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[Thecoolestnerdguy]

Ascii Is half the identity of the project, plus there is a kind of ironic tone that enhance the smile of moonman : P

A more Asci look would work for me, but I enjoy seeing the graphical experimentation. Hope you can come up with a look you like..

less is more

and would've practice what I preach here 

Hey guys, I think I disagree with most of you. I think Moonman is pretty much awesome with these new effects. I think it's better than before.

But I also think the most important thing MM need to has is:

[eigenbom]

Update: Yesterday was soo annoying, I spent all day stuffing around with different parameters, trying to get the outlining and bloom looking good, but I"m putting a hold on that now because I've got to get back on track. So for now here's some more fiddling with colours and things .. its actually much easier to separate foreground and background just with colour value, the problem is is that I wanted to have day/night cycles .. but .. I'm changing my mind.. (see below)

And for now I've left the outline stuff in there, but you have to explicitly enable it, otherwise you get the standard "ascii" rendering..




Okay, so here's an idea for the game:

Many Moons
The part of the planet that Moonman is set on is perpetually in darkness, always facing away from its star. But the planet has many moons and each moon is slightly different in colour and design. So instead of a day/night cycle, this planet has a night/night/night/... cycle, each subsequent night gets a different moon. The moons affect not only the colour of the moonlight but they also have effects on the planet. For example, one moon might cause humans to turn into werebeasts. And here's the last bit of that idea: there are N moonmen to choose from at the start of the game, one from each moon. When your moon appears you get some temporary ability. How does this sound?

[eigenbom]

Climb the ladder to nowhere special
and watch your home fall into dusk

[Ashkin]

Many Moons
The part of the planet that Moonman is set on is perpetually in darkness, always facing away from its star. But the planet has many moons and each moon is slightly different in colour and design. So instead of a day/night cycle, this planet has a night/night/night/... cycle, each subsequent night gets a different moon. The moons affect not only the colour of the moonlight but they also have effects on the planet. For example, one moon might cause humans to turn into werebeasts. And here's the last bit of that idea: there are N moonmen to choose from at the start of the game, one from each moon. When your moon appears you get some temporary ability. How does this sound?

This is a good idea.

[Code_Assassin]

snip

I second this.

[kleiba]

My absolute priority is to get this game done (within 6 months at the most I think)

Just curious: do you have a more detailed schedule for this? As in, which features do you plan to add and how much time do you estimate each one will take?

[eigenbom]

My absolute priority is to get this game done (within 6 months at the most I think)

Just curious: do you have a more detailed schedule for this? As in, which features do you plan to add and how much time do you estimate each one will take?

hey toe-bro , here are some of my notes for the next few point releases. Each point release should be around 1-2 months depending. This 0.3 release will probably not be done until mid Jan at this rate. So 0.4 will hopefully be a "minimal game", and then the subsequent releases will be adding new features, support for modding etc. I've also got a huge list of TODOs which aren't in here... soo much work for such a simple game.

Code:

v0.3 STARTING TO LOOK LIKE A GAME

fancy mode
	AO term not showing in front of sky?

	** two people didn’t like the borders around the sprite parts..
	see blueskymaybe.xcf mockup
		http://moonman.io/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/fancy.png
	background blocks have a “dark colour” which is used as the outline
	even empty sky
refactor fancyrender() 
	offer options:
		fancy [x]
also give an option in settings.cfg
	fancy
		
blur in white from sky, “bloom” effect
	
	add slight colour variation to sprites
cast a shadow in one direction from the fg onto the bg (e.g., from the top)
	
objects create a “shadow” on the block underneath them
	e.g., stone on stone wall, leaves on trunk

have “shine” line on top stone

ladder climb animation
I think one thing that makes the climbing animation look a bit strange is that you see his back, but also his face, and almost from a fully frontal point of view. Another thing is that his posture is kind of soggy while when he's standing he looks so tall and lean. That seems somewhat inconsistent. -- kleiba

BUG: hard to climb up between two blocks while on a ladder
	fix: make mm skinnier?
	downside to this is he will fall off ledges more often

BUG: Why is renderer a bit slower now?
Too many push/pop gl states? Fixed, was a bug

spiderweb slight colour variant/tint

ambient sounds

chop in direction mouse is in
head turn in direction mouse is in

fix colours, minimal palette

cactus-like flashyflashy 

shift: move slower

Let items be picked up via collision with mm, rather than in WorldObjectSystem

Move mine()/use() to MoonmanController?
When a whack is triggered, we detect what moonman is hitting and then hit it
			(NB: the Game also knows in advance what the mouse is over for UI purposes)
	Create a ‘mine’ message

stalactite block, links up to the one above it to allow for long stalactites

add messages for ‘set attribute’?

background
try black/darker background?
fix bg and bg as paletted/bit map

input manager
	customisable keys
	press right arrow -> “move_right” -> controller -> physics

install script
a script to read the moonman version out of c++ header and then build a zip with all the right components everywhere
and then finally to automatically upload it to the download server
	
mine/place bg block types

block types, mining, building + custom sounds
	
http://moonman.io
	refactor into static site + simple text blog/changesets
	setup google analytics for website
setup analytics/logging for downloads, etc..

particles
	few particles come out of a block when destroyed
	particles have a short lifespan
don’t collide with anything but blocks
ParticleManager creates particles and manages/controls their lifespan
particles don’t get cached in physics when chunk goes out of bounds

fog of war
hide hidden blocks
use the lighting fill algorithm to some distance
store the fog of war block ‘visible’ bits somewhere
	can’t store in block itself because its character/player dependant

keep lighting, but don’t go too dark? but what about caves etc..?

Inventory - drop item into world ‘q’

life/death
combat
melee items
wooden sword, axe, pickaxe
iron sword, axe, pickaxe

ranged items
	crossbow
moonbeam

first mob
	see AI tips in 11 tips for making a fun platformer
jumping spider
ai, spawner

patterning (matrix-based crafting directly from inventory)

v0.4 THE TOWER AND THE ISLAND
Defeat the skythy-anskythe at the top of the tower. First you must harvest wood and plants and mine iron to build weapons and potions. This is done in a small series of trees and caves. Then you must venture up the mountain to the tower, which is around 256 blocks tall, consisting of a series of levels containing mobs, items, etc. Everything is procedurally generated.

world generation
plateau with trees
caves with cobwebs, vines, bones
various minerals to mine

consumable items
	moonjuice

other mobs
	blob
	skeleton	
	ground spiker

Island, trees, beach, ocean, ..

better water
	minecraft-style water with “sources”
	“sources” produce flow and are full blocks
	flow into a source does nothing
	sources that are surrounded by sources are inactive
	pixel splashes

add music tracks to game
	trigger through debug menu

v0.5 MAKE PRETTY
Redo sprite system, make nicer, like cocos? draw placeholders for bad images/textures/etc
start component animation
		group subanims into groups (Can do this internally in MoonmanController with functions)

prettify

affect brightness of screen based on lighting at mm head
day/night cycle
add AO light term back in
fix lighting!
fog of war
	maintain a 2d array of fog of war for each chunk (stored in Renderer..)

Launcher for OSX/Windows (built with native toolkits?)

support lower specced machines
	those without render texture
	those with low vram, ram

Character creation
	Select a type of moonman, from a list of planets, each with there own unique appearance, height, stats, and starting equipment
allow character customisation (cahnge height, colour, change face, etc)
  can customise at any time during the game
different leg lengths (and animations)
different body and arm lengths (and anims)
customise face with a simple in-game pixel editor
choose colour from a palette of 32 colours?


moontechs, machines, hydro power blocks, etc..


bucket item

GUI: refactor Gui, use cegui for gui elements, etc..

v0.6 BIG WORLD
Update physics to allow recentering and dynamic adding/destroying of entire physics chunks
Renderer LRU textures
Fluid manager chunk caching
Check memory usage: Valgrind, Dr. Memory
Save worlds contain the characters played
	Load world -> Play existing char / New char
	Can’t transfer chars between worlds

v0.7 Patching, MOD
http://www.altdevblogaday.com/2012/11/12/a-simple-system-to-patch-your-game-content/ (Just a thought but why not just use git for patching???)

[happymonster]

I like the darker backgrounds..

[happymonster]

I saw this shadow style and thought it might work well for Moonman..

[eigenbom]

cheers dude, yeh something like that could be easily done. i'll make a note and look again after I've got a bunch of other things out of the way.

[eigenbom]

Here's a game I made for the TIG forums advent calender. Go check it and the other games out, should be a good December for gaming!

[happymonster]

That game is hard! But fun..

[happymonster]

Here's how I'd do it if I was in charge of Mr. Moonman:

[eigenbom]

Thx and wow, that's quite some vivid colouring, looks so .. alive.

I'm definitely being conservative, but the focus will be on the npcs, items, and enemies, so I'm trying to keep the blocks fairly low key. Another thing is that the moonlight will change, and so, for example, the trunk tile is tinted blue because of the current moon, but will be reddish under another moon.

[happymonster]

Yeah, I think vivid colouring helps with the world here. But you have some cool ideas about the moon colours also.

[Code_Assassin]

That game is hard! But fun..

haha yeah - it's pretty hard

[eigenbom]

Update: Did some "busy work" today, I changed the styles of bp.io and moonman.io. Now they match, yay!

[eigenbom]

Update: Item pick-ups are now handled by the physics engine, by using box2d sensors to determine if moonman collides with them. Did other item updates, for instance you can now drop items and blocks from the inventory into the world. Items in the world also have a count, so if you walk over a potion for instance, it may actually be 5 potions, or if you see a coin it might be 10 coins. I think I did this mainly for blocks, where you might want to get rid of 99 dirt blocks - but I don't want to flood the world with 99 separate objects.

Moving tomorrow, no more coding for a while!

[kleiba]

Good job!

And good luck with the move :-)

[rek]

Items in the world also have a count, so if you walk over a potion for instance, it may actually be 5 potions, or if you see a coin it might be 10 coins. I think I did this mainly for blocks, where you might want to get rid of 99 dirt blocks - but I don't want to flood the world with 99 separate objects.

Does that mean you could put down a block that's actually 99 blocks, making a wall out of a thousand blocks but only one block thick and ten high? Would someone have to then hack at a block 99 times for it to disappear? Just thinking of the PvP potential