Alpha.13 Build Notes

* You might want to start a new Player and Game with this build. *

Equipment

* (Add) Rest of the slots added to the Equipment tab in the Character Screen.
* (Update) When you put an item from the Inventory into an Equipment slot, the item is removed from the Inventory.
* (Update) When you remove an item from an Equipment slot, the item is added into the Inventory.
* (Fix) Double-clicking on an item in the Inventory would always move the item to the Equipment slot (if viable) and continue to decrement the quantity until zero.

Equipment Slots!

So many equipment slots!

Stone Pickaxes
* (Add) Added into the game.

The Stone Pickaxe

Ahhh, the trusty Pickaxe!

Wooden Crates
* (Add) Wooden Crates added in. Made from Tree Trunks.

Wooden Crates!

Where would a game be without wooden crates?

Character Screen
* (Change) “Stats” tab changed to “Totals”. Confusing with the actual character stats (STR, DEX, ..).

Classes (Coding)
* (Add) Item class added. Most everything (not Sentients) now uses this as parent, instead of Object.

Harvesting
* (Add) The Harvesting Ability is now in play. All blocks now have a minimum Harvesting level. And all blocks, when harvested, will increase your Harvesting level if your level is within the boundaries for that block. So basically, you can’t mine Gold until you have a certain Harvesting level.
* (Add) When a Pickaxe is equipped the number of hits needed to harvest is decreased, based on the type of the Pickaxe. Soon I want to make it also based on the Harvesting level.

Messaging
* (Add) Basic messaging system in place to notify the Player of stuff.

Messaging

Messaging feedback is goooood

More Feedback

More feedback

Block History
* (Fix) The save file name wasn’t being correctly primed.

Alpha.12 Build Notes

Mouse Clicks
* (Fix) When moving diagonally the Right Mouse “down click” could stay on indefinitely (meaning that if you had an active block, say Brick, it would place itself down until you ran out).

Campfires
* (Add) Campfires now give off light.

Block Placement
* (Update) You can now place Campfires underneath yourself, but Blocks cannot be placed in any block that the Player is currently in.

Player
* (Add) Equipment slots added in (Sentient Class, Character Screen).

Torch
* (Add) Torches added in, can be equipped into the “Light Source” Equipment slot. Double-clicking a torch in the Inventory will add it to the “Light Source” equipment slot. Double-clicking on the “Light Source” equipment slot will remove the torch.

Equipment Slots!

You can equip a Torch!

Light Radius without a Torch

Light Radius without a Torch

Light Radius with a Torch

Light Radius with a Torch

Coming Soon to Ballikin

So I’ve got a rough plan for the Alpha-Beta-Release schedule. Very rough.

But it might be a good idea to share some of these things. Actually, obviously, sharing is good! Definitely need an FAQ page.

Anywho, these are some of what I’d like to get done before moving into Beta.

* Doors
* Torches
* Experience / Levelling
* More Sentients (both friendly NPC-type folk and critters and non-friendlys)
* Skills (A number of trees are planned)
* Harvesting and Creating Abilities (limits what blocks you can harvest and what recipes you can create)
* Coins / Currency
* Item Drops
* Character Equipment Slots
* Character Stats
* More Biomes (Desert, Tundra, ..)
* Monsters sent to get you at night

Wowza. That list gets me excited. And scared. And a bit freaked out.

I’ve left off some of the big ticket ones, just cause I’m not sure exactly WHEN they will get in. But they are pretty cool. I think.

** Will be interesting to see how this list goes down the track, how much got done, what changed.

Alpha.11 Build Notes

Block History
* (Fix) If a Player walked over a Campfire it would be removed from the Block History on saving, so that it would not appear next load.

Resources
* (Change) Marble and Steel images changed to something a little better than they were.

Alpha.10 Build Notes

Combat
* (Add) Sentient Actions are now in, for the moment they happen at the same time as the Player Action.
* (Add) When a Pinkeye gets within a certain distance of the Player they attack and take health from the Player.

Battling the Pinkeyes

Fighting for my life!

Campfires
* (Add) Being around a Campfire will heal a Player (if their health is below full).

Getting some rest

Ahhh, basking in the glow of the Campfire

Ores
* (Change) Lowered the Rarity (distance) of Coal from 80 to 60.

Character Screen
* (Add) Recipe “Type” filter dropdown added.

Block History
* (Add) Player Block History is now saved. Events saved are Blocks Walked On, Harvested and Placed (including Campfires).

Block History

After exiting the game and then loading again, my Campfire is there!

Sentient Pathfinding
* (Update) Increased the logic so that diagonal movement across non-moveable blocks is not allowed. However, strange behaviour can be exhibited by the following Pinkeye. Haven’t narrowed down why yet.

Alpha.9 Build Notes

Day/Night Cycle
* (Add) Visual indicator can now be seen on the HUD.

Day/Night Visual Indicator

Awww, the Sun and the Moon!

Light Radius
* (Fix) When there were multiple Game records, depending on which Game was loaded, the code could think you were inside when you were outside.

Deleting Player/Game Records
* (Add) You can now delete Player (which will cacade and delete all Games for that Player also) and Game records. Beware! Once gone, they are gone.

Game Clock
* (Change) Adjusted clock tick down from 0.8 seconds to 0.5 seconds. That is, a faster day/night cycle.

Pinkeyes
* (Change) Upped the range for populating Pinkeyes in Caves to 40-55.
* (Fix) Pinkeyes were sometimes not being added correctly to Cave biomes.

Pathfinding
* (Add) A very basic pathfinding logic is in, for the Pinkeyes at the moment. Hope to get it a little better the next build, the most pressing issue is the “diagonal around a block” movement isn’t working.

Pathfinding with Pinkeyes!

Don't. Turn. Around.

Class Structure
* (Update) Base Objects now use correct classes instead of all being the class Object. Classes are: Player, Sentient, Block and .. Object. Still need to add Item class.
* (Add) Block class added. Whereas before the Object class was used for all blocks.

Sentient Health
* (Update) The drawing logic for health (when below full) for Sentients (at the moment only Sheep and Pinkeyes) has been updated. Now fits within the width of the Sentient.

Health Bar on Pinkeyes

Health fading. Fading. Rising! Fading. Gone.

So You Can Download Ballikin Now

I’m not sure whether this will turn out to be a good decision. Actually, I believe it will be good, but only because I’m leaping ahead in faith.

Do you wait to get a game into a better position, feature-wise, bug-wise, backend-structure-wise?

Or do you kiss the wind and throw caution to the .. breeze, and release your creation to the world?

What is resting on this? Dreams. That’s about it at the moment. No money, a month of working at night. That’s not much really.

So here goes.

You can now download Ballikin, at the Download page!

 

Alpha.8 Build Notes

Saving Player Position
* (Add) The last position of the Player is saved and then on loading the Player will be back at that place.

Select Player/Game
* (Change) Browses are now sorted in by Last Loaded / Saved in descending order.
* (Add) Double-clicking with the left mouse button now selects.

Creating
* (Add) Brick, Marble and Steel Recipes + Blocks added. They can only be Created, not Harvested.
* (Add) “Create All” button added.
* (Add) The total products that can be created is in brackets next to the Recipe name (when greater than zero).

Recipe GUI Enhancements

Now you can see how many you can make

Block Placement
* (Change) Only Created blocks (Brick, Marble and Steel) can be placed.

Bricks and Marble

Now you get to create Bricks, Marble and Steel to place on the ground

Character Screen
* (Change) Font size of Recipe browses increased from 10 to 12.
* (Add) Double clicking with the left mouse button on a Recipe will make it (if possible).

World Generation
* (Change) Ores are now placed based on a rarity percentage check, rather than pure distance (which can change depending on size of world).
* (Change) Ore rarity percentage values adjusted.
* (Fix) Blocks surrounding the Player position on loading Game are cleared correctly.
* (Change) Pathways (in Cave biome) now are worked from Min/Max equates (rather than (2,4)).

Camera
* (Fix) If Player was at the edge of the world on loading the Camera now aligns itself correctly (before it was only aligning on movement).

Lighting
* (Add) Radius around Player which everything (at night and when other checks are met) outside of is black. The radius can grow or shrink depending on time of day, torches or other light sources.

The default Cave light radius

Uhhh, anybody there?

Loading Game
* (Add) A loading window now appears when the game is .. loading.

Loading the Game

No more boring waiting .. A Load Screen!

Unloading Game
* (Fix) Memory free’d twice error was cropping up because of a wrong “dispose” call in the Build_Inventory routine in CharacterWindow.

Alpha.7 Build Notes

Character Screen
* (Update) Background (colors) added to the Stats sections. Text made white. Will see how it goes.

Pinkeyes
* (Add) The first enemy (aggressive mob) is in! The Pinkeye! Not actually aggressive (move toward the Player) yet, and doesn’t actually attack the Player .. yet.

Action
* (Fix) When single-clicking the left mouse button on something actionable (like a Pinkeye), TWO hits were being made. I’d forgotten about putting a “Do Action” function call in where the Input is checked AS WELL AS in the Heartbeat. Lame.

System
* (Change) Instead of creating separate .clw files for each class function (so lame, what was I thinking?) have grouped them together. Reduced number of files in dev folder drastically, and the C8 IDE has nice function folding for navigation niceness.