Boring Work Before First Build

Hey guys, I know it's been a couple of days since my last post and I wanted to say that I'm still here and still working on the game, though I'm now in the boring part of cleaning up the code that I have before I make this first version ready for download.

I would like to apologize because I do not like to go this long between posts. I'm making minor tweaks to the code that will hopefully make it less buggy when it's ready for download. I'm getting very excited to see what everyone thinks about it up to this point. I would like to say to everyone who intends on downloading it to keep in mind that at this point it is basically a straight clone of Terraria. My plan is to make this game more of a Zelda-style game than a Terraria/Minecraft-style game before I'm done with it.

What do I mean by Zelda-style? I mean more intricate dungeons with bosses in the dungeons, different levels (as opposed to biomes), more NPC interaction with special items awarded (similar to Zelda games), and many more features to come! I hope that everyone appreciates this game and I would ask that anyone who decides to download it and has any type of comment (positive or negative) about it to let me know in a comment or in an email (I'll have an email address set up just for this game by Friday).

Thank you to everyone who follows this blog and game!

Alpha 1.0 Preview

Hey guys I'm just giving you a quick update about the latest addition to the game...updated, custom sprites for the player! I am very excited about this latest addition, mostly because I am not really an artist, just ask my wife :)

I'm getting even more excited about launch day, which I am glad to announce will be this next Friday, July 15. I will be uploading the first build of the game, mostly bug-free probably after I get back from the midnight showing of Harry Potter.

I will leave you now with a preview of my player:

And don't forget to vote for what the name of the game should be.

Player Animation Is Here

Hey guys it's been a few days since my last post, but I've been busy adding in one of the last things before my very first release of my game, player animation! I've been busy getting the game ready for it's first release and am pleased to announce that I now have a player in the game instead of just a rectangle.

I will say here that the sprite that I currently have in the game is just a dummy sprite I made for an rpg I was making and will definitely not be the final version of what the player will look like. I'm also including a poll on the blog for some names for the game to see what the popular choice will be for a name.

As for what I did to include player animation, I used a modified version of Nick Gravelyn's AnimatedSprite class and FrameAnimation class in his Tile Engine series for my game. I will likely have to modify those classes even further as the game progresses, but for now it works and that's good enough for me.

The features that you have to look forward to in the first build are,

1. Basic mining and placing of blocks
2. Basic inventory that shows the blocks the player has mined (scrollable)
3. Random map and terrain generation with basic caves
4. Player sprite with walking animations
5. Dirt and Rock blocks

I would like to say 'Thank You' to everyone who reads this blog and I hope that you find my game entertaining. I am very excited about where this game can go in the future and look forward to hearing what you guys think of it as well.

Thanks again,

Jeff

Revamping the Terrain and Caves

Hey guys I've been busy reworking the terrain and cave generation code to give smoother and less rigid results. I've also cleaned up the HUD to show less things and not clutter up the screen as much. Enjoy!

Game Demos on YouTube

Hey guys I figured it was about time I upgraded my presentation quality with this game and starting recording some actual "gameplay" for you to see. So without further ado, here is the first in-game video for my Adventure Resource game:



I apologize for the low framerate, I'm still getting use to this new video capture program. I assure you the game runs plenty fast.

Terrain Generation Explained

Hey guys I have been putting off writing this kind of a post for awhile (mostly because I didn't feel that my code was 'good enough' to show off), but I've had a request and so I will try and explain my method for terrain generation using a mixture of different techniques.

Let me start by saying that my way is definitely not the only way, or even the best way to create terrain; it just happens to work for me (for now). At first, what I tried to use was the Midpoint Displacement Algorithm for creating a rough sketch of ground-level blocks. This method was ok for the time, but I needed something else that gave me a more 'natural' look. This led me to the Perlin Noise algorithm, which turned out to be fairly easy for me to understand from reading a few good explanations of it. Before I put the code into my game, I also looked at techniques for cave generation, which was even easier for me to understand than the Perlin Noise.

For this reason, I decided to integrate the cave generation first as it was the easier of the two. My method for cave generation involves the classic 4-5 rule which states that a block is a wall if the 3x3 region centered on it contains at least 5 walls. Repeating this process n times gives decent looking caves in the map. The entire process is modified slightly in the last two iterations to further refine the shape of the caves and make them appear more 'natural'. Here is some code for example:

 private void CreateCaves(int i) { // i == Number of iterations  
      if (i == 1) {          
         for (int y = Height / 10; y < Height; y++) {            
           for (int x = 0; x < Width; x++) {  
             // Percentage needs to be 60% to make 40% filled  
             // NOTES 06/10: Perlin Noise method functional and not bad,  
             // "Poking holes" cave creation method pretty good.  
             // NOTES 06/14: Making the percentage 55% / 45% is pretty good  
             // with the addition of possibly skipping over the block if the   
             // depth is too little  
             if (rand.Next(100) <= 55) {  
               // PUTTING HOLES IN COMPLETELY FILLED MAP  
               // AS OPPOSED TO PUTTING BLOCKS IN EMPTY MAP  
               blocks[x, y] = LoadBlock('.', x, y);  
             }  
             else if (y < Height / 7)  
               continue;  
           }  
         }  
       }  
       else {  
         int neighboringWalls = 0;  
         string blockName = "";  
         for (int y = Height / 10; y < Height - 1; y++) {  
           for (int x = 1; x < Width - 1; x++) {  
             if (blocks[x - 1, y - 1].Texture != null) {  
               blockName = blocks[x - 1, y - 1].Name;  
               neighboringWalls++;  
             }  
             /////// Some block tests removed to shorten code \\\\\\\\\  
             if (blocks[x - 1, y].Texture != null) {  
               blockName = blocks[x - 1, y].Name;  
               neighboringWalls++;  
             }  
             if (i >= 4) {  
               if (neighboringWalls >= 6)  
                 blocks[x, y] = blocksDictionary[blockName + "SingleTop"];  
             }  
             else {  
               if (neighboringWalls >= 5)  
                 blocks[x, y] = blocksDictionary[blockName + "SingleTop"];  
               else if (neighboringWalls <= 2)  
                 blocks[x, y] = LoadBlock('.', x, y);  
             }  
             neighboringWalls = 0;  
           }  
         }  
       }  
     }  

The main difference between my code and the algorithm in the link I provided is that instead of filling in an empty map, I'm poking holes in a completely filled in map. This in my opinion gives different and better results for me.

After I added the cave generation to the game, I felt confident enough to tackle the Perlin Noise algorithm. Using the method provided in the link I gave above, I produced this code to create my surface terrain:

 private int[] CreatePerlinNoise() {  
       float[] values = new float[Width];  
       int[] realValues = new int[Width];  
       for (int i = 0; i < values.Length; i++) {  
         values[i] = PerlinNoise(i);  
         values[i] *= 10;  
         realValues[i] = (int)Math.Ceiling(values[i]);  
       }  
       return realValues;  
     }  
 private float Noise(int i, int x) {  
     if (i == 0) {  
       x = (x << 13) ^ x;  
       return (float)(1.0 - ((x * (x * x * 557 + 1049) + 2411) & 0x7fffffff) / 1073741824.0);  
     }  
     else if (i == 1) {  
       x = (x << 13) ^ x;  
       return (float)(1.0 - ((x * (x * x * 1303 + 2473) + 3229) & 0x7fffffff) / 1073741824.0);  
     }  
     else if (i == 2) {  
       x = (x << 13) ^ x;  
       return (float)(1.0 - ((x * (x * x * 4441 + 6277) + 7549) & 0x7fffffff) / 1073741824.0);  
     }  
     else {  
       x = (x << 13) ^ x;  
       return (float)(1.0 - ((x * (x * x * 4663 + 6007) + 6961) & 0x7fffffff) / 1073741824.0);  
     }  
 }  
 private float SmoothedNoise(int i, float x) {  
     return Noise(i, (int)x) / 2 + Noise(i, (int)x - 1) / 4 + Noise(i, (int)x + 1) / 4;  
 }  
 private float InterpolatedNoise(int i, float x) {  
     int y = (int)x;  
     float fractionalX = x - y;  
     float v1 = SmoothedNoise(i, y);  
     float v2 = SmoothedNoise(i, y + 1);  
     return MathHelper.Lerp(v1, v2, fractionalX);  
 }  
 private float PerlinNoise(float x) {  
     float total = 0;  
     float p = 0.5f; // persistance  
     int n = 4; // four octaves  
     for (int i = 0; i <= n; i++) {  
       float frequency = 2 ^ i;  
       float amplitude = (float)Math.Pow(p, i);  
       total += InterpolatedNoise(i, x * frequency) * amplitude;  
     }  
     return total;  
 }  

A high-level explanation of what happens in a Perlin Noise algorithm (as I understand it) is that the final product is an array of y values (for height) that is the size of all the x values in the map. To get these values, we basically generate random numbers for every x value in the array and linearly interpolate between them to 'smooth out' the shape of the terrain. The link I provided above was, for me, the best explanation I could find about how to make a Perlin Noise algorithm.

I am by no means the expert on Perlin Noise but if you have any questions please feel free to leave a comment below. This is a very basic overview of my technique for creating terrain and it is by no means the only way or the best way. Also, I intend to modify this technique before my game is complete, so feel free to use my code in your own projects, although it may not work with your specific game.

As always, thanks for reading and I will give a game update as soon as I have one.

New Block Type

Hello everyone, I have a game update to share with you. As of tonight, I have a rudimentary way of random inserting a new block type into the game world. Right now, I'm only using dirt and coal (new) blocks. I'm pretty excited about this newest addition to the game, as it will allow me to begin work on other things such as the player's inventory.

My method for putting coal blocks in the game is pretty simple at this point. First, I loop through all the blocks in the map, looking for the first non-null blocks (meaning that this block is theoretically the ground level for this particular column). I then loop through the current column and have a set of 'if-then-else' conditions that check if the column block in question is at a certain depth. Based on the depth there is a chance that the block will be a coal type, otherwise it is a dirt type.

I'm sure there are many other more sophisticated ways to randomly put different block types into the map, but for now this method will do just fine for me. I appreciate everyone who is following this game's progress and I will continue to provide updates as I make changes and improvements to the game.

Caves caves caves!

Hello everyone I am very tired but I thought I should write an update of my game. I have been working feverishly on cave generation using a form of Cellular Automata and so far I have had decent results. I am still tweaking the algorithm to give more natural "cave-like" structures that connect to each other better, but for now I am pleased with my cave making skills.

I am also still working on using Perlin Noise to generate the shape of the terrain at the surface level, though this cave generation turned out to be easier (which is why I worked on it first). I am really excited with how this game is coming together and I believe a name needs to be created for this game (hopefully name chosen soon!).

I really appreciate everyone who reads this development blog and I try to provide updates as frequently as I can. Thanks for reading and check back soon for more news!

Dynamic Block Texturing Is Up

Great success! After too many days of struggling with the code to get the blocks updating their textures based on what blocks are neighboring around them, I finally have a working build that looks really good. The main trouble I was originally having was that I was trying to test for too many cases, which overcomplicated the entire thing.

What I first tried to do was test a block's eight neighbors to determine which texture should be used for that block. This was over-complicating the process; not only did I have to have the six textures for the simple left, right, top, bottom scenarios, but I also had to have textures for all of the possible corner cases. This left me very frustrated and in need of something else to do.

The solution to my problem was very easy in fact. What I did was shrink the block size from 32 x 32 to 16 x 16 and dropped the corner cases / corner textures. Please note that when I say corner textures I'm referring to a piece that has a corner cutout of it. I also created new textures for the blocks with edges that seemingly run together. This makes the cases in which there is an L-shape still look good in the corner spot because the top and right textures almost run together.

Other things that I did include changing the resolution to classic 800 x 600, changing the player sprite from a square to a thinner, taller rectangle (to more closely resemble the final sprite's size), and am running an UpdateBlock() method every time the player removes and adds a block (which updates the surrounding blocks' textures based on which action the player made).

The game is coming along nicely in my opinion. Next things on the list include better terrain generation, more types of blocks, player inventory, and many more things that I don't want to list for fear of getting overwhelmed by it all.

For now, please enjoy a screenshot of my small (but big to me) victory.

Update on Terrain Generation

Hey guys, it's been a busy last few days. This weekend was fairly productive and even a little frustrating at times. However, after much digging on the internet and reading up on terrain generation techniques, I have decided (at least for now) to use a modified version of the Midpoint Displacement algorithm for my terrain generation.

So far, this seems to be working moderately well. The overall shape of the terrain (top layer, of course) is fairly randomized but not too chaotic. The issue I have yet to work out is my technique for putting the correct block (i.e. with the correct texture) with the correct sides, cutouts, corners, etc.

I have spent a fair amount of time tweaking my brute force if then else statements to handle the different cases, but am having difficulty when I get more than just a few cases to try. Anyway, here is a screen shot of my latest build in all it's glory.

Though I am having trouble at the moment, I am enlisting the help of the wonderful people on the Xna forums so I should except to have a better strategy for my blocks in the near future.

In the meantime, I will be working on either the player's inventory (which at this point would only include blocks he has 'mined') or fixing the map saving/loading which has no doubt suffered because of my new terrain generation procedures.

Check back often for updates!

Terrain Generation using Midpoint Displacement

Well it's been a productive couple of days since my last post. I've been busy working on implementing a better random terrain generator for my game using some tiles that I made myself using Paint.net. I must say that I have never been a strong algorithmic programmer, but I have been reading up on the subject and from what I have found, an easier way to implement random terrain is to use the Midpoint Displacement Algorithm.

This algorithm repeatedly uses two points in space and places a midpoint between them. Then, one point on either side of the midpoint is created at a random height (or displacement) from the midpoint. This algorithm recursively calls itself and continues to create a rough terrain shape. The more times this is done, the smoother the effect.

I'm definitely not the expert on this subject, so if you would like to read more about it check out this post. In the meantime, here is a sample the results of my terrain generation code. Note that there is still much work to be done to clean it up and improve it. This is definitely the first time I've done this.

That's all for now...