Search - Epic adventure
Today I have finished Epic Adventure v0.14.0 which should be hitting all platforms over the coming days. This update adds Charcoal which can be created by smelting a Log in the furnace. Also, pretty much all wooden items can now be used as furnace fuel. This update also vastly increases the speed at which logging/mining/attacking occurs.
Beyond that though, I wanted to discuss the future of Epic Adventure a bit. The truth is, there are a lot of really good ideas and things I want to do with this game, but they are all sort of hampered by some stupid design decisions that I made from the very beginning of development, making it exceedingly difficult and time consuming to add new features and content to the game.
Even the graphics are a hassle, as simple as they look. For instance, I have been wanting to add more walls to the game beyond the simple wooden wall that exists. However, each wall object in the game requires 48 different images which all need to line up together so that all possible configurations of creating a wall will properly connect. The same goes for rocks in caves and other terrain elements. This is a very annoying and time consuming process in and of itself.
The game world is split into chunks, which is fine, but I originally implemented this is having each chunk be a totally separate map, whose processing and entities are completely disconnected from the rest of the game world. What is happening in one chunk has no relation or impact on what is happening on the chunk next door, and changing this requires a complete reworking of the server side code.
For rendering, Epic Adventure uses the Scroll2d engine that I originally created for My Land. This engine does not lend itself particularly well to the chunk layout of the game, as it works on an x:y coordinate system that cannot go below 0:0, meaning negative numbers are not possible. This is why in My Colony 1, the map could only be expanded East and South when using the annex land option, and not to the North and West. This is an issue in Epic Adventure because I would like to make game "look like" it is not broken up into chunks, even though it technically is, similar to My Colony 2.
Because of this, I have determined to consider Epic Adventure a proof-of-concept or a tech-demo for a brand new game engine that I will be switching to, and to end development of the game at this point. I will be taking the best parts of Epic Adventure and reusing a lot of it's code, but pushing it into a brand new open-world RPG engine that I can use across several games, including Gone Rogue 2, as well as whatever will be the spiritual successor to Epic Adventure, which I am thinking about calling My World or something to that effect, in tradition of keeping with the "My" series of games.
So for the purpose of the rest of this post, I will be referring to the continued development of what is now Epic Adventure as My World, however there is no guarantee that My World will be the final name. But I need to use something to talk about what will be changing in the new engine, and what will be carried over from Epic Adventure.
To start with, the My World engine will probably straight-copy the game HUD/UI from Epic Adventure, including the crafting/smelting menu, as well as the "belt" inventory and so on. Not that these things don't need improvement, but copying what is already there will give a big boost to the development.
For rendering, I will be replacing the Scroll2d engine with the Scroll3d engine that is currently being used in My Colony 2. Scroll3d is vastly more advanced than Scroll2d and renders faster on more devices thanks to using WebGL instead of software rendering. My World .png artwork will be replaced with Voxel Paint graphics like in My Colony 2, and player characters will still use My Tokens characters thanks to the new Mini Voxel Tokens introduced in the latest My Tokens release.
The reason for this change is that it simply makes it way faster and easier to create graphics and assets for the game. For instance, I said that a wall in Epic Adventure requires 48 different images. In My World, it could be made with either 1 or 2 images, one for the sides, and optionally a different one for the top. Scroll3d was also build with chunk-type worlds in mind right from the beginning, again look at My Colony 2 for reference.
My Colony 2 has a complete game-editor and modding platform built in, and I want My World to have the same thing. Not only does this allow other users to create content for the game, but it allows me to work on the game from a web browser from anywhere. For instance, if we spend two weeks with family, I can take my laptop and still work on My Colony 2, because I have the game and Voxel Paint in my web browser wherever I'm at. It would be nice to be able to do that here as well.
I mentioned that I want this engine to also support Gone Rogue 2, which I've been wanting to make for a while now. This means support for other RPG style elements. It will need a full dungeon generator, as well as support for NPC's, shops, dialogs, etc. A lot of these things I was planning to add to Epic Adventure anyway, because I was originally going to use the Epic Adventure engine to make the Gone Rogue sequel. But to have this in the new engine, along with the game editor built right into the game, will actually give players the ability to create their own RPG adventure games as My World mods. There are a lot of possibilities here.
Anyway, this is a long term project. What I want to do is take what I've learned about crafting games from Epic Adventure, what I've learned about modding/endless worlds from My Colony 2, and what I've learned about multiplayer from a whole host of games, and merge them into a new Open World/Adventure Game engine. It might be called My World, and the first version will be pretty similar to the current release of Epic Adventure, except in 3d. It will be a lot like when I originally converted My Empire from Scroll2d to Scroll3d, except this requires more substantial changes than that one did. But for the first release, I plan to have everything that the current Epic Adventure has, and then move forward from there.
So there it is, I hope that this doesn't disappoint anyone, but I think that the new game has potential to really shine in ways that it would be hard to make Epic Adventure do so. But let me know what you think, and stay tuned for more!
Beyond that though, I wanted to discuss the future of Epic Adventure a bit. The truth is, there are a lot of really good ideas and things I want to do with this game, but they are all sort of hampered by some stupid design decisions that I made from the very beginning of development, making it exceedingly difficult and time consuming to add new features and content to the game.
Even the graphics are a hassle, as simple as they look. For instance, I have been wanting to add more walls to the game beyond the simple wooden wall that exists. However, each wall object in the game requires 48 different images which all need to line up together so that all possible configurations of creating a wall will properly connect. The same goes for rocks in caves and other terrain elements. This is a very annoying and time consuming process in and of itself.
The game world is split into chunks, which is fine, but I originally implemented this is having each chunk be a totally separate map, whose processing and entities are completely disconnected from the rest of the game world. What is happening in one chunk has no relation or impact on what is happening on the chunk next door, and changing this requires a complete reworking of the server side code.
For rendering, Epic Adventure uses the Scroll2d engine that I originally created for My Land. This engine does not lend itself particularly well to the chunk layout of the game, as it works on an x:y coordinate system that cannot go below 0:0, meaning negative numbers are not possible. This is why in My Colony 1, the map could only be expanded East and South when using the annex land option, and not to the North and West. This is an issue in Epic Adventure because I would like to make game "look like" it is not broken up into chunks, even though it technically is, similar to My Colony 2.
Because of this, I have determined to consider Epic Adventure a proof-of-concept or a tech-demo for a brand new game engine that I will be switching to, and to end development of the game at this point. I will be taking the best parts of Epic Adventure and reusing a lot of it's code, but pushing it into a brand new open-world RPG engine that I can use across several games, including Gone Rogue 2, as well as whatever will be the spiritual successor to Epic Adventure, which I am thinking about calling My World or something to that effect, in tradition of keeping with the "My" series of games.
So for the purpose of the rest of this post, I will be referring to the continued development of what is now Epic Adventure as My World, however there is no guarantee that My World will be the final name. But I need to use something to talk about what will be changing in the new engine, and what will be carried over from Epic Adventure.
To start with, the My World engine will probably straight-copy the game HUD/UI from Epic Adventure, including the crafting/smelting menu, as well as the "belt" inventory and so on. Not that these things don't need improvement, but copying what is already there will give a big boost to the development.
For rendering, I will be replacing the Scroll2d engine with the Scroll3d engine that is currently being used in My Colony 2. Scroll3d is vastly more advanced than Scroll2d and renders faster on more devices thanks to using WebGL instead of software rendering. My World .png artwork will be replaced with Voxel Paint graphics like in My Colony 2, and player characters will still use My Tokens characters thanks to the new Mini Voxel Tokens introduced in the latest My Tokens release.
The reason for this change is that it simply makes it way faster and easier to create graphics and assets for the game. For instance, I said that a wall in Epic Adventure requires 48 different images. In My World, it could be made with either 1 or 2 images, one for the sides, and optionally a different one for the top. Scroll3d was also build with chunk-type worlds in mind right from the beginning, again look at My Colony 2 for reference.
My Colony 2 has a complete game-editor and modding platform built in, and I want My World to have the same thing. Not only does this allow other users to create content for the game, but it allows me to work on the game from a web browser from anywhere. For instance, if we spend two weeks with family, I can take my laptop and still work on My Colony 2, because I have the game and Voxel Paint in my web browser wherever I'm at. It would be nice to be able to do that here as well.
I mentioned that I want this engine to also support Gone Rogue 2, which I've been wanting to make for a while now. This means support for other RPG style elements. It will need a full dungeon generator, as well as support for NPC's, shops, dialogs, etc. A lot of these things I was planning to add to Epic Adventure anyway, because I was originally going to use the Epic Adventure engine to make the Gone Rogue sequel. But to have this in the new engine, along with the game editor built right into the game, will actually give players the ability to create their own RPG adventure games as My World mods. There are a lot of possibilities here.
Anyway, this is a long term project. What I want to do is take what I've learned about crafting games from Epic Adventure, what I've learned about modding/endless worlds from My Colony 2, and what I've learned about multiplayer from a whole host of games, and merge them into a new Open World/Adventure Game engine. It might be called My World, and the first version will be pretty similar to the current release of Epic Adventure, except in 3d. It will be a lot like when I originally converted My Empire from Scroll2d to Scroll3d, except this requires more substantial changes than that one did. But for the first release, I plan to have everything that the current Epic Adventure has, and then move forward from there.
So there it is, I hope that this doesn't disappoint anyone, but I think that the new game has potential to really shine in ways that it would be hard to make Epic Adventure do so. But let me know what you think, and stay tuned for more!
Today I am happy to announce a big new update to Epic Adventure - v0.12.0! My son has started playing a lot of Epic Adventure, and as such his demands for updates have become impossible to ignore, which in turn has placed Epic Adventure on a higher update priority than it has previously been, so expect a lot more from this game in the coming months. Until then though, let's take a look at all the changes in this release!
To start things off, crop farming has now arrived in Epic Adventure! Before, you could collect seeds from tall grass, and you could plow dirt with the hoe, but you just couldn't combine the two efforts into one. Now, you can plant those seeds in the dirt to produce a brand new entity - Wheat!
Once the wheat is ripe, you can harvest it, and using the crafting menu, six wheats can be converted into another new entity - Dough. Of course, what good is plain dough? Not very tasty. But wait, there has been a non-working object in the game from the very beginning, the furnace. Non-working until now, because the furnace is now fully operational, with the new furnace interface. Loading your furnace with the dough and a fuel source such as coal with convert your dough into another new entity, the delicious and edible Bread!
The last update to Epic Adventure added the first mob, Chickens, to the game, but you couldn't do anything with them. Sadly for the chickens, this has changed, as they can now be slaughtered using your weapon of choice. A few hits with an axe or pickaxe ought to do the trick.
The Chickens currently are a little over powered for what they are, so you will need some sort of weapon to kill them, but they will eventually be nerfed a bit. Regardless, killing a chicken will provide the new entity Raw Chicken and also a random chance to get another new entity, the Feather. There is no practical use for the Feather yet, but the Raw Chicken can be thrown into the furnace to create Cooked Chicken, which provides a great boost to your health and energy.
Speaking of health and energy, Death and Respawning are now fully implemented into the game. Eventually you will be able to create a bed to set a new spawn point, but for now the spawn point is locked at chunk 0x0x0. When you die, your inventory will dump at the site of your death and you will have to return to your body to collect everything. Premium users have the option to respawn at their body if they want to.
Going forward,, I plan on increasing the Epic Adventure update cycle from "whenever I feel like it" to once per month. A big part of creating a game is implementing all of the engine features, and once that is done, adding new content can go quick and easy, rapidly expanding the game. I am getting closer to the rapid content expansion phase, but there are still engine enhancements and changes I wish to implement first.
In a prior post, @Amorphus suggested the concept of rooms, towns, and limited visibility. For the most part, I agree with these concepts completely. Right now in the game, you can easily scroll around the map and see everything. I plan on changing the mechanics to something more resembling my game Gone Rogue, in which a player has a certain line of sight which is also blocked by walls and other obstacles. Additionally, caves and enclosed rooms are going to be dark, requiring torches in order see inside of them. I also plan on adding a day/night cycle to the overworld.
Farming needs to be expanded well beyond the current Wheat. There was a thread a while back with contributions from @Amorphus and @GeneralWadaling concerning Agriculture, and now that the basic engine mechanics of planting, harvesting, and cooking have been implemented, I plan on following many of the suggestions in that thread. Expect a lot more to come in the area of agriculture in the near future.
In this thread, @GeneralWadaling laid out a ton of suggestions regarding food and cooking, and many of these will be finding their way into the game shortly. Wadaling suggests a kitchen stove object, and I might implement that and change the furnace so that it just deals with smelting of metals (whenever I add metals to the game). I will also be adding the camp fire, which will allow cooking but will "burn out" after time.
v0.11.0 introduced engine capability for mobs (the chicken), and this update allows you to kill them. We also need mobs that fight back. Monsters, skeletons, bandits, etc. Look forward to all of these things. That's not all though, because Epic Adventure needs some dungeons to explore. My plan is to repurpose the dungeon generation routines I wrote for both Gone Rogue and Dungeon Infinity in order to have random dungeons to appear on the map that you can loot and explore. Dungeons will be filled with items, treasure, and monsters and will give the player the chance to kind more items, gear, and to gain experience and level up, which are two more concepts headed to the game.
There also needs to be a lot more biome types, including the introduction of Water. There is already a little bit of code in the engine to support water (including accelerated crop growth when near water), but there is no actual water in the game. This will be changing. You will also be able to build ditches/trenches to move water from one location to another.
One thing that really bothers me about Epic Adventure is how only one chunk of the world is rendered at a time and you cannot manipulate objects in nearby chunks. I plan to make the world more seamless (like how it works in My Colony 2) to where the entire world feels like one continuous thing instead of something broken up into chunks.
Anyway, I have a lot of plans for Epic Adventure and I think that things are going to start happening a lot faster in this game now going forward. If you have suggestions on things you would like to see, feel free to let me know here in the forum, and let me know what bugs you find too. Beyond that, thanks for playing Epic Adventure and stay tuned because a whole lot more is on the way!
And if you haven't tried Epic Adventure yet, you can play in on the Web, through the Ape Apps Launcher, or find it on various app stores.
#epicadventure #dungeoninfinity #gonerogue
To start things off, crop farming has now arrived in Epic Adventure! Before, you could collect seeds from tall grass, and you could plow dirt with the hoe, but you just couldn't combine the two efforts into one. Now, you can plant those seeds in the dirt to produce a brand new entity - Wheat!
Once the wheat is ripe, you can harvest it, and using the crafting menu, six wheats can be converted into another new entity - Dough. Of course, what good is plain dough? Not very tasty. But wait, there has been a non-working object in the game from the very beginning, the furnace. Non-working until now, because the furnace is now fully operational, with the new furnace interface. Loading your furnace with the dough and a fuel source such as coal with convert your dough into another new entity, the delicious and edible Bread!
The last update to Epic Adventure added the first mob, Chickens, to the game, but you couldn't do anything with them. Sadly for the chickens, this has changed, as they can now be slaughtered using your weapon of choice. A few hits with an axe or pickaxe ought to do the trick.
The Chickens currently are a little over powered for what they are, so you will need some sort of weapon to kill them, but they will eventually be nerfed a bit. Regardless, killing a chicken will provide the new entity Raw Chicken and also a random chance to get another new entity, the Feather. There is no practical use for the Feather yet, but the Raw Chicken can be thrown into the furnace to create Cooked Chicken, which provides a great boost to your health and energy.
Speaking of health and energy, Death and Respawning are now fully implemented into the game. Eventually you will be able to create a bed to set a new spawn point, but for now the spawn point is locked at chunk 0x0x0. When you die, your inventory will dump at the site of your death and you will have to return to your body to collect everything. Premium users have the option to respawn at their body if they want to.
Going forward,, I plan on increasing the Epic Adventure update cycle from "whenever I feel like it" to once per month. A big part of creating a game is implementing all of the engine features, and once that is done, adding new content can go quick and easy, rapidly expanding the game. I am getting closer to the rapid content expansion phase, but there are still engine enhancements and changes I wish to implement first.
In a prior post, @Amorphus suggested the concept of rooms, towns, and limited visibility. For the most part, I agree with these concepts completely. Right now in the game, you can easily scroll around the map and see everything. I plan on changing the mechanics to something more resembling my game Gone Rogue, in which a player has a certain line of sight which is also blocked by walls and other obstacles. Additionally, caves and enclosed rooms are going to be dark, requiring torches in order see inside of them. I also plan on adding a day/night cycle to the overworld.
Farming needs to be expanded well beyond the current Wheat. There was a thread a while back with contributions from @Amorphus and @GeneralWadaling concerning Agriculture, and now that the basic engine mechanics of planting, harvesting, and cooking have been implemented, I plan on following many of the suggestions in that thread. Expect a lot more to come in the area of agriculture in the near future.
In this thread, @GeneralWadaling laid out a ton of suggestions regarding food and cooking, and many of these will be finding their way into the game shortly. Wadaling suggests a kitchen stove object, and I might implement that and change the furnace so that it just deals with smelting of metals (whenever I add metals to the game). I will also be adding the camp fire, which will allow cooking but will "burn out" after time.
v0.11.0 introduced engine capability for mobs (the chicken), and this update allows you to kill them. We also need mobs that fight back. Monsters, skeletons, bandits, etc. Look forward to all of these things. That's not all though, because Epic Adventure needs some dungeons to explore. My plan is to repurpose the dungeon generation routines I wrote for both Gone Rogue and Dungeon Infinity in order to have random dungeons to appear on the map that you can loot and explore. Dungeons will be filled with items, treasure, and monsters and will give the player the chance to kind more items, gear, and to gain experience and level up, which are two more concepts headed to the game.
There also needs to be a lot more biome types, including the introduction of Water. There is already a little bit of code in the engine to support water (including accelerated crop growth when near water), but there is no actual water in the game. This will be changing. You will also be able to build ditches/trenches to move water from one location to another.
One thing that really bothers me about Epic Adventure is how only one chunk of the world is rendered at a time and you cannot manipulate objects in nearby chunks. I plan to make the world more seamless (like how it works in My Colony 2) to where the entire world feels like one continuous thing instead of something broken up into chunks.
Anyway, I have a lot of plans for Epic Adventure and I think that things are going to start happening a lot faster in this game now going forward. If you have suggestions on things you would like to see, feel free to let me know here in the forum, and let me know what bugs you find too. Beyond that, thanks for playing Epic Adventure and stay tuned because a whole lot more is on the way!
And if you haven't tried Epic Adventure yet, you can play in on the Web, through the Ape Apps Launcher, or find it on various app stores.
#epicadventure #dungeoninfinity #gonerogue
Epic Adventure v0.11.0 has just been released, and adds the first "mob" of the game, Chickens!
This is more or less a test of the mob spawning algorithm. The chickens are theoretically able to drop a new "raw chicken" item when killed, but since I haven't gotten combat implemented yet, you are currently unable to retrieve the item.
This release also includes improvements to multiplayer. In-game chat has been added, and if you have Epic Adventure installed as an app (either from Google Play/Windows Store or the PWA installed to homescreen), you can now quickly join with the new Friends List integration.
Finally, there have been various bug fixes and you can now also move diagonally.
There is a lot more to come to Epic Adventure in the months ahead. The game is starting to build up some players, particularly on Kindle Fire devices, so the updates will probably start coming more frequently now, so keep the suggestions coming. Next on the to-do list is getting combat up and running, either Player vs Player or Player vs Mob (so you can kill and eat these chickens). You will also be able to build a campfire to cook your chicken meat, or mix other recipes together. Cooking will also be possible on the furnace. I am going to get Seeds working, since you are currently able to plow the land, but not plant the seeds you collect. Also, procedurally generated surface buildings and underground dungeons are coming to the game, with the dungeons including new mob types that you can fight for loot (and glory).
So stay tuned for more, because Epic Adventure will soon be morphing into a full-fledged multiplayer procedurally generated role playing game!
#epicadventure
This is more or less a test of the mob spawning algorithm. The chickens are theoretically able to drop a new "raw chicken" item when killed, but since I haven't gotten combat implemented yet, you are currently unable to retrieve the item.
This release also includes improvements to multiplayer. In-game chat has been added, and if you have Epic Adventure installed as an app (either from Google Play/Windows Store or the PWA installed to homescreen), you can now quickly join with the new Friends List integration.
Finally, there have been various bug fixes and you can now also move diagonally.
There is a lot more to come to Epic Adventure in the months ahead. The game is starting to build up some players, particularly on Kindle Fire devices, so the updates will probably start coming more frequently now, so keep the suggestions coming. Next on the to-do list is getting combat up and running, either Player vs Player or Player vs Mob (so you can kill and eat these chickens). You will also be able to build a campfire to cook your chicken meat, or mix other recipes together. Cooking will also be possible on the furnace. I am going to get Seeds working, since you are currently able to plow the land, but not plant the seeds you collect. Also, procedurally generated surface buildings and underground dungeons are coming to the game, with the dungeons including new mob types that you can fight for loot (and glory).
So stay tuned for more, because Epic Adventure will soon be morphing into a full-fledged multiplayer procedurally generated role playing game!
#epicadventure
I decided to put together a quick update for Epic Adventure today, and so v0.13.0 is now complete and should be hitting all platforms in the coming days. This update isn't huge, but I did add a couple of quick things.
First of all, there is are new Rocky Plains and Heavy Rocky Plains biomes, where you will find surface stone and a higher abundance of caves.
You may also notice another new item in the above screenshot, trees will now randomly drop Saplings which you can then plant to grow... new trees!
Finally, I added three additional new biomes the Sandy Plains, the Grassy Desert, and the straight up Desert!
Over the coming updates, these new biomes are going to be the source of a lot of new types of plants, animals, and other things that you cannot find in the grassy forest areas, so if you have suggestions on things you would like to see added to the desert biomes, let me know!
That is all for today's update. I didn't have a lot of time to work on it, so it's just a quick one this time, but I plan to update Epic Adventure on a fairly rapid basis going forward, so stay tuned because there is a lot more to come, and if you've never played Epic Adventure before, you can check it out here: https://www.apewebapps.com/epic-adventure/
#epicadventure
First of all, there is are new Rocky Plains and Heavy Rocky Plains biomes, where you will find surface stone and a higher abundance of caves.
You may also notice another new item in the above screenshot, trees will now randomly drop Saplings which you can then plant to grow... new trees!
Finally, I added three additional new biomes the Sandy Plains, the Grassy Desert, and the straight up Desert!
Over the coming updates, these new biomes are going to be the source of a lot of new types of plants, animals, and other things that you cannot find in the grassy forest areas, so if you have suggestions on things you would like to see added to the desert biomes, let me know!
That is all for today's update. I didn't have a lot of time to work on it, so it's just a quick one this time, but I plan to update Epic Adventure on a fairly rapid basis going forward, so stay tuned because there is a lot more to come, and if you've never played Epic Adventure before, you can check it out here: https://www.apewebapps.com/epic-adventure/
#epicadventure
Your in-game character in Epic Adventure can be either one of the two default skins, or anything you create yourself using the My Tokens app. My Tokens is free, and any Token you create and save to your Ape Apps account will be available to use in Epic Adventure.
The game is currently available on the Ape Apps Launcher (for Windows, Mac, and Linux) and on Google Play for Android. When the code is further along, I also plan on bringing it to iOS, Windows Store, and Steam. Cross platform multiplayer should be working between the platforms on the same LAN/WiFi connection. Multiplayer over the internet will be available soon as well.
As I said, everything in the game is subject to change and will grow depending on user feedback and input. Use this forum for feedback, bug reports, and game suggestions.
#epicadventure
Today I am proud to announce that Epic Adventure v0.7.0 is now complete and will be hitting all platforms shortly. This update adds some of the key concepts to the game that moves it one step closer to being able to start adding a bunch of content - Food/Hunger/Health/Eating!
When you log into the game next, you will notice brand new Health and Hunger indicator areas at the top left corner of the screen.
As you go around the world and work, you will become more hungry. If your hunger level gets down to zero, you will start losing health! Luckily, you can eat now. Before the game had Apples, and eating them is simple. If you have an Apple in your hand, click on the Apple again in your belt inventory to eat it.
Note: Unfortunately, due to an existing error in the game code that has since been patched, if you are continuing an existing game, you will start off starving in this update. Hurry and eat a bunch of Apples! New games are not impacted by this issue.
In addition, a new terrain/food item has been added to the game - Mushrooms!
Mushrooms are more abundant than Apples but do not provide as much energy. In the future though, they will be used for different spell and food recipes!
There are still a couple of key concepts that I need to add to the game engine before I can start really digging in with content. The next thing I need to add is movable world objects, such as animals and enemies! That is going to be a big one, and will be the focus of v0.8.0. Once those are implemented, Epic Adventure is going to be pretty much an actual game, but there is still a lot to do. Stay tuned though, because the next update is going to be an "epic" one!
#epicadventure
When you log into the game next, you will notice brand new Health and Hunger indicator areas at the top left corner of the screen.
Note: Unfortunately, due to an existing error in the game code that has since been patched, if you are continuing an existing game, you will start off starving in this update. Hurry and eat a bunch of Apples! New games are not impacted by this issue.
In addition, a new terrain/food item has been added to the game - Mushrooms!
There are still a couple of key concepts that I need to add to the game engine before I can start really digging in with content. The next thing I need to add is movable world objects, such as animals and enemies! That is going to be a big one, and will be the focus of v0.8.0. Once those are implemented, Epic Adventure is going to be pretty much an actual game, but there is still a lot to do. Stay tuned though, because the next update is going to be an "epic" one!
#epicadventure
I have just published v0.6.0 of Epic Adventure which should be hitting all platforms shortly. With this update comes several new items and features, some of which were suggested by @Amorphus and which also lay the groundwork for more to come. Here is a look at what is new.
Three new base materials were added in this update, which are Coal, Gravel, and Flint.
On top of these base materials, there are several new crafted items available in this update. New in this update are the Cobblestone Floor, Gravel Floor, Wooden Pickaxe, Wooden Shovel, the Round Table, and the Furnace.
On top of these additions, there are a host of bug fixes and interface improvements in this release.
Now, things that aren't done yet. Firstly, the Furnace does not work yet, it is only a decoration. At some point (next update hopefully), the Furnace will be able to smelt one item into another with the aid of a third item used as fuel.
On my last update I said I would be adding dungeons, which I did not get to. The issue is that I need a stone wall texture first, which I still have to draw. Perhaps I will get to that for the next update.
On a final note, I have also submitted this build to the Apple App Store for iPhone and iPad, so hopefully it gets approved! The more users and feedback I get for this game, the more I will know how to develop it and what direction to move in.
That's all for today's update. If you haven't played yet, find download links at the page below, and stay tuned for much more!
https://apps.ape-apps.com/epic-adventure/
Three new base materials were added in this update, which are Coal, Gravel, and Flint.
Now, things that aren't done yet. Firstly, the Furnace does not work yet, it is only a decoration. At some point (next update hopefully), the Furnace will be able to smelt one item into another with the aid of a third item used as fuel.
On my last update I said I would be adding dungeons, which I did not get to. The issue is that I need a stone wall texture first, which I still have to draw. Perhaps I will get to that for the next update.
On a final note, I have also submitted this build to the Apple App Store for iPhone and iPad, so hopefully it gets approved! The more users and feedback I get for this game, the more I will know how to develop it and what direction to move in.
That's all for today's update. If you haven't played yet, find download links at the page below, and stay tuned for much more!
https://apps.ape-apps.com/epic-adventure/
I have just put the finishing touches on Epic Adventure v0.9.0 and the update should be hitting all platforms shortly! This is a large under-the-hood update, with a lot of new UI changes and multiplayer code changes.
Firstly, you can now play online multiplayer with anybody in the world, even on the web browser edition of the game! There is a new 'Play Game' screen on the main menu that looks like this:
From here, you can manage your local saves, see if anybody from your Ape Apps friends list is playing, or see what online games are currently joinable. If you click on the gear icon next to your local save files, you can now either delete the file or make a backup copy onto your file system. Cloud sync is now also available for Ape Apps Account users.
There are some in-game UI tweaks. I changes what the belt bar at the bottom of the screen looks like:
To go along with the new belt inventory bar, the entire inventory and crafting screen has been redesigned as well:
I think that it looks a lot nicer. I have also reworked a few of the graphics. When you are in a cave, the rock walls now blend together properly, instead of having a little gap in between each tile:
I have also completely changed what the tall grass looks like, because I thought the old graphic sucked. It now also "links" together with nearby grass tiles to create a consistent field of tall grass. In addition, there is a new "Heavy Grassland" biome that has a ton of tall grass on it.
Moving on, you can now built a hoe to start tilling up the land:
Sadly you can't plant anything yet, but you can guess what is coming next!
Coming up next is farming. There will be planting of the seeds you can currently gather, and also wild chickens walking around the map. I have made considerable under-the-hood changes to the game on this update, because I am getting the engine ready to support another game I want to work on this spring. Sharing the engine between the two projects will allow progress to accelerate on Epic Adventure, since it will also be benefiting from all of the work put in on the other game as well.
So that's all for today's update. Thanks for reading, thanks for playing, and stay tuned for more!
Firstly, you can now play online multiplayer with anybody in the world, even on the web browser edition of the game! There is a new 'Play Game' screen on the main menu that looks like this:
From here, you can manage your local saves, see if anybody from your Ape Apps friends list is playing, or see what online games are currently joinable. If you click on the gear icon next to your local save files, you can now either delete the file or make a backup copy onto your file system. Cloud sync is now also available for Ape Apps Account users.
There are some in-game UI tweaks. I changes what the belt bar at the bottom of the screen looks like:
To go along with the new belt inventory bar, the entire inventory and crafting screen has been redesigned as well:
I think that it looks a lot nicer. I have also reworked a few of the graphics. When you are in a cave, the rock walls now blend together properly, instead of having a little gap in between each tile:
I have also completely changed what the tall grass looks like, because I thought the old graphic sucked. It now also "links" together with nearby grass tiles to create a consistent field of tall grass. In addition, there is a new "Heavy Grassland" biome that has a ton of tall grass on it.
Moving on, you can now built a hoe to start tilling up the land:
Sadly you can't plant anything yet, but you can guess what is coming next!
Coming up next is farming. There will be planting of the seeds you can currently gather, and also wild chickens walking around the map. I have made considerable under-the-hood changes to the game on this update, because I am getting the engine ready to support another game I want to work on this spring. Sharing the engine between the two projects will allow progress to accelerate on Epic Adventure, since it will also be benefiting from all of the work put in on the other game as well.
So that's all for today's update. Thanks for reading, thanks for playing, and stay tuned for more!
I've just updated the Epic Adventure beta to v0.5.0 which should be hitting all platforms soon. This release adds new capabilities to the engine, which should lead to further expansion of the games content in the coming releases. Firstly, the engine now supports random drops when breaking a terrain object. For instance, now when you chop down trees, Apples have a chance of falling.
In addition, there are now random cave formations. Caves appear randomly on maps as a hole in the ground, and if you stand on one and then click on your character, you will descend down into the cave.
This is important because it now allows the "z" dimension to the world. In theory, subterranean levels can extend down infinitely. As of now, the only subterranean biome type is the cave that is totally filled with stone which you can hollow out, but now that the capability is there, more stuff will be on the way. I am thinking dungeons, underground lakes, underground lava (when you get deeper in levels), etc.
To go along with the new engine changes, this update introduces Stone, Apples, the Stone Axe, and the Stone Pickaxe. I didn't make a wooden pickaxe yet, but I probably will in the next update.
Here is a quick gameplay video of some of the new features added to v0.5.0.
For the next update, I want to build in a "room" generation engine. This will be used to create random buildings that appear on the surface, eventually leading to NPC filled towns where you can trade and do business. The room creation will also lead to random castles on the surface with staircases leading down to multilevel subterranean dungeons that you can loot and explore.
Of course dungeons means there will need to be enemies. I am going to start with basic RPG fare, such as rats and skeletons. This also means combat and health will need to be implemented, along with weapons crafting.
Once these things are implemented, we start to have the workings of an actual adventure game on our hands! If you can't see where this is going, I am basically working towards an open world multiplayer 2d zelda-type RPG with procedural world generation and crafting. So stay tuned, because there is a lot more to come!
To go along with the new engine changes, this update introduces Stone, Apples, the Stone Axe, and the Stone Pickaxe. I didn't make a wooden pickaxe yet, but I probably will in the next update.
Here is a quick gameplay video of some of the new features added to v0.5.0.
For the next update, I want to build in a "room" generation engine. This will be used to create random buildings that appear on the surface, eventually leading to NPC filled towns where you can trade and do business. The room creation will also lead to random castles on the surface with staircases leading down to multilevel subterranean dungeons that you can loot and explore.
Of course dungeons means there will need to be enemies. I am going to start with basic RPG fare, such as rats and skeletons. This also means combat and health will need to be implemented, along with weapons crafting.
Once these things are implemented, we start to have the workings of an actual adventure game on our hands! If you can't see where this is going, I am basically working towards an open world multiplayer 2d zelda-type RPG with procedural world generation and crafting. So stay tuned, because there is a lot more to come!
@Amorphus thank you for the epic post. I have been away for a few days and will not be able to fully get back to work until later this week, but it would be amazing to get help on the textures for this game. It took me so long to draw the wooden walls that I am dreading adding other materials, lol.
World textures are just simple 64xsomething png images. This means that the frame width has to be 64px, but the height can be anything. The texture is anchored to the bottom of the tile. Here are some examples:
For textures that can "connect" together like walls, there are 16 frames per sprite, organized like this:
Items that can be held in the hand can have an additional hand texture that is super-imposed on the player sprite. Here is an example of the axe:
A notch is cut out where the sprite's hand or body would naturally cover it up. To clip this out, I draw it in a layer against the default character sprite:
I actually create all graphics in .svg format using Inkscape and then export them to .png, that way if I want to up the resolution in the future it is no problem. So if you did want to contribute, ideally an .svg file would be best.
The engine supports other biomes, but I do not have graphics for them yet. How it works is that each biome can "connect" to certain other biomes. This way if I was making a desert biome, I would also make a "half way" biome that served as a transition between the two.
For the crafting, I am willing to go as far as anybody wants it to go. So, all out. On a technical level, any object that can be added to the game also has the ability to be crafted.
Questing and RPG elements will also be added. For the next update I was planning on auto-generated dungeons with basic enemies (probably rats to start out with) so that I can start working out the combat. This includes leveling up and character progression. I also want NPC's that you can interact, trade with, and get auto-generated quests from.
Anyway, hope this info helps. There is actually a ton of work to do on this game, but I think with the crafting, RPG and multiplayer elements fleshed out, it can be pretty fun. So if you or anybody wants to help with design and ideas, that would be awesome! Like I said I wont be able to get back to the apps for a few more days, but I'm just glad somebody took notice to Epic Adventure, lol!
World textures are just simple 64xsomething png images. This means that the frame width has to be 64px, but the height can be anything. The texture is anchored to the bottom of the tile. Here are some examples:
For textures that can "connect" together like walls, there are 16 frames per sprite, organized like this:
Items that can be held in the hand can have an additional hand texture that is super-imposed on the player sprite. Here is an example of the axe:
A notch is cut out where the sprite's hand or body would naturally cover it up. To clip this out, I draw it in a layer against the default character sprite:
I actually create all graphics in .svg format using Inkscape and then export them to .png, that way if I want to up the resolution in the future it is no problem. So if you did want to contribute, ideally an .svg file would be best.
The engine supports other biomes, but I do not have graphics for them yet. How it works is that each biome can "connect" to certain other biomes. This way if I was making a desert biome, I would also make a "half way" biome that served as a transition between the two.
For the crafting, I am willing to go as far as anybody wants it to go. So, all out. On a technical level, any object that can be added to the game also has the ability to be crafted.
Questing and RPG elements will also be added. For the next update I was planning on auto-generated dungeons with basic enemies (probably rats to start out with) so that I can start working out the combat. This includes leveling up and character progression. I also want NPC's that you can interact, trade with, and get auto-generated quests from.
Anyway, hope this info helps. There is actually a ton of work to do on this game, but I think with the crafting, RPG and multiplayer elements fleshed out, it can be pretty fun. So if you or anybody wants to help with design and ideas, that would be awesome! Like I said I wont be able to get back to the apps for a few more days, but I'm just glad somebody took notice to Epic Adventure, lol!
Prepare for the idle adventure of a lifetime, because Idle Token Quest is now complete and available for download for free on Android, iOS, and Windows 10!
Idle Token Quest is an idle role playing adventure game where you will fight your way through different worlds, going up against powerful enemies, collecting valuable loot, and purchasing awesome weapons and power-ups! You can use the two default characters, or create your own using the free My Tokens app. Tokens you create using your Ape Apps Account are linked to the game, and will adventure while you are away. The more Tokens you create, the more money you make!
Idle Token Quest is the ultimate companion game for My Tokens. Your virtual token avatars will become powerful heroes as they battle through the entire lineup of worlds and enemies from the game Level Up. You are also able to increase their power by equipping them with powerful Weapons, super fast Boots, and magical lucky Amulets!
In addition, all of your game progress is automatically synced to your Ape Apps Account, so you can take your token adventure with you on the go, or keep it open in a window hidden under your e-mail client while you are at work! The boss will never know that you just slayed an evil t-rex, which is way more important than filing another TPS report!
Idle Token Quest is a title that you definately do not want to miss. You can download it right now for free on Android, iOS, and Windows 10. It is also available on the Ape Apps Launcher, and even in your browser at Ape Web Apps. So what are you waiting for? Your poor My Tokens characters are just sitting there waiting for you to let them go outside and play! You don't want to make them cry, do you? Of course not, so download Idle Token Quest today!
https://apps.ape-apps.com/idle-token-quest/
#idletokenquest #levelup #mytokens
In addition, all of your game progress is automatically synced to your Ape Apps Account, so you can take your token adventure with you on the go, or keep it open in a window hidden under your e-mail client while you are at work! The boss will never know that you just slayed an evil t-rex, which is way more important than filing another TPS report!
Idle Token Quest is a title that you definately do not want to miss. You can download it right now for free on Android, iOS, and Windows 10. It is also available on the Ape Apps Launcher, and even in your browser at Ape Web Apps. So what are you waiting for? Your poor My Tokens characters are just sitting there waiting for you to let them go outside and play! You don't want to make them cry, do you? Of course not, so download Idle Token Quest today!
https://apps.ape-apps.com/idle-token-quest/
#idletokenquest #levelup #mytokens
tautaula said:I was unable to make a My Token, even while logged in. It told me it saved. It didn't. So I was unable to use a My Token on this game. I'm hoping it develops nicely; you guys have some nice other games!
I'm running Firefox, if that matters for the My Token thing (which I'd not have tried except for this).
Were you logged into both apps (My Tokens and Epic Adventure) using the same Ape Apps Account?
I have just released a new feature update to the Ape Apps Launcher which should now be available for download. This release brings in a few new features which will be further fleshed out in the months ahead. Let's take a look.
The first thing you will notice is that the positioning and lineup of the icons at the top-right of the window have changed a bit. The current layout looks like this:
From left to right, the first button brings you back to the normal "all apps" view that the launcher normally starts out in. The next button brings you to the settings screen. The third button opens up the new integrated Ape Chat window, the fourth button brings you to the new revamped inbox. To the right of that you will see the achievements you have unlocked on your Ape Apps account. To the right of that, you will see your default Token (from the My Tokens app, if you have set one), and finally your signed-in username.
As alluded to before, the Ape Chat service is now built right in to the launcher, and opens in it's own window. Opening chat this way will let you connect to all the channels you have participated in, including your commonwealth channels for My Colony. If the chat window is open but minimized, you will receive system notifications when you get new private messages or when a new message is posted in one of your connected chat channels. This is a handy way to know when somebody in your My Colony commonwealth is asking for something in chat, without even having the game loaded. A lot more features are going to be coming to Ape Chat in the coming months, so stay tuned for more on that!
The next new feature is the revamped mail icon. Before, I just showed you a little popup with all of the Conversations that you were a part of on the Ape Apps website (this website). Now it no longer shows Conversations, but the newer Inbox messages. It also shows private messages you have got in games that use the messaging feature, such as My Colony. The messages are also opened right from within the app now. Right now you can only read the messages, but I plan on adding full mailbox controls, including replies, deleting, composing, and implementing the "Sent Messages" folder.
The next new feature pertains only to Windows and Linux users. Now when you click on the window X button to close the launcher, it will minimize to the system tray instead of quitting completely.
You can still quit the launcher completely by simply right-clicking on the tray icon and selecting Exit. This is for people who keep the app open at all times for the auto-updating features, but don't like to have the launcher icon open in there taskbar the whole time.
On top of these changes, this update rolls up a whole host of bugs that had been identified since the last release and adds a new option to the Settings screen to turn off chat notifications.
Over the next several months, more improvements will be coming to the launcher. The inbox and mail management will be fully implemented. Clicking on the achievements will bring up a list of all of the games you have played, their high scores, and other information. I might have a way to close the chat window to the system tray as well. Also, right now when you click on your username you just get a sign out option. This will be changing to open up a new account management page similar to the options you get at accounts.ape-apps.com, so you can manager your entire Ape Apps account right from within the launcher instead of having to go to a separate website.
Finally, there is another change coming not just to the launcher, but to my apps on all platforms. With the coming full release of Colony Wars and other multiplayer games I am currently working on such as Epic Adventure and Death 3D (as well as Multiplayer Regions in My Colony), I think it is time to get Friends Lists added to the Ape Apps Account system so that you can easily see when other people are playing the games that you have. This will be coming to Ape Apps across the board, but will be fully baked into the launcher as well.
So anyway, that is it for today's Ape Apps Launcher update. I really hadn't made a ton of changes to it lately beyond simple bug fixes, so I thought I would post an update today on what is new, and what is coming down the pipe. Enjoy, and if you don't have the launcher yet, get it from the Ape Market here:
https://market.ape-apps.com/ape-apps-launcher.html
The first thing you will notice is that the positioning and lineup of the icons at the top-right of the window have changed a bit. The current layout looks like this:
As alluded to before, the Ape Chat service is now built right in to the launcher, and opens in it's own window. Opening chat this way will let you connect to all the channels you have participated in, including your commonwealth channels for My Colony. If the chat window is open but minimized, you will receive system notifications when you get new private messages or when a new message is posted in one of your connected chat channels. This is a handy way to know when somebody in your My Colony commonwealth is asking for something in chat, without even having the game loaded. A lot more features are going to be coming to Ape Chat in the coming months, so stay tuned for more on that!
The next new feature is the revamped mail icon. Before, I just showed you a little popup with all of the Conversations that you were a part of on the Ape Apps website (this website). Now it no longer shows Conversations, but the newer Inbox messages. It also shows private messages you have got in games that use the messaging feature, such as My Colony. The messages are also opened right from within the app now. Right now you can only read the messages, but I plan on adding full mailbox controls, including replies, deleting, composing, and implementing the "Sent Messages" folder.
The next new feature pertains only to Windows and Linux users. Now when you click on the window X button to close the launcher, it will minimize to the system tray instead of quitting completely.
On top of these changes, this update rolls up a whole host of bugs that had been identified since the last release and adds a new option to the Settings screen to turn off chat notifications.
Over the next several months, more improvements will be coming to the launcher. The inbox and mail management will be fully implemented. Clicking on the achievements will bring up a list of all of the games you have played, their high scores, and other information. I might have a way to close the chat window to the system tray as well. Also, right now when you click on your username you just get a sign out option. This will be changing to open up a new account management page similar to the options you get at accounts.ape-apps.com, so you can manager your entire Ape Apps account right from within the launcher instead of having to go to a separate website.
Finally, there is another change coming not just to the launcher, but to my apps on all platforms. With the coming full release of Colony Wars and other multiplayer games I am currently working on such as Epic Adventure and Death 3D (as well as Multiplayer Regions in My Colony), I think it is time to get Friends Lists added to the Ape Apps Account system so that you can easily see when other people are playing the games that you have. This will be coming to Ape Apps across the board, but will be fully baked into the launcher as well.
So anyway, that is it for today's Ape Apps Launcher update. I really hadn't made a ton of changes to it lately beyond simple bug fixes, so I thought I would post an update today on what is new, and what is coming down the pipe. Enjoy, and if you don't have the launcher yet, get it from the Ape Market here:
https://market.ape-apps.com/ape-apps-launcher.html
Well the game was updated in March, so that is not too long ago. I migrated it to it's own subdomain at https://epicadventure.ape-apps.com and fixed a lot of the multiplayer code.
It has not gotten new content in quite a while though. I am actually working on a web-based game editor that will make it easier for me to create content for Epic Adventure, I just have not gotten around to it. It just has not been a top priority since nobody really plays it or talks about the game much.
It has not gotten new content in quite a while though. I am actually working on a web-based game editor that will make it easier for me to create content for Epic Adventure, I just have not gotten around to it. It just has not been a top priority since nobody really plays it or talks about the game much.
I know that many are anxiously waiting the next updates to My Colony 1 and 2, so since they are still a little ways off, I thought I would share with everyone what their current status is, and what my plans are going forward!
First, the reason for the lack of updates this month is that I have created a new Google Play account called My Colony Universe to house all of the games in (you guessed it) the My Colony Universe, so that everything is combined together and easy for players to find. Since the titles were spread out across three different accounts, it took me some time to get everything transferred over, as each transfer request takes several days and must (I assume) be done manually by employees at Google.
Going forward though, all My Colony related content on Android is available on the same Google Play account which you can view here:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=6753488031908307666
While I was waiting for the transfers though, I started the process of going back and updating my entire catalogue of apps and games so that they all target the latest versions of Android/iOS/Windows and run the latest SDK's and so on. This has been a slow-ish process, and I expect it to take me most of the rest of the month, but it is important work to do, since the My Colony games themselves do not generate all that much revenue, and are largely subsidized by the rest of my catalogue of apps and games. For that reason, it is important to keep the other titles up to date and functioning properly on the latest mobile hardware, and since some of my apps I had not touched in several years, time was well overdue to go through and complete this process.
Next, let's look at the future plans for the original My Colony. I do not know if it will be ready for the next update or not (really depends on GirlyGamerGazell's timeline), but the next big content update to the game will be the completion of the Dark Matter update. This will probably be the last really big content update that MC1 receives, other than a regular stream of weekly premium structures. I really want to focus my time for new content and features into My Colony 2 which has really begun to mature over the last few updates, so that is what I will be doing. Rest assured though, MC1 will continue to receive updates on a regular basis to fix things that need fixed and to stay current for the latest devices and whatnot.
I am also going to be making a change to the Challenges system, as it turns out that it is a lot of work for me to keep coming up with new challenges on a daily basis. Instead, every day the MC server is going to automatically generate a new daily challenge using a random resource, this way I do not have to keep coming up with challenges and logos manually. In addition, randomly throughout the day, the server may generate a 1-2 hour long "snap challenge," which I think should give more players a chance to gain trophies.
As the challenge system goes on, it may make sense to implement something like "seasons" where all trophies reset after a time. There can be a record of course of which players/federations won each season. But at some point it might get to where first place is so far ahead on trophies that nobody can even catch up.
Anyway, you guys can let me know what you think of the system. Remember that challenges are completely optional, and while some people have expressed disdain for the system, many others seem to really like it, so it will be staying around for sure, and might even come to MC2 as well.
Now on to My Colony 2, which is going to have a big year in 2023. A lot of new features/fixes/and mechanics have come to MC2 over the last few updates, bringing it closer to being on par with the original. That is going to continue, and it will eventually far surpass MC1 in terms of "stuff to do."
First, I have done some work behind the scenes over the last couple of weeks on the server side of things, mostly aimed at improving MC2 dedicated servers. I noticed that when running an MC2 dedicated server for several days, what would happen is that the user's account token would expire, and then all game saves to Cloud Sync would fail due to an expired token. Thus the next time the server was rebooted, several days of game data would be lost. This issue should now be fixed on the web app version of My Colony 2, so it now should be safe to run an MC2 dedicated server using the web browser for days on end with Cloud Sync enabled. I currently have three servers running at my house to put this theory to the test.
To further help with dedicated servers, I am going to be adding an automatic daily backup for all public dedicated server games directly to the My Colony 2 server (which is on different hardware than the Cloud Sync server) which server owners will be able to restore from in the event of a catastrophe. Perhaps I will retain the last several days worth of backups that an owner can restore from.
Since I noticed there has been a lot more MC2 dedicated server activity lately, I wanted to make sure that this system is as solid as I can make it, so more improvements will be coming to it as time goes on.
In terms of new content, the next MC2 update will be fairly large, as I am pleased to report there have been quite a few new model submissions on the Discord server and elsewhere, so there is a lot of exciting content coming soon to MC2.
I am also going to be making a way for people to submit the link to their custom News Feed servers, so that the game will come standard with several that players can choose from.
I would like to also finally release MC2 to Steam in 2023, which I know is something some people have been asking/waiting for. Before it gets there, I want the game to have sound effects and a music track. I have already compiled a few original tunes for the game using Garageband, but I am no musical expert, so if anyone out there wants to take a stab at creating some songs for MC2, please feel free to do so!
Big things are going to be coming to the Player mode in My Colony 2 (the mode where you become a little colonist and walk around). I sort of have a vision in my mind where MC2 is kind of two types of games in one, the city builder type game that it already is, and something of an adventure/role playing game using the Player mode, except that the universe you play in consists of the network of online dedicated servers built by other players. I am thinking that the Star Gate from MC1 needs to return, but this time it will act as a means for players to travel from planet to planet in player mode in order to adventure, complete quests/missions, find items, or just explore other worlds from that perspective. I have spent some time just walking around some MC2 worlds in the VR mode, and it is pretty cool, but would be far more so if there was actually something to do besides just look.
Basically, each player/account is going to have one player mode avatar on the entire universe server, instead of a different guy for each world. You will have a "home" planet that you can respawn on if you die or if the server you are currently on goes offline. You will have stats/inventory and be able to party up/communicate with other players. You will be able to visit other worlds via Star Gates, even if you do not have a settlement on that world. When you are in building mode, you will be able to see Player Mode people as they come through your star gate, and so really you can build some kind of special welcoming area/lobby in your world around your Star Gate. Maybe buildings will be added that you can build that have specific functions for player mode. The game will also generate some NPC type characters in each settlement that players can interact with or get quests from. You will be able to do some sort of prospecting/mining, and maybe each world will have unique materials that you can only obtain in player mode. There are a lot of options.
Player Mode characters will also be able to control vehicles, whether driving/air/water vehicles, as well as combat type vehicles. There are a lot of options. Players will also be able to fight each other if they choose to do so.
So that is sort of my idea for the "two games in one" approach to MC2. Although the classic My Colony style of play will always be the primary mode, I think realtime multiplayer and dedicated server model that MC2 has unlocks the ability to add the cool secondary mode that can potentially add replay value to the game for years to come, and also open the world up to players who maybe don't care about the building aspect of the game, but would have fun adventuring through worlds that others have built up.
So those are the 2023 plans for MC2. Content and feature wise, I want it to be close to on par with MC1 United Earth faction, with the added bonus of infinite world sizes, real time online multiplayer, and a network of worlds that are truly connected. On top of that, I want to start adding a secondary adventure game to the mix that players can interact and explore in, whether on a PC, touch screen, TV/gamepad, or in VR. Finally, I want the polish and presentation to get to a point where the game is ready for Steam. I think all of these updates will add up to some exciting times ahead for MC2!
Just as an aside, I also plan to keep updating Colony Wars throughout the year, I have not forgotten about that game. At some point also, Terra Nova 4X will become a thing, I just need to find the time to work on it!
#mycolony #mycolony2
First, the reason for the lack of updates this month is that I have created a new Google Play account called My Colony Universe to house all of the games in (you guessed it) the My Colony Universe, so that everything is combined together and easy for players to find. Since the titles were spread out across three different accounts, it took me some time to get everything transferred over, as each transfer request takes several days and must (I assume) be done manually by employees at Google.
Going forward though, all My Colony related content on Android is available on the same Google Play account which you can view here:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=6753488031908307666
While I was waiting for the transfers though, I started the process of going back and updating my entire catalogue of apps and games so that they all target the latest versions of Android/iOS/Windows and run the latest SDK's and so on. This has been a slow-ish process, and I expect it to take me most of the rest of the month, but it is important work to do, since the My Colony games themselves do not generate all that much revenue, and are largely subsidized by the rest of my catalogue of apps and games. For that reason, it is important to keep the other titles up to date and functioning properly on the latest mobile hardware, and since some of my apps I had not touched in several years, time was well overdue to go through and complete this process.
Next, let's look at the future plans for the original My Colony. I do not know if it will be ready for the next update or not (really depends on GirlyGamerGazell's timeline), but the next big content update to the game will be the completion of the Dark Matter update. This will probably be the last really big content update that MC1 receives, other than a regular stream of weekly premium structures. I really want to focus my time for new content and features into My Colony 2 which has really begun to mature over the last few updates, so that is what I will be doing. Rest assured though, MC1 will continue to receive updates on a regular basis to fix things that need fixed and to stay current for the latest devices and whatnot.
I am also going to be making a change to the Challenges system, as it turns out that it is a lot of work for me to keep coming up with new challenges on a daily basis. Instead, every day the MC server is going to automatically generate a new daily challenge using a random resource, this way I do not have to keep coming up with challenges and logos manually. In addition, randomly throughout the day, the server may generate a 1-2 hour long "snap challenge," which I think should give more players a chance to gain trophies.
As the challenge system goes on, it may make sense to implement something like "seasons" where all trophies reset after a time. There can be a record of course of which players/federations won each season. But at some point it might get to where first place is so far ahead on trophies that nobody can even catch up.
Anyway, you guys can let me know what you think of the system. Remember that challenges are completely optional, and while some people have expressed disdain for the system, many others seem to really like it, so it will be staying around for sure, and might even come to MC2 as well.
Now on to My Colony 2, which is going to have a big year in 2023. A lot of new features/fixes/and mechanics have come to MC2 over the last few updates, bringing it closer to being on par with the original. That is going to continue, and it will eventually far surpass MC1 in terms of "stuff to do."
First, I have done some work behind the scenes over the last couple of weeks on the server side of things, mostly aimed at improving MC2 dedicated servers. I noticed that when running an MC2 dedicated server for several days, what would happen is that the user's account token would expire, and then all game saves to Cloud Sync would fail due to an expired token. Thus the next time the server was rebooted, several days of game data would be lost. This issue should now be fixed on the web app version of My Colony 2, so it now should be safe to run an MC2 dedicated server using the web browser for days on end with Cloud Sync enabled. I currently have three servers running at my house to put this theory to the test.
To further help with dedicated servers, I am going to be adding an automatic daily backup for all public dedicated server games directly to the My Colony 2 server (which is on different hardware than the Cloud Sync server) which server owners will be able to restore from in the event of a catastrophe. Perhaps I will retain the last several days worth of backups that an owner can restore from.
Since I noticed there has been a lot more MC2 dedicated server activity lately, I wanted to make sure that this system is as solid as I can make it, so more improvements will be coming to it as time goes on.
In terms of new content, the next MC2 update will be fairly large, as I am pleased to report there have been quite a few new model submissions on the Discord server and elsewhere, so there is a lot of exciting content coming soon to MC2.
I am also going to be making a way for people to submit the link to their custom News Feed servers, so that the game will come standard with several that players can choose from.
I would like to also finally release MC2 to Steam in 2023, which I know is something some people have been asking/waiting for. Before it gets there, I want the game to have sound effects and a music track. I have already compiled a few original tunes for the game using Garageband, but I am no musical expert, so if anyone out there wants to take a stab at creating some songs for MC2, please feel free to do so!
Big things are going to be coming to the Player mode in My Colony 2 (the mode where you become a little colonist and walk around). I sort of have a vision in my mind where MC2 is kind of two types of games in one, the city builder type game that it already is, and something of an adventure/role playing game using the Player mode, except that the universe you play in consists of the network of online dedicated servers built by other players. I am thinking that the Star Gate from MC1 needs to return, but this time it will act as a means for players to travel from planet to planet in player mode in order to adventure, complete quests/missions, find items, or just explore other worlds from that perspective. I have spent some time just walking around some MC2 worlds in the VR mode, and it is pretty cool, but would be far more so if there was actually something to do besides just look.
Basically, each player/account is going to have one player mode avatar on the entire universe server, instead of a different guy for each world. You will have a "home" planet that you can respawn on if you die or if the server you are currently on goes offline. You will have stats/inventory and be able to party up/communicate with other players. You will be able to visit other worlds via Star Gates, even if you do not have a settlement on that world. When you are in building mode, you will be able to see Player Mode people as they come through your star gate, and so really you can build some kind of special welcoming area/lobby in your world around your Star Gate. Maybe buildings will be added that you can build that have specific functions for player mode. The game will also generate some NPC type characters in each settlement that players can interact with or get quests from. You will be able to do some sort of prospecting/mining, and maybe each world will have unique materials that you can only obtain in player mode. There are a lot of options.
Player Mode characters will also be able to control vehicles, whether driving/air/water vehicles, as well as combat type vehicles. There are a lot of options. Players will also be able to fight each other if they choose to do so.
So that is sort of my idea for the "two games in one" approach to MC2. Although the classic My Colony style of play will always be the primary mode, I think realtime multiplayer and dedicated server model that MC2 has unlocks the ability to add the cool secondary mode that can potentially add replay value to the game for years to come, and also open the world up to players who maybe don't care about the building aspect of the game, but would have fun adventuring through worlds that others have built up.
So those are the 2023 plans for MC2. Content and feature wise, I want it to be close to on par with MC1 United Earth faction, with the added bonus of infinite world sizes, real time online multiplayer, and a network of worlds that are truly connected. On top of that, I want to start adding a secondary adventure game to the mix that players can interact and explore in, whether on a PC, touch screen, TV/gamepad, or in VR. Finally, I want the polish and presentation to get to a point where the game is ready for Steam. I think all of these updates will add up to some exciting times ahead for MC2!
Just as an aside, I also plan to keep updating Colony Wars throughout the year, I have not forgotten about that game. At some point also, Terra Nova 4X will become a thing, I just need to find the time to work on it!
#mycolony #mycolony2
Wow, thanks for this info. Those wall layouts look intimidating since I don't have much drawing experience. I have done some 3D drawings before though, mainly for building ideas for mc. And I've also done a lot of 2D sprites regarding resources to one of my games several years ago.
I'll put my ideas for each biome in another post, but as for the halfway biomes, I like it. would be neat if you could make it so that large clusters of rooms are the same biome and that a transition biome occurs on all maps at the edges of those clusters. Instead of having transition biomes that connect two different biomes though , what if you made each transition biome it's own unique biome. Here's what I mean:
- dry grasslands/savannah: connects grasslands and desert, this map could have some grassy parts, and some clusters of sandy tiles with cacti and other arid plants. Acacia trees could dot the landscape.
- mesa: doesn't really connect anything, but where clusters of deserts are generated, there could be a random chance that each room that would become a dessert would actually become a mesa. You most likely know what a mesa looks like so I won't describe it. I have some ideas of how you can pull this off, but I'll include it in that post I was going to make about biomes, and it'll be under the mountainous biome.
- taiga: connects tundra and forest, spruce or pine trees abound here, and some of the trees that you have shown above could be dotted around the map, and some splotches of snow can be seen all around the map. Would be a good place to get spruce wood. If you plan to add some complex food recipes, one of the ingregients could be maple syrup, which could be gathered from spruce trees using a treee tap.
- shrublands: connects grasslands and forest and grassland and jungle. Berry bushes are dotted across the map along with trees.
wet forest: connects either forest and jungle or forest and swamp, or grasslands and swamp. more water than normal would occur on the map, but shouldn't be more abundant than in swamp biome, still, trees should abound here. It's here where you can find larger amounts of mud and clay and yet still have room to build a house. A swamp should have little room to build anything, which means you would have to leave at night and come back.
but those are just examples of sub-biomes that could exist between your main, garden variety biomes like desert, grassland, forest, tundra, ocean, swamp, etc. I personally think that each of these sub-biomes should give players reasons to visit them just like the main biomes would. I don't think it should be hard to get the items that you need to craft things, other than the items that only drop from bosses and stuff, but I do think that finding the items to progress should take time and lot's of exploration.
Everything you said regarding rpg is good. especially if the enemies get harder the further down you go. I wonder though, most games make you farm enemies until you find armor and weapons that work for your class/combat stats. If we can just mine for materials and make our armor, where's the challenge? I think that maybe we should be able to easily craft each armor set as long as you have the materials, but I think that each tool, armor piece and weapon should have a random number of slots for gems or essences that add stats to it, and enemies can drop these instead of weapons and armor. then the higher your crafting level, the more chances of you crafting an armor or weapon that has more sockets. And maybe you could have a way to craft these gems/essences yourself later in the game, albeit with some challenge and resource hunting.
I think it would be cool to take a page out of starbound's book and build your own settlements. Then as inhabitants start to come in, they'll randomly start to give you random quests that direct you to other rooms to fight mini-bosses, precure items, and rescue npc's. You could probably assign them to specific jobs based on what their personality is like, and based on what profession you give them, they may generate certain types of quests and be open to buy and sell specific items. Rimworld also uses good settlement features, especially being a top-down kind of game just like this one, but I wouldn't get nearly as in-depth into colony building in this game as rimworld is. This is an rpg adventure game, not a city builder.
But anyway, that's what I think. I'll be sure to post my biome ideas soon.
I'll put my ideas for each biome in another post, but as for the halfway biomes, I like it. would be neat if you could make it so that large clusters of rooms are the same biome and that a transition biome occurs on all maps at the edges of those clusters. Instead of having transition biomes that connect two different biomes though , what if you made each transition biome it's own unique biome. Here's what I mean:
- dry grasslands/savannah: connects grasslands and desert, this map could have some grassy parts, and some clusters of sandy tiles with cacti and other arid plants. Acacia trees could dot the landscape.
- mesa: doesn't really connect anything, but where clusters of deserts are generated, there could be a random chance that each room that would become a dessert would actually become a mesa. You most likely know what a mesa looks like so I won't describe it. I have some ideas of how you can pull this off, but I'll include it in that post I was going to make about biomes, and it'll be under the mountainous biome.
- taiga: connects tundra and forest, spruce or pine trees abound here, and some of the trees that you have shown above could be dotted around the map, and some splotches of snow can be seen all around the map. Would be a good place to get spruce wood. If you plan to add some complex food recipes, one of the ingregients could be maple syrup, which could be gathered from spruce trees using a treee tap.
- shrublands: connects grasslands and forest and grassland and jungle. Berry bushes are dotted across the map along with trees.
wet forest: connects either forest and jungle or forest and swamp, or grasslands and swamp. more water than normal would occur on the map, but shouldn't be more abundant than in swamp biome, still, trees should abound here. It's here where you can find larger amounts of mud and clay and yet still have room to build a house. A swamp should have little room to build anything, which means you would have to leave at night and come back.
but those are just examples of sub-biomes that could exist between your main, garden variety biomes like desert, grassland, forest, tundra, ocean, swamp, etc. I personally think that each of these sub-biomes should give players reasons to visit them just like the main biomes would. I don't think it should be hard to get the items that you need to craft things, other than the items that only drop from bosses and stuff, but I do think that finding the items to progress should take time and lot's of exploration.
Everything you said regarding rpg is good. especially if the enemies get harder the further down you go. I wonder though, most games make you farm enemies until you find armor and weapons that work for your class/combat stats. If we can just mine for materials and make our armor, where's the challenge? I think that maybe we should be able to easily craft each armor set as long as you have the materials, but I think that each tool, armor piece and weapon should have a random number of slots for gems or essences that add stats to it, and enemies can drop these instead of weapons and armor. then the higher your crafting level, the more chances of you crafting an armor or weapon that has more sockets. And maybe you could have a way to craft these gems/essences yourself later in the game, albeit with some challenge and resource hunting.
I think it would be cool to take a page out of starbound's book and build your own settlements. Then as inhabitants start to come in, they'll randomly start to give you random quests that direct you to other rooms to fight mini-bosses, precure items, and rescue npc's. You could probably assign them to specific jobs based on what their personality is like, and based on what profession you give them, they may generate certain types of quests and be open to buy and sell specific items. Rimworld also uses good settlement features, especially being a top-down kind of game just like this one, but I wouldn't get nearly as in-depth into colony building in this game as rimworld is. This is an rpg adventure game, not a city builder.
But anyway, that's what I think. I'll be sure to post my biome ideas soon.
Starting with v0.75.0, a massive realignment of colonial GDP will be taking place, and some of you with massive GDP figures numbering in the quadrillions or more may not like it (or may not care), but on the whole, it will be a lot better.
Before v0.75.0, GDP has been just a lazy calculation, adding up the market value of all resources in a colony, along with all of the money that colonists had in their wallets. This was an easy way to set it up at the beginning, and it sort of worked, and not too many people cares, so I left it as is.
The problem, is that anybody who knows about economics will know that this calculation has nothing to do with GDP, making the number totally meaningless as a measure of economic output. The result was that a colony could have a massive GDP just by getting gifts, making an epic trade, or simply existing for a long time and building up massive resource stockpiles. Again, all of this is fine, but it really gives no valuable information about the health of your colony's economy.
With this update, I decided to just totally scrap the old GDP figures, and implement a real GDP calculation, in the economic sense. Going forward, GDP is now a rolling calculation of the gross industrial output of your colony over the span of one "year." This makes it a far more accurate and meaningful measure of the industrial strength of your colony.
So, in order to be able to make the calculation, I first had to definitively determine what one "year" is in My Colony. After reviewing some of the existing game mechanics, I came out with one year being 120,000 "tick" cycles in the game, or roughly one hour of play time. So going forward, the GDP of your colony will be the sum of all industrial output over the last hour of play time.
The part that will sting at first, is that since it is a rolling calculation, that means the GDP figure will be incomplete in your colony until you have played for an hour. I could probably just check the current output and extrapolate it out to fill in the gaps, and I might at some point, but since the issue is irrelevant after an hour of play, I haven't bothered to do it yet.
Now the other part that might sting, it that this represent a complete and total realignment of the various GDP's across the galaxy, especially among older more established colonies that are hoarding epic amounts of resources. Just now that the intention is not to punish those colonies in any way, but to create a more accurate measure of the industrial output of the colony. And really the fact that you just have millions and millions of resources stockpiled, doesn't really say much about the health of your colony's economy.
Because of the change, most people (probably everyone) will be seeing a massive reduction in their GDP. I mean massive. On the flip side, it is happening to everybody across the board, and you will now now for sure what the economic strength is of your colony.
Honestly, the old way of computing it was dumb. A brand new colony with 2 people could get an epic gift from their commonwealth and suddenly have a GDP rivaling colonies that have build up millions of population over the years.
And speaking of gifts, they are not computed in the new GDP calculation. It is solely based on the industrial output of the colony. Although taxes you collect from your charter colonies DO factor in.
Anyway, this actually gives way to new game mechanics that will be able to take advantage of a new GDP calculation. The GDP now gives you a real measure of the strength of your economy, and you will be able to monitor and respond to the boom/bust cycles of the colony. It's not in there as of this writing, but I will be soon adding the GDP Growth % statistic so you can monitor if your colony is growing or in a recession. A growing economy will boost your approval, while a recession will harm it. If your colony enters a great depression, you will get protesting.
Finally the GDP growth rate stat will also be added to the online database, so there will be a ranking coming soon of which economies are growing the fastest. Sort of like in real life!
Anyway, that is the change that is coming. I hope not too many people are upset about their massive GDP numbers being cut down to size, but I think in order to move things forward, it had to happen eventually.
Before v0.75.0, GDP has been just a lazy calculation, adding up the market value of all resources in a colony, along with all of the money that colonists had in their wallets. This was an easy way to set it up at the beginning, and it sort of worked, and not too many people cares, so I left it as is.
The problem, is that anybody who knows about economics will know that this calculation has nothing to do with GDP, making the number totally meaningless as a measure of economic output. The result was that a colony could have a massive GDP just by getting gifts, making an epic trade, or simply existing for a long time and building up massive resource stockpiles. Again, all of this is fine, but it really gives no valuable information about the health of your colony's economy.
With this update, I decided to just totally scrap the old GDP figures, and implement a real GDP calculation, in the economic sense. Going forward, GDP is now a rolling calculation of the gross industrial output of your colony over the span of one "year." This makes it a far more accurate and meaningful measure of the industrial strength of your colony.
So, in order to be able to make the calculation, I first had to definitively determine what one "year" is in My Colony. After reviewing some of the existing game mechanics, I came out with one year being 120,000 "tick" cycles in the game, or roughly one hour of play time. So going forward, the GDP of your colony will be the sum of all industrial output over the last hour of play time.
The part that will sting at first, is that since it is a rolling calculation, that means the GDP figure will be incomplete in your colony until you have played for an hour. I could probably just check the current output and extrapolate it out to fill in the gaps, and I might at some point, but since the issue is irrelevant after an hour of play, I haven't bothered to do it yet.
Now the other part that might sting, it that this represent a complete and total realignment of the various GDP's across the galaxy, especially among older more established colonies that are hoarding epic amounts of resources. Just now that the intention is not to punish those colonies in any way, but to create a more accurate measure of the industrial output of the colony. And really the fact that you just have millions and millions of resources stockpiled, doesn't really say much about the health of your colony's economy.
Because of the change, most people (probably everyone) will be seeing a massive reduction in their GDP. I mean massive. On the flip side, it is happening to everybody across the board, and you will now now for sure what the economic strength is of your colony.
Honestly, the old way of computing it was dumb. A brand new colony with 2 people could get an epic gift from their commonwealth and suddenly have a GDP rivaling colonies that have build up millions of population over the years.
And speaking of gifts, they are not computed in the new GDP calculation. It is solely based on the industrial output of the colony. Although taxes you collect from your charter colonies DO factor in.
Anyway, this actually gives way to new game mechanics that will be able to take advantage of a new GDP calculation. The GDP now gives you a real measure of the strength of your economy, and you will be able to monitor and respond to the boom/bust cycles of the colony. It's not in there as of this writing, but I will be soon adding the GDP Growth % statistic so you can monitor if your colony is growing or in a recession. A growing economy will boost your approval, while a recession will harm it. If your colony enters a great depression, you will get protesting.
Finally the GDP growth rate stat will also be added to the online database, so there will be a ranking coming soon of which economies are growing the fastest. Sort of like in real life!
Anyway, that is the change that is coming. I hope not too many people are upset about their massive GDP numbers being cut down to size, but I think in order to move things forward, it had to happen eventually.
H3110 guys!
Have yo ever think about something that, when we have occupied every space we can use on the planet, where we can seek for? And search for even more resources?
This time, we are going somewhere above the sky -
The Space.👨🚀
I am not kidding. Of cause this is the age of space colonization, but I think something is missing - Interaction with the outer space, and more space industries. This time we will develop into the space, and face the infinite possibilities of, and from the outer worlds.
There are
SEVEN NEW SYSTEMS I’ll introduce in the upcoming series of my posts:
And also, numerous buildings and new technologies...
It might be a largest series of ideas I have ever had... But if you want to express further ideas and improvements towards this, welcome for it!
Inviting:
@Ansom
@Westy266
@Invincible
@Luker124
@bastecklein
@cry8wolf9
@Sobeirannovaocc
@Neotheone
@KamikaziYT
For discussion!
Links of the posts here:
Have yo ever think about something that, when we have occupied every space we can use on the planet, where we can seek for? And search for even more resources?
This time, we are going somewhere above the sky -
The Space.👨🚀
I am not kidding. Of cause this is the age of space colonization, but I think something is missing - Interaction with the outer space, and more space industries. This time we will develop into the space, and face the infinite possibilities of, and from the outer worlds.
There are
SEVEN NEW SYSTEMS I’ll introduce in the upcoming series of my posts:
- Random Colony Events - Once you have built an consulate you have to deal with the matters not just with the commonwealth but also the outside world. There can be interstellar guests, great people, and famous merchants, or disasters, pirates, and more.
- Security & Crimes - Accompanied with the random events, as PIRATES!!! may attack your colony you have to get yourself well prepared. Also, this is the new thing that contributes to governance. A low security level leads to crime outbreaks.
- Orbital Construction - Yep, we are going into the space and build our epic orbital stations, huge starships, or even a Death Star (just kiddin)!
- Outer Space Missions - Train your astronauts, prepare your starships, and begin exploring the outer space and search for good stuff!
- The Great Artifacts - Want to have some epic things that you can show them to the entire galaxy? Collect the great artifacts! Besides they will be put into the showroom, it reveals new technology and buildings, as well bring your colony unique buffs!
- The Grand Tournaments & Races - The evil Galactic Emperor wanted to have a series of galaxy-wide tournaments and events for long, so as to encourage the colonies to compete each other, in non-violence manner. In these events, you may earn resources as awards, and the most importantly, the new reputation resource that is required to build the epic wonders and ultimate functional buildings! (bast has his plan already :p)
- Requests and Orders - So when there is no Grand Races, how you can earn a minor amount of reputation is through finishing the Requests made by NPCs and special visitors from Random Events. (bast has his plan already :p)
- Galactic Diplomacy - Accompanies with Random Events and Quests, this allows other colonies to be one part of diplomacy... (similar thing is introduced in space missions)
And also, numerous buildings and new technologies...
It might be a largest series of ideas I have ever had... But if you want to express further ideas and improvements towards this, welcome for it!
Inviting:
@Ansom
@Westy266
@Invincible
@Luker124
@bastecklein
@cry8wolf9
@Sobeirannovaocc
@Neotheone
@KamikaziYT
For discussion!
Links of the posts here:
- Volume 1 - The Space Industries (Basic stuff)!
https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=33561
Finished! - Volume 2 - Random Events!
https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=33608
Finished! - Volume 3 - Security and Crimes MKII!
https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=33783
Finished! - Volume 4 - Outer Space Exploration!
https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=33899
Finished! - Volume 5 - Quests and Orders!
Bast has his plans, however... I have a post regarding this.
https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=34008
Now under work! - Volume 6 - The Great Artifacts!
https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=34215
Finished!
And more will come soon! Stay tuned for the updates!
Orciusium is a proud member of the ever-growing NOZ federation of wizards! I'm Orcinus(Orcinus#9043 on discord) maker of the original, might make a come back ;) discord my colony bot. I code for a hobby mostly and work in IT, so I love all things techy. If you want to hang out with lots of fun and interesting people (you know who you are) join Orcinusium and be a part of a great and wonderful NOZ family!
Charter:
lmJM6Jyl
NOZ Discord server:
https://discord.gg/4wTr5My
Join us on this epic adventure called My Colony!
this looks great I have always wanted a game like this from you considering how good the rest of your games are I am excited to see what you have in store for us.
I was unable to make a My Token, even while logged in. It told me it saved. It didn't. So I was unable to use a My Token on this game. I'm hoping it develops nicely; you guys have some nice other games!
I'm running Firefox, if that matters for the My Token thing (which I'd not have tried except for this).
I'm running Firefox, if that matters for the My Token thing (which I'd not have tried except for this).
Ooh, this sounds promising @basteklein. How deep into crafting are you hoping to go? Will you be adding ways to automate some things? Will there be a leveling and class system? If this game becomes popular, do you think you would go as far as giving us the ability to travel to other planets/dimensions?
Speaking of infinite lower levels, you could also have infinite higher levels as well . Would be cool if the first floor of a building can be a part of the world map so you can pass right through the first floor of a building without having to go to another map, while upper and lower levels would have to be in separate maps. Instead of adding a map for every single staircase that a map has, just have each staircase or hole lead to the same level. for example, If you are building multiple two story houses on one map and you climb up to the second floor of one house, you should be able to see the second floor of the other houses, since they are all in the same level. This keeps all of the levels going up uniformely, creating a "column" of maps that exist one on top of the other and with the same amount of space.
I also like the fact that you can move into a new room when you get to the edge of a room, that could make different biome generation easy because you just need to designate the biome for each room and generate different things based on each biome. We could also do with a chunk map that shows all of the rooms/chunks that we've been in and the biome types of each. The map should focus the room that the player is in at the center so that you always know what's around you, but sooner or later we will want to be able to zoom out further and pan around the map, especially if we've done a lot of exploring. If you are planning to add at least a minimal amount of automation, I recommend being able to keep a number of rooms loaded(but not visible) in a radius around you so you have room to move while your automations do their thing, or what if only the column that you are in was loaded, so that automations above and below you can operate.
What are the texture specs so we can contribute to decorations? Would be neat to work on floor and wall types, resource images, plants, and other terrain types. I especially want to work on resources, I have many ideas for them.
I have an idea for a resource chain that you might like below. The chain leads you through the main crafting materials of the game, and some of the main buildings and furnature that could be added.
flooring: plank floor
flooring: cobble floor
wall: plank wall
wall: log wall
wall: cobble wall
furniture: wooden chair - should be able to sit in the chair, food grants bonus hunger points when eaten whilst sitting in a chair and health regeneration should slightly increase while sitting. Food should grant even more bonus hunger points if you sit in a chair that's facing a table while eating it.
furniture: wooden table
furniture: torch - crafted from sticks and coal. obviously spreads light in the darkness. that's if you are planning on adding light.
overworld structure - gravel pile - mined to obtain gravel, and sometimes flint
cave block: gravel - mined to obtain gravel, and drops flint more often.
item: gravel - used mainly for pathing
flooring: gravel path
item: - flint - used in many crafting recipes
furniture: furnace - basic cooking and smelting - requires stone and flint
cave block: coal ore - mined to obtain coal
item: coal: 1 coal can smelt 4(?) items. can be obtained by smelting wood in a furnace or mining coal ore in caves
cave block: copper ore - can be mined to obtain copper ore
item: copper ore - smelt in a furnace to obtain copper
item: copper - used in many crafting recipes.
cave block: iron ore - can be mined to obtain iron ore
item: iron ore - smelt in a furnace to obtain iron
item: iron- used in many crafting recipes.
cave block: gold ore - can be mined to obtain gold ore
item: gold ore - smelt in a furnace to obtain gold
item: gold- used in many crafting recipes .
item: gold coin - the main game currency, one gold ingot crafts into multiple coins.
furniture: forge - tier 2 smelting, only accepts coke for fuel - requires 1 furnace, lots of iron
item: coke - 1 coal refines into 1 coak in a furnace, used for forging steel from iron and iron ore, and 1 coke item smelts 1 item in the forge, this is to make steel a bit harder to obtain at first.
item: steel - used in many crafting recipes
furniture: alloy forge: a more efficient smelter with 2 inputs and 2 output slots. made with a forge and lots of steel. 1 coke smelts 2 items. If the right combination of 2 items are inserted and smelted, a new material is created, but if two items that won't mix are inserted, the alloy forge will act like a double furnace, smelting both items at once into their normal products.
item: antanium - a mixture of steel and gold, a very durable material. used in many crafting recipes
That's as far as I've gotten Obviously, each metal should have it's own set of tools and armor built from it, and each tier of tools are faster and more durable that the others. You can mix this up and complicate the process as much as you want, I was just trying to provide a skeleton plan for you to build off of in case you didn't have one yet.
Anyway, hope you like at least some of these ideas, let us know about the texture specs.
Speaking of infinite lower levels, you could also have infinite higher levels as well . Would be cool if the first floor of a building can be a part of the world map so you can pass right through the first floor of a building without having to go to another map, while upper and lower levels would have to be in separate maps. Instead of adding a map for every single staircase that a map has, just have each staircase or hole lead to the same level. for example, If you are building multiple two story houses on one map and you climb up to the second floor of one house, you should be able to see the second floor of the other houses, since they are all in the same level. This keeps all of the levels going up uniformely, creating a "column" of maps that exist one on top of the other and with the same amount of space.
I also like the fact that you can move into a new room when you get to the edge of a room, that could make different biome generation easy because you just need to designate the biome for each room and generate different things based on each biome. We could also do with a chunk map that shows all of the rooms/chunks that we've been in and the biome types of each. The map should focus the room that the player is in at the center so that you always know what's around you, but sooner or later we will want to be able to zoom out further and pan around the map, especially if we've done a lot of exploring. If you are planning to add at least a minimal amount of automation, I recommend being able to keep a number of rooms loaded(but not visible) in a radius around you so you have room to move while your automations do their thing, or what if only the column that you are in was loaded, so that automations above and below you can operate.
What are the texture specs so we can contribute to decorations? Would be neat to work on floor and wall types, resource images, plants, and other terrain types. I especially want to work on resources, I have many ideas for them.
I have an idea for a resource chain that you might like below. The chain leads you through the main crafting materials of the game, and some of the main buildings and furnature that could be added.
flooring: plank floor
flooring: cobble floor
wall: plank wall
wall: log wall
wall: cobble wall
furniture: wooden chair - should be able to sit in the chair, food grants bonus hunger points when eaten whilst sitting in a chair and health regeneration should slightly increase while sitting. Food should grant even more bonus hunger points if you sit in a chair that's facing a table while eating it.
furniture: wooden table
furniture: torch - crafted from sticks and coal. obviously spreads light in the darkness. that's if you are planning on adding light.
overworld structure - gravel pile - mined to obtain gravel, and sometimes flint
cave block: gravel - mined to obtain gravel, and drops flint more often.
item: gravel - used mainly for pathing
flooring: gravel path
item: - flint - used in many crafting recipes
furniture: furnace - basic cooking and smelting - requires stone and flint
cave block: coal ore - mined to obtain coal
item: coal: 1 coal can smelt 4(?) items. can be obtained by smelting wood in a furnace or mining coal ore in caves
cave block: copper ore - can be mined to obtain copper ore
item: copper ore - smelt in a furnace to obtain copper
item: copper - used in many crafting recipes.
cave block: iron ore - can be mined to obtain iron ore
item: iron ore - smelt in a furnace to obtain iron
item: iron- used in many crafting recipes.
cave block: gold ore - can be mined to obtain gold ore
item: gold ore - smelt in a furnace to obtain gold
item: gold- used in many crafting recipes .
item: gold coin - the main game currency, one gold ingot crafts into multiple coins.
furniture: forge - tier 2 smelting, only accepts coke for fuel - requires 1 furnace, lots of iron
item: coke - 1 coal refines into 1 coak in a furnace, used for forging steel from iron and iron ore, and 1 coke item smelts 1 item in the forge, this is to make steel a bit harder to obtain at first.
item: steel - used in many crafting recipes
furniture: alloy forge: a more efficient smelter with 2 inputs and 2 output slots. made with a forge and lots of steel. 1 coke smelts 2 items. If the right combination of 2 items are inserted and smelted, a new material is created, but if two items that won't mix are inserted, the alloy forge will act like a double furnace, smelting both items at once into their normal products.
item: antanium - a mixture of steel and gold, a very durable material. used in many crafting recipes
That's as far as I've gotten Obviously, each metal should have it's own set of tools and armor built from it, and each tier of tools are faster and more durable that the others. You can mix this up and complicate the process as much as you want, I was just trying to provide a skeleton plan for you to build off of in case you didn't have one yet.
Anyway, hope you like at least some of these ideas, let us know about the texture specs.
A round table?!?!
Finally I can do a King Arthur role play... oh wait there's no swords 🙁
😂😂
Finally I can do a King Arthur role play... oh wait there's no swords 🙁
😂😂
How are you going to handle the growing system? Is there going to be a large update every minute where everything updates, or is only stuff near people going to grow? I took the first aproach in my game but the inevitable lag spike can be annoying
@DKMK100 I am thinking that each object that is growing will keep track of which game turn it will be mature, and then it will happen on that turn. So if, just for example, wheat takes 500 'ticks' to mature, and is planted on tick 1000, the object will know that if it is currently tick 1500 or later, it needs to mature. Something like that. I haven't started coding that part yet though, so anything could change lol
@bastecklein so you are going to store the time that it last updated and when you are near something it will grow if the current time is higher? Thats a pretty good system! I think terraria does something similar. The main issue I see is that it makes world size bigger so you might not be able to store the worldmap in local storage as cookies (not that thats the best idea anyway). Well, good luck!
And how do biomes work? Do you just make a giant grid and asign a random biome to each location? That would be bad. Do you have biomes that are allowed near other biomes and only those and its mostly random? That would be better but its still a bad system. Having a overlay of humidity and of temperature made with perlin noise that is used to decide where to put biomes would be better. Personally, I don't have biomes per say, different plants and soil will grow in different temperature/humidity. @bastecklein
@DKMK100 each biome has a list of biomes that it can be next to, and a list of biomes that it is allowed to be next to. So when the player enters a new biome, the game generates the adjacent biomes based on the criteria of what is allowed to be next to what.
If any of you have ever peeked at the source code of My Colony or many of my other games, you might notice a common script in all of them called scroll2d.js. Back in 2013, I thought it would be neat to create a web browser based game engine that could be used to render and manipulate 2d tile maps in either normal or isometric mode. Scroll2d is the engine I came up with, and My Land was the the original technical demonstration for that engine.
Since then, I have reused that engine in many different projects, including Gone Rogue, My Colony, Musical Kittens, Antiquitas, EZ Composer, Hell and Back, My Starship, Epic Adventure, the map editor in Death 3d, and more. I think it's fair to say that over the last 7 years I have gotten a got bit of mileage out of the engine, but I think it's also fair to say that the engine is a bit dated. From a technical standpoint, I did a lot of things weird in Scroll2d that, if I could redo it all, would have been done a lot differently. The problem is, the engine is used in so many projects I can't really just make huge changes to it without breaking everything.
I have been thinking of this for a while, and I am considering "sunsetting" the Scroll2d engine and all of it's associated projects and moving completely into 3d/WebGL. I am thinking of creating a brand new engine, unimaginatively called Scroll3d, which will offer similar capabilities of scrolling around a map and manipulating tiles, but will be entirely 3d and use 3d models instead of 2d sprite graphics.
Now, when I say "sunsetting," it's not as though I am going to discontinue any of my Scroll2d apps and games. Really, nothing with Ape Apps ever reaches an "end of life" and I will probably support all projects until I fall from the virus or some other tragedy. That said, I do plan on moving all of the current Scroll2d projects down from the priority list and start working on new titles using the new 3d engine.
I currently have two fairly extensive Scroll2d projects that I do plan on completing first before making this switch, Colony Wars and My Empire. I am pretty far along into both projects, so it only makes since to finish them and get them published to the markets.
So all of that said, here is my roadmap going forward for Ape Apps:
My Colony 2 is only a concept right now, so all suggestions are on the table. Think of all of the things you wish were in the current My Colony. Ideas that would require a total rewrite of the game are now on the table, because I am literally doing a total rewrite of the game, which will also include a new server. I can make multiplayer that actually works properly if I design the game with multiplayer in mind from the beginning. All units and buildings will be 3d modeled using blender. I don't have a lot of the concepts worked out, but I am thinking that My Colony 2 will only feature United Earth instead of 4 different civs, so I can keep my focus this time.
So anyway, that is what's happening. I plan to finish Colony Wars sometime this month and My Empire next month, and I will then begin work on MC2, which will be built in complete open beta and all feedback and suggestions will be taken into account. So stay tuned for more!
Since then, I have reused that engine in many different projects, including Gone Rogue, My Colony, Musical Kittens, Antiquitas, EZ Composer, Hell and Back, My Starship, Epic Adventure, the map editor in Death 3d, and more. I think it's fair to say that over the last 7 years I have gotten a got bit of mileage out of the engine, but I think it's also fair to say that the engine is a bit dated. From a technical standpoint, I did a lot of things weird in Scroll2d that, if I could redo it all, would have been done a lot differently. The problem is, the engine is used in so many projects I can't really just make huge changes to it without breaking everything.
I have been thinking of this for a while, and I am considering "sunsetting" the Scroll2d engine and all of it's associated projects and moving completely into 3d/WebGL. I am thinking of creating a brand new engine, unimaginatively called Scroll3d, which will offer similar capabilities of scrolling around a map and manipulating tiles, but will be entirely 3d and use 3d models instead of 2d sprite graphics.
Now, when I say "sunsetting," it's not as though I am going to discontinue any of my Scroll2d apps and games. Really, nothing with Ape Apps ever reaches an "end of life" and I will probably support all projects until I fall from the virus or some other tragedy. That said, I do plan on moving all of the current Scroll2d projects down from the priority list and start working on new titles using the new 3d engine.
I currently have two fairly extensive Scroll2d projects that I do plan on completing first before making this switch, Colony Wars and My Empire. I am pretty far along into both projects, so it only makes since to finish them and get them published to the markets.
So all of that said, here is my roadmap going forward for Ape Apps:
- Complete Colony Wars. This is my current #1 priority project starting now, and pretty much the only thing I am going to be working on until it's done. Time to get this game finished and released.
- Complete My Empire. As soon as I am done with Colony Wars, I am going to go straight full time into My Empire and get that game done as well.
- Begin Scroll3d development. I am then going to be moving all attention into creating the new game engine, which will be a combination/mix of everything I have learned over the years between the Scroll2d engine and the Death 3d engine. Of course, the new engine needs its maiden project, and I think that maybe the time is right to start working on:
- My Colony 2: the first project to be based on the new engine.
My Colony 2 is only a concept right now, so all suggestions are on the table. Think of all of the things you wish were in the current My Colony. Ideas that would require a total rewrite of the game are now on the table, because I am literally doing a total rewrite of the game, which will also include a new server. I can make multiplayer that actually works properly if I design the game with multiplayer in mind from the beginning. All units and buildings will be 3d modeled using blender. I don't have a lot of the concepts worked out, but I am thinking that My Colony 2 will only feature United Earth instead of 4 different civs, so I can keep my focus this time.
So anyway, that is what's happening. I plan to finish Colony Wars sometime this month and My Empire next month, and I will then begin work on MC2, which will be built in complete open beta and all feedback and suggestions will be taken into account. So stay tuned for more!
Thanks @itsLiseczeq
@Ansom I can add an underground layer no, no problem.
I am considering making a major change to the concept of a game file in MC2. Instead of the current region/city model, I am considering doing infinite (or at least way larger) sized procedurally generated planets, sort of like a world is generated in Minecraft. The map would be loaded in "chunks" like in Minecraft and so the engine would only actively process the chunks that are near currently have active players. Other areas of the map might process in the background on a less frequent interval.
In this way, it would be easy (well, easier) to have multiple players on the same map in real-time.
For performance, all game processing will be done in a separate worker script, the way it is currently handled in Epic Adventure, Colony Wars, and My Empire. Those games all separate out the client/server code, which makes implementation of real-time multiplayer a lot easier.
My thought is that players could create a local game file. Others could join their game if they choose to and start their own settlement somewhere on the planet. If somebody else has a settlement on another players local game file, the server player would have to be online for everyone to play. Each player would have their own resource pool, although that might be customizable on a per-game basis.
Players would also be able to download the server code and install it on their own box, running their own private server if they wanted to. In theory a single privately run server could host multiple planets as well, with trade networks between them, just depends on how powerful the server is. A private server hosted on a powerful PC or cloud hosting service should be able to handle quite a few players at once. The operator would be able to set custom parameters for the universe and assign other operators.
I have been thinking of ways to decentralize the multiplayer experience in MC2, so there is no single point of failure as there is in MC1. It would also lower my costs, and private server operators could take care of administration in their own servers. I think designing it this way from the start will allow for a pretty robust multiplayer experience.
Of course, you can always just play offline too, or in your own household via LAN. But I do like the idea of scrapping the region/city concept and replacing it with an entire planet concept, that just keeps loading new chunks as you scroll through the world. To me it is more realistic. And a single planet can now have multiple biomes, different resources in different parts of the world that you will have to build trade/transit networks to utilize.
Anyway, I have a lot of plans for MC2. It's not just going to be MC1 with 3d graphics. There are a lot of things I have wanted to implement that would have been too hard to just nail on to the existing game engine.
@Ansom I can add an underground layer no, no problem.
I am considering making a major change to the concept of a game file in MC2. Instead of the current region/city model, I am considering doing infinite (or at least way larger) sized procedurally generated planets, sort of like a world is generated in Minecraft. The map would be loaded in "chunks" like in Minecraft and so the engine would only actively process the chunks that are near currently have active players. Other areas of the map might process in the background on a less frequent interval.
In this way, it would be easy (well, easier) to have multiple players on the same map in real-time.
For performance, all game processing will be done in a separate worker script, the way it is currently handled in Epic Adventure, Colony Wars, and My Empire. Those games all separate out the client/server code, which makes implementation of real-time multiplayer a lot easier.
My thought is that players could create a local game file. Others could join their game if they choose to and start their own settlement somewhere on the planet. If somebody else has a settlement on another players local game file, the server player would have to be online for everyone to play. Each player would have their own resource pool, although that might be customizable on a per-game basis.
Players would also be able to download the server code and install it on their own box, running their own private server if they wanted to. In theory a single privately run server could host multiple planets as well, with trade networks between them, just depends on how powerful the server is. A private server hosted on a powerful PC or cloud hosting service should be able to handle quite a few players at once. The operator would be able to set custom parameters for the universe and assign other operators.
I have been thinking of ways to decentralize the multiplayer experience in MC2, so there is no single point of failure as there is in MC1. It would also lower my costs, and private server operators could take care of administration in their own servers. I think designing it this way from the start will allow for a pretty robust multiplayer experience.
Of course, you can always just play offline too, or in your own household via LAN. But I do like the idea of scrapping the region/city concept and replacing it with an entire planet concept, that just keeps loading new chunks as you scroll through the world. To me it is more realistic. And a single planet can now have multiple biomes, different resources in different parts of the world that you will have to build trade/transit networks to utilize.
Anyway, I have a lot of plans for MC2. It's not just going to be MC1 with 3d graphics. There are a lot of things I have wanted to implement that would have been too hard to just nail on to the existing game engine.
I have begun designing the upcoming Scroll3d engine, which is a WebGL based replacement for my current Scroll2d game engine that powers My Colony, Antiquitas, My Land, My Starship, Epic Adventure, Gone Rogue, Hell and Back, Colony Wars, My Empire, etc. Scroll3d is my "next generation" rendering engine that will be powering My Colony 2 along with my next batch of games and graphical applications over the coming years, so it is a long term project.
I am designing Scroll3d to be similar API-wise to Scroll2d, the primary difference being that it adds a Z axis to the current X/Y axis. But I wanted the mouse/touch/gamepad interactions to work in a similar way to Scroll2d, because the current engine is fairly easy to navigate at this point.
To that end, I have created the first app and tech demo for the new Scroll3d engine, Voxel Paint, which you can check out at Ape Web Apps here: https://www.apewebapps.com/voxel-paint/
Voxel Paint is just a simple 3d drawing app, nothing special. But I needed something to start putting the basics into the new engine. Voxel Paint demonstrates that the engine now has X, Y, and Z axis. I also have most of the usual mouse and touch interactions working, including panning and zoom, utilizing both mouse wheel and touch pinch-to-zoom. Scroll3d also adds an additional interaction which is Rotate.
Anyway, you can check out the beginnings of the new engine by giving Voxel Paint a try. There is still a lot to do on the engine of course, but you can start to see the basics taking shape.
While working on Voxel Paint, I began to consider writing a WebGL loader that would take Voxel Paint save files and turn them into geometries that can be used in games, support for which would be baked right into Scroll3d. Using this, if I wanted to give MC2 a pixelated look, it would be easy for players/modders to just whip out a custom voxel model and import it into the game. Anyway, I would have to see how it looks first though, I might not like the pixelated look.
I am designing Scroll3d to be similar API-wise to Scroll2d, the primary difference being that it adds a Z axis to the current X/Y axis. But I wanted the mouse/touch/gamepad interactions to work in a similar way to Scroll2d, because the current engine is fairly easy to navigate at this point.
To that end, I have created the first app and tech demo for the new Scroll3d engine, Voxel Paint, which you can check out at Ape Web Apps here: https://www.apewebapps.com/voxel-paint/
Voxel Paint is just a simple 3d drawing app, nothing special. But I needed something to start putting the basics into the new engine. Voxel Paint demonstrates that the engine now has X, Y, and Z axis. I also have most of the usual mouse and touch interactions working, including panning and zoom, utilizing both mouse wheel and touch pinch-to-zoom. Scroll3d also adds an additional interaction which is Rotate.
Anyway, you can check out the beginnings of the new engine by giving Voxel Paint a try. There is still a lot to do on the engine of course, but you can start to see the basics taking shape.
While working on Voxel Paint, I began to consider writing a WebGL loader that would take Voxel Paint save files and turn them into geometries that can be used in games, support for which would be baked right into Scroll3d. Using this, if I wanted to give MC2 a pixelated look, it would be easy for players/modders to just whip out a custom voxel model and import it into the game. Anyway, I would have to see how it looks first though, I might not like the pixelated look.
Thats awesome, can’t wait to see these changes put into the game.
I like the idea. I remember you showing all of the images that you had to draw for one wall. I know how tedious game design can be.
The scroll3d engine would be better because it could allow you to have an elevation and sea level element, or even an underwater element. I’m feeling like “My Realm” sounds better since it is an rpg game, but that’s just my opinion. How will you implement underground mining and house construction though?
I feel like you could create a cave system via z-levels. For example, each Z coordinate could be tied to a different playfield. ground/sea level could be z:0, higher elevations could have a negative z value, and lowlands/caves/underwater/underground could have positive z values, or vice-versa. You could traverse between these playfields/coordinates via stairs/cave entrance just like the old game.
Each chunk could contain data for all playfields at the same x and y coordinates(kind of like how minecraft chunks go all the way down to the bottom of the world), eliminating the need to repeatedly unload and load chunks when switching playfields. This way, you just need to pull different tile and object data from each chunk depending on the value of z. The chunk object is always in memory, but not all of its data has to be. You would only have to load/unload chunks when the player moves around along the x and y axes.
If the player is at or above sea level, they will want to see the ground below and above them. I’m not sure how this could be done when each z level is a separate playfield. People might want to dig into a mountainside to make their base, and that wouldn’t be possible if you put everything at and above sea level into one playfield.
Either way, i look forward to the future changes.
The scroll3d engine would be better because it could allow you to have an elevation and sea level element, or even an underwater element. I’m feeling like “My Realm” sounds better since it is an rpg game, but that’s just my opinion. How will you implement underground mining and house construction though?
I feel like you could create a cave system via z-levels. For example, each Z coordinate could be tied to a different playfield. ground/sea level could be z:0, higher elevations could have a negative z value, and lowlands/caves/underwater/underground could have positive z values, or vice-versa. You could traverse between these playfields/coordinates via stairs/cave entrance just like the old game.
Each chunk could contain data for all playfields at the same x and y coordinates(kind of like how minecraft chunks go all the way down to the bottom of the world), eliminating the need to repeatedly unload and load chunks when switching playfields. This way, you just need to pull different tile and object data from each chunk depending on the value of z. The chunk object is always in memory, but not all of its data has to be. You would only have to load/unload chunks when the player moves around along the x and y axes.
If the player is at or above sea level, they will want to see the ground below and above them. I’m not sure how this could be done when each z level is a separate playfield. People might want to dig into a mountainside to make their base, and that wouldn’t be possible if you put everything at and above sea level into one playfield.
Either way, i look forward to the future changes.