april 6, 2023

after watching a video about rain world's development, I realize that there could be some value in making more in-depth dev logs, so I'm going to try beginning these update posts with some more detailed thoughts of mine. one, because it's good for motivation. and two... well... because I want to!

anyways, Untitled Cave Game! even though it doesn't have a name, I do have some goals for this project.

the main overarching goal is getting the cave generation to a great place. essentially, I want to combine the feeling of discovering a new beautiful location in hollow knight with the exploration aspect of minecraft's caves. I think those sources of inspiration are obvious, and clearly there's a long way to go, but the bones are there I think.

to start, I should focus on getting the look and feel of a "general" cave figured out. I do want to have biomes in the future, but that should not be a focus for now. so... what's a "general" cave? that's the first hurdle. I'm going to let the vibe naturally develop, and this'll come from tweaking noise variables and the decoration algorithm, and making new sprites slowly over time. sounds wishy-washy, but this is a project for fun, so I'm optimistic!

~

new features:

- dust particles to emphasize player movement

- basic loading screen while the cave is generating

- massively improved generation time -- down from 8-10 seconds to 2-3 seconds (both in my browser)

- improved traversability checks and corrections

- more decorative rocks

- minor tweaks to player animation

questions for feedback:

- did the game load for you? if so, does generation time feel excessively long?

- how does the player "feel"? do jumps, wall-clings, and wall-jumps feel fair? is the movement speed right for the size of the screen?

- thoughts on the dust particles?

- at any point, were you unable to reach somewhere? if so, please share a screenshot that includes the seed!

todo:

- fix generation so player spawns on solid ground

- even more decorations! some in the foreground, some parallax, additional types besides rocks.

- improve the main shader and find a way to do exact color replacement in godot 4.0.