November 2021: The World Editor & Asset Creation Tools
Hello true believers! Hahaha
It’s good to see everyone again. I hope our US friends enjoyed thanksgiving, and I hope you’re all excited for Christmas coming up!
Our first map
So above you can see how our first full map made with the editor. The day that we made it, we actually showed it step by step on our Twitter if you want to check it out! I was pretty happy with how the map ended up looking - we feel that we’ve finally hit a point where our graphics look really dense and match our vision for the game.
However there were some caveats - the editor didn’t have much in the way of efficiency tools - so this took nearly a whole day to make! So after finishing this level, I went back and started making some more usability tools to make the rest of the maps easier to use. So for example, when the editor generates a base map to start with, it now automatically places our various corner blocks for us now so I don’t have to spend hours doing it myself:
A cool thing to keep in mind about these starter map generators, fog/lighting settings, and brushes (for painting blocks) is that they’ll all be configurable by the user. Meaning you can set up your starter map to generate however you want. Right now I’m editing the code live to tweak it, but the plan is to expose all of these settings through Lua/config files most likely. We’ll be giving both ourselves and you so many options for making your own Robot Farm storylines and worlds!
Eventually the tools will be in-depth enough to the point where you could almost reskin Robot Farm into an entirely new game. Couple this with the fact we’re going to be willing to officially support and promote your levels/mods - and we’re in for a fun time! I really can’t wait to see what kind of things people make.
New “MIG” tool
I’ve been generating our Magic Images (one of the main ways you compile assets for Robot Farm - by storing metadata and spritesheets/models in a single image) with a console-based tool. For our night time level, we’re going to be placing some lamps and lanterns around, which require point lights to be attached to them. I knew I was going to need to finally bite the bullet and build a better MIG (Magic Image Generator) tool that shows your changes in realtime so I could see where the lights are on the model/sprite. So I spent yesterday doing that and we have one now. It’s still not perfect but it’s pretty great and will work for the foreseeable future.
Now instead of having to make your own preview images for them, this new MIG tool will generate the face of the card for you, and supports seeing your changes in realtime. It supports both spritesheets and vox files too! The old console tool was only designed for sprites.
Here’s a card below generated by this new tool. Not only does it generate the preview image for you, but it also renders some helpful text onto it describing the properties of the magic image. You can also adjust how big the card is as well to allow for larger files to be placed inside.
Designing our new main characters
We’ve also begun some minor design work on the main playable characters for the early access demo! Introducing Forrest and Ayla!
They look quite a bit different from our other main characters - namely they’re missing their Operator military uniforms with the red shirts. However you can still see design hints of it in their button-ups. This is because these characters will have quite a bit different of a backstory than our other MCs in that they’ve “retired” their abilities as an Operator until they’re forced to use them again.
They’ve been living in a forest as survivalists since they “awoke” after the great tragedy that tore the world apart, having only a close friend by their side. The world has yet to rebuild at this point, so they’ve had to fend for themselves and survive by any means.
Outside of that - you’ll just have to play the game to learn more!
Something big we’re adding as well are selectable skin colors for our players to be able to feel represented as themselves for the sake of immersion. Robot Farm is all about immersing yourself in the world and feel like a part of it, so this seems like a no-brainer to do. Yes, it is easy to program, but our budget is severely limited so the implications in terms of spritesheet assets are big (at least for us). That said, I really wanted to make this happen so I worked it out.
A big part of what would’ve made it expensive is that originally I wanted different character designs for each skin color variant, which would’ve been expensive sprite/art-wise. Additionally, the time it takes to recolor/redesign the sprites would’ve been extensive too, considering how many frames of animation the player will have.
So what I decided to was compromise and simply do palette swaps. To make the actual spriting faster, I wrote a basic palette swapping tool for my artist. If you’re a gamedev, I’ve actually made this tool open source and everyone is welcome to it.
So now, the cost should be minimal hopefully. I’m sorry we can’t afford to do more right now other than a palette swap! I really wanted everyone to look unique. Maybe someday when we’re hopefully working with more than pocket lint as our funding.
Why there was another delay
Originally we planned on releasing the tech demo in November since it’s essentially complete programmatically, but unfortunately the medicine I was taking for my illness had some adverse mental side-effects. I had to step away for a couple of weeks, but I’m back to work as of yesterday and it’s full steam ahead! Hopefully I won’t run into anymore trouble, but I appreciate everyone’s patience in the meantime.
It’s frustrating that my disease holds me back in so many ways, but it’s all the more reason to keep pushing forward and getting Robot Farm out there despite it. I finally got an appointment to hopefully get some referrals for proper testing, so I’ll finally be embarking on my journey to recovery soon also. It’s a very exciting time for me! Please send me your thoughts and prayers if you can, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Completing and releasing the Tech Demo
So now that all of our usability tools are tuned up and ready, it should take me considerably less time to make the next map. I need to make some more minor revisions to our world editor to save some more values such as the fog level, ambient lighting, and so on - but other than that it’s ready for more map making!
The plan is to make this tech demo and get a video out there, as well as compile a working version of the editor to hopefully send out to publishers and hopefully get some help. I don’t quite expect the video itself to make a splash, but it will be nice to get something out there and get some feedback.
Once this tech demo is out there - I’ll begin working on a proper UI system for the game and the editor, and begin building up the game itself. It’ll be a long road but it’s going to be cool! We just have to be careful since we’re beginning to have to spread our funding thinner.
If we don’t get a publisher, we’ll probably keep forging ahead toward an early access demo and focus on making one really good biome, and then expanding the world as we go.
See you soon!
And that wraps up this months blog post! We will finish and release the tech demo this month! I promise you that! We’re also going to be working on our annual new years art soon as well. We can’t wait to include our new characters in it!
A minor request as well - if you’re a fan of the game’s concept and want to see it succeed, please considering following our social media, sharing/liking our tweets, and telling your friends and family about the game! If you have any requests for features, please feel free to contact us via the form on our homepage. I’d love to hear from you all!
Okay, see you soon! Next time we talk, the tech demo will be out.
So until then,
♥ NOKORIWARE
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