Release v0.0.10-alpha is now available! Although there’s not a lot of major new features this time around, there are definitely a lot of changes (including close to 20 bug fixes). A couple of the more interesting features I have implemented in this version include the minimap, the ability to enable basic shadows, and a new scripting function that lets you trigger an animation for a specific entity based on its ID.
I also enhanced the navigation/interaction system a bit. Now there are three different types of navigation/interaction that are allowed between two adjacent tiles. If two tiles are connected, you can choose from Walk and Interact (you can both walk between the two tiles and interact with objects or characters from one tile to the other), Walk Only (you can only walk between the two tiles – no interacting with objects or characters), and Interact Only (you can initiate interactions between the two tiles, but not walk). Interact Only is useful for objects like treasure chests, where you want the player to be able to interact from certain adjacent tiles (perhaps only from the front of the chest?) without being able to walk onto that tile.
There are a ton of other changes that you can check out below!
New Features:
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A minimap is now generated when a map is saved in the Map Editor. The minimap is displayed in top left corner of your game and can be toggled with the “M” key.
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In the Properties dialog for tiles, objects, and characters, you can now define a unique ID for that entity which can be referenced in scripts. In the editing mode of the Map Editor, the entity's unique ID is displayed above its coordinate in the lower right corner if one is assigned.
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New scripting concept: entity references. This will be used in certain scripting functions, such as the new Play Animation function described below, to refer to a game entity. The initial values supported are "player", which refers to the main player character, self, which refers to the entity that the script/dialogue is attached to, and entity["xyz"], which would refer to the entity within the current map that has an ID of "xyz". An Entity Expression Builder dialog was added to the Script Editor so you can easily select from a valid list of entity references when applicable.
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New Play Animation scripting function to start an animation for a specific game entity (see above for details on entities). For example, if you have a door with an ID of "door01", you can have the game play the "open" animation by adding a Play Animation function to your script and specifying an entity ID of "door01" and animation name of "open".
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A custom background color can now be selected in the Properties panel of the Map Editor. This is the background fill color for the map and at the moment is most useful for defining the color of the sky when using the First-Person camera type. I am planning for a future release to add support for sky boxes.
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Combat is now implemented for the First-Person camera type. Similar to other interactions, you can press space to initiate a battle with an enemy from the main map. In combat, space will attack an enemy in front of you or end the turn.
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If a script is attached to a tile, it will now execute when the player steps onto the tile. This is useful for linking to a new map.
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Initial implementation of shadows. In the Map Editor, shadows can be turned on per map by expanding the Directional Light in the Properties container and checking the "Shadows" checkbox. A future release will add support for tweaking shadow settings.
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New Modify Navigation/Interaction scripting function to set the navigation/interaction type for two adjacent tiles. You will specify the unique ID for each tile and the type of navigation/interaction that should be allowed between these two tiles. This is useful for scenarios such as opening doors where you want to allow the player to walk through a doorway once the door is open. There is more info in "Other Changes" below regarding the updated navigation.
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Initial implementation of a “Top-Down” camera type. For the time being, this camera type works exactly like the Standard camera type, except the camera is fixed and looks straight down at the player from above.
Bug Fixes:
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Item Container fields will no longer show in the Properties dialog for tiles - only objects.
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Correctly set the height of enemies when initiating a battle map.
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Limit a map's tile width to an even number of voxels (8, 10, 12, 14, 16) when creating a new map.
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Fixed issue with loading maps in-game where the last tile the player was on in the current map is not cleared (it was not unmarked as being occupied). This could cause issues when returning to the map because that tile could no longer be walked onto.
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Objects marked as item containers now work properly when activated in First-Person mode.
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In the Item Editor when editing an item's name, its name is now correctly updated in the item list.
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Fixed an issue when deleting a function from a script and then immediately adding a new one. The new function was added as the root and would corrupt the script outline.
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Player's vertical positioning would not work properly if tiles were below ground level (Z coordinate of zero). This should now work correctly.
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Changed the name fields on the "Save As Dialogue" and "Save As Script" dialog windows to single line fields instead of multi-line. Also, the validation logic works correctly now and the Enter key can be used to submit the dialog.
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Fixed the Conditional Expression Builder dialog to properly validate expressions when manually editing the expression text field.
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Fixed the parsing of conditional expressions to properly reject the expression if any trailing tokens exist at the end of the expression.
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Correctly allow a global property to be used in the player.inventory contains conditional expression. For example, if player.inventory contains global.property[“abc”].
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While in Edit Mode in the Map Editor, the coordinate label is no longer hidden when the mouse is moved outside of the 3D view (only while in Place Mode).
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The player can no longer attack enemies while still moving from one tile to the next.
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In some cases, when placing objects in the Map Editor, the object did not correctly store which tile it was placed on. This happened if you clicked on an already existing object to replace it, but should now be fixed.
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Fixed an issue where if you held down the right-mouse button to rotate the camera and then moved the cursor outside of the game window and then back in after releasing the button, the game would still rotate the camera as if the button was still pressed.
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Fixed an issue in the Script Editor that would occur when generating the script outline for a script whose root was a conditional statement. This would cause the Then/Else statements to not be built correctly in the tree.
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Changed the logic for generating a script's source code to fix an issue where certain nested statements would not be updated correctly when function parameters were modified. Also, I used the opportunity to add indenting to the script source code that is generated.
Other Changes:
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Revamp of the navigation/interaction system. There are now three types of accessibility between tiles if they are connected: Walk & Interact, Walk Only, and Interact Only. In the Map Editor with the Navigation/Interaction paths enabled, these are represented as green, yellow, and orange lines, respectively. To modify this, select two adjacent tiles in Edit Mode, and then right-click and go to the "Navigation/Interaction" submenu
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Added the ability to click on an object or character (in Standard camera type) and automatically walk there if it has a script or dialogue attached or is an item container. Previously, you would have to first walk over to an adjacent tile and then click on the object to interact.
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In-game, the arrow cursor will now change to green if it is hovering over an object or character that can be interacted with.
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Removed the “button mode” toolbar button from the Voxel Editor. This mode was confusing and I will focus on improving the normal mouse mode instead (the paintbrush toolbar button).
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Added a hotkey legend to display the keys you can press (A/Z/X keys) to adjust the tile level while in Place Mode in the Map Editor.
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In the Script Editor, the Player Position coordinates for the Load Map function can now be manually entered. Click on the coordinate box and a popup will display allowing you to enter the (X, Y, Z) values.
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Changed the default position of the item container window to be in the top center of the game screen.
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Added “Item Container" marker functionality to mark objects in the Map Editor that are containers. These appear as box icons over the objects.
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Updated the image field in the Item Editor to be a dropdown box that lists all available images in your project. You no longer need to manually type in the PNG filename.
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When opening the Conditional Expression Builder from within the Script Editor, the expression field is now initialized with the current value instead of starting with a blank expression.
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In the Map Editor, the display of Navigation/Interaction paths is now enabled by default. Also changed the button tooltip text to "Toggle Navigation/Interaction Paths".
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The saving of maps in the Map Editor is now handled in a separate thread to prevent the application from hanging up, and a progress dialog is now displayed to indicate the save progress.
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Added roof tiles, dungeon entrance, door, and small/large rocks to sample content, and added more detail to the stone wall textures.
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