Gravity is now under your command! In this update we included the first part of the map-scripting function. Once finished this feature is going to allow you to create your own game modes without the need of programming skills.
The first thing you are going to notice when opening a map in the editor is the fifth menu item on top which opens up a list of changeable game constants. All game constants accept numbers only as input at the moment.
Currently there are three constants available but there is a lot more to come.
- Gravity: This value affects the jump height and falling speed of players. The lower you set it, the more players are accelerated towards the bottom of the map. If you set the gravity to a positive value then everyone is going to fly away as soon as the map starts. (Default value: -32.0)
- Damage Factor: The damage factor applies to all abilities which deal a certain amount of damage to blocks. Before the damage is applied it is being multiplied by this game constant. This does not affect explosions since they destroy blocks instantly without applying damage. (Default value: 1.0)
- Block Destruction: This is actually a boolean value which defines if it is possible to destroy blocks. If the value is set to 0 then it is impossible to destroy blocks. (Default value: 1)
Since the modified game constants are stored in the map files themselves we had to change the map format to a more dynamic one. We converted all default maps to the new format. If you want to keep and host any of your previously created maps you have to open them up in the editor and save them again to update them. Old maps are marked yellow in the lobby and in the editor loading screen.
While the old map format only allowed a maximum of 255 different block types for the whole game, the new one supports up to 2.147.483.648 different block types PER MAP. So speaking of game design there is no upper limit to the amount of different block types the game can handle (ignoring hardware limitations).
It is not recommended to host old maps since this is going to cause unexpected behaviour.
Since our own engine is growing new features everyday we decided to finally remove the remaining parts of the slick and lwjgl utility libraries. This reduced the size of the main jar file by about ~200 kB.
We also moved all shaders into the main jar file since they are very small and should only be changed by experienced users because they could turn the game into an unplayable state.
Don't forget to vote for us in the 2015 Indie of the Year Awards here on IndieDB and to tell your friends about TactiX. :D
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Nice