fiduciary gurus out there, the currency system has been born. Gold, Silver and Copper are all working together as one. So if you have a Gold coin, it effectively amounts to 10,000 Coppers (or whatever the exchange rate is).

Terrain
* (Update) Area around the Player will always be cleared when first loading the game.

Alpha 23 Build Notes

Lots of internal behind-the-scenes stuff in this build. Faster saving. More sound effects .. Screeeee!

File Location
* (Change) Changed back from COMMON_APPDATA to APPDATA . Was causing some issues (not running as admin, even though installed with admin rights?, so that the FM3 UPG file was not being opened) that I’m too lazy to fix.

Installer
* (Change) Installer location for resources changed from COMMON_APPDATA to APPDATA.

Wooden Pickaxe
* (Add) Added in a wooden pickaxe. Obviously a little easier to get than the stone pickaxe.

Character
* (Update) “Quantity In Hand” column added to the Ingredients browse on the Recipes tab. Shows how much of whatever you have in your inventory.

Saving
* (Add) Save progress window functionality added.
* (Update) Block History now only saves new history, dramatically reducing the save time (was noticeable after playing for a decent amount of time).

Terrain Loading
* (Update) Made changes to code which checks if Tree is going to be within the Player and skips.

Sound Effects
* (Add) Basic “Hit” effects added in for Sheep, Pinkeyes, Demiweres and Jotun.
* (Add) “Pickup” effect added.