Introducing the Parasite

Formed parasite below me.  Unformed flying to my left.

The Parasite is a friend of spies.  It is attracted to the player and will cause damage when touched.  If the player isn't around, it looks for a Spy.  When it finds a formed Spy (one that has taken over a block), it will use it to stage its own forming and any block touching that Spy is available for the Parasite.  Once the Parasite has infected a block, the block can be destroyed but it will not drop anything useful.  The player will also receive damage to their drill bit.

I'm thinking that to remove a parasite or spy from a block, you're going to have to drop some water onto it to "clean" it.  That thought just came to me though.

Anyway, that's what I've been up to tonight.  Next on the list is a loading/saving progress bar.

Time Lapse

How do you have a day/night cycle in an asteroid belt?

After much brainstorming, I decided that the star that the belt orbits would be constantly in view.  This would be considered 'day'.  Every 10 minutes or so, a large planet would eclipse the sun and be considered the 'night' cycle.  If you look at older screenshots of mine, you'll notice that any area that isn't lit is dark black.  That is still the case for the night cycle.  During the day cycle, though, blocks are a little illuminated.  The following screenshots show the transition.

"Night" - All darks are black.

Notice that during the day, you can somewhat see the blocks around you.  This will make it a little easier to find the blocks that you need to craft things.

On top of getting this done, I've also got a page full of notes on the terraforming aspect of the game.  I can't wait to get to work on that part since I think it's going to be one of the more 'colorful' things to do.

For now, I'm going to consider the time cycle complete.  It takes about an hour to go from start to end.  In total, the player gets ~33 minutes of usable light.  14.5 minutes are spent in a transitionary stage between dark<->light.  ~10 minutes is spent in nighttime darkness.

Next on the list is biomes.  This code is actually done (I think).  I just need to double check on it.  After that, I need to add 1 more enemy and a loading/saving progress bar.  Finishing those two things will complete .04A.

Buckets

So as you can tell by my last few posts, I added water to the game.  When I first added the logic for the water, I needed the ability to test.  So I made it so I can generate water on the fly.  Then I made it so the water saved its state when you exited, so I was careful about where I put water down.  Next on my list was making it so the world algorithm automatically generated water in certain areas.  This was all great when it came to new maps since it only ever spawned inside of an asteroid.  The issue came when I loaded a current map.  Water had generated on the map that I didn't anticipate for, so the stuff was everywhere.  I was able to drain it to a pool below my base but there were spots where there was a tiny pool of water that I couldn't reach.

Realizing that this is a problem that lots of people are going to have and that the player needs a way to gather water anyway, I decided to create a new item:  the bucket.

First off, here's the crafting formula:

It's not that expensive to build.  Lots of things are going to require light posts for energy.  The nice thing about the bucket is that it doesn't need light or fuel to run once it's built, so this is the only time you'll need the light post for it.

Next is a screenshot with buckets in different stages.

Buckets have 2 modes: Drain and Fill.  In Fill mode, the bucket will absorb any water inside of its own block and the 2 surrounding it.  In Drain mode, the bucket empties any liquid inside of it.  Below the player is a bucket in drain mode.

Directly to the right of the player is an empty bucket.  The buckets below and to the left of the player are buckets with different amounts of liquid in them.

By going over the bucket and pressing spacebar, the player can switch the bucket modes between Drain and Fill.  I haven't decided what button this will be on the 360 controller.

By completing the bucket and liquids functionality, I've checked off 2 requirements for v.04.  I need to add 1 more enemy, biomes, a loading/saving progress bar and a time cycle.  I also managed to fix the bug where the sprites are sometime drawn off by about 1 pixel.

So until next time...

My brother is awesome.

I received an email from my younger brother today.

I love it.

I've been working on liquids tonight.  It seems to work pretty well so I'll be testing that for a few days.  I've also started preparing for the kickstarter release.  Overall it's been a very busy week and these pictures made it all the better! :]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzPzYRfI66Q

Trailer

I signed up for kickstarter.  I'm hoping to get enough funding to promote the game when it's ready and let me hire a sound or graphic person.  Anyway, I wanted to make a trailer to show some gameplay footage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KzCQXOGwIs