Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Pretty Water

Was updating the lighting engine to help prevent some of the bleed through that the mini blocks were generating and I decided to finally update the water!

The water now uses a custom pixel shader that makes the transparency of the water increase with distance from the camera.  You can now hide in the water!  If you are just below the surface and your enemy is further away, they won't be able to see you.  The mob AI detection algorithm also reflects this change so you can now use the water to sneak up on enemies.

Monday, April 28, 2014

Estate

Just finished updating the Estate level with the new mini blocks.  I added a lot of detail work and cleaned up a lot of leftovers from before there was a terrain map.  This also proved to be a good testing ground for performance.  I was able to optimize the collision detection and path finding to provide virtually no difference in performance.

The wizard lost his hat!  His hit box is now a little shorter and he is harder to see behind cover.

The lair mob now levels up when he respawns.  His level will be one less than the highest level player in the match.

Friday, April 25, 2014

Counter Spell Alpha v0.5.7

The Counter Spell Alpha available on the website has been updated!

Lots of changes since the last update.  The biggest difference is probably the new leveling system.  Wizards can now choose their spells as they level!  Spells are classified as Common, Uncommon, Rare, and Epic.  Everyone starts with the Common spells, and then receives additional spell slots as they level up, with the frequency based on the rarity of the spell.  Also you now get two extra stat points to spend any way you like when you level up.

Donating the relics at the altar now has a chance to give you an uncommon spell book, which can be learned even if you don't have any free spell slots.  Defeating the elite lair mob now has a chance to drop a rare spell book.

I was getting frustrated with the limitations of the current block system so I finally added support for smaller block sizes.  The latest build of the engine now supports block sizes down to 1/8th of the existing block size of one meter.  This new feature is still being tested and is not available on the public alpha yet.

More updates coming soon!