0.1.19 Changelog

So uh... remember in the 0.1.17 dev log where I said that I only had two big overhauls remaining?

Turns out past me is stupid, and dumb, and doesn't know what he's talking about. I said before that 'There are two main overhauls left on my to-do list, [...] implementing a texture atlas [...], as well as retiring my animation library for a new one,' and I did both of these things - sort of. I am now using a texture atlas, which should substantially improve performance down the line, and I have updated my animation system to work with it, as well as other general improvements to it. It was actually pretty easy to implement, though it did require substantial modification to my code.

However, I had no idea what was looming on the horizon. Happy with my new atlas system, I started trying to edit my levels... and found my tools lacking. The pre 0.1.19 versions used a polygon based terrain system, where (more or less) I would have to manually place the corners of my terrain by hand. I could modify them afterwards, but making it look presentable was time consuming, and adding things like tunnels were impossible without having to recreate half of what I was tunneling through as a separate polygon.

It was at this moment that I realised I would need to completely rework the system.

I'll spare you the details, but I'm not using a marching cubes based system, which took a while to get working right. In short, this now allows me to paint the levels with brushes, and making tunnels and caves have never been easier! Though there are a couple of downsides - the system does have a couple of artefacts, and it does make fine control much harder, but all in all, I am really happy with how this feels to use. It theoretically should be more performant, but I can't really tell. Oh, and level file sizes are now much smaller as a result (not that it matters, most of the game's size is taken up by music files).

Without further ado, here comes the change log!

• New ability: Telekinesis! Any object with physics can be picked up by holding right click (beware - the system follows Newtonian physics, and Drea has a maximum strength). This ability will be worked into the games progression down the line

• Terrain now uses a marching squares based system, allowing for a more rapid and flexible development cycle.
• Shadows are now meshes handled on the GPU, dramatically increasing their performance (this was needed due to the new terrain system)
• Added the airbrake and airbrake boost (experimental - hold down left control while flying)
• Islands have been redesigned with the new system in mind - it'll take some time to get it back to the place it was before, but there's enough there to play around with.
• Added partial controller support (oh, and yes I reworked how the controls are handled. Mostly. I'll finish it eventually. Probably)
• Reworked physics objects to be less buggy by using fewer fixtures
• Restitution is no longer taken into account when bonking
• It is now much harder to get stuck in a corner
• Bug Fix: Unchanged values are sent to the GPU for every object, breaking Love's autobatching. This is now fixed, making the autobatcher work again, increasing performance.