Hip Hop Happy New Year!

Man, it feels like it's been a year since we last put out a weekly update (I am a paragon of comedy I know, I know). A fair amount has changed since our last update, as an example we are now the proud developer of TWO games and not just one. Last week we took part in the Historically Accurate Game Jam 3 and built our entry, Superpowers, the Cold War themed pixel art brawler. It is a blast to play, just make sure to bring a friend!

Saving and Loading

In the past week or so I (Bryon Karger) rewrote most of the preexisting code governing the saving and loading of stellar systems and galaxies. Until now our framework relied on a proprietary .txt setup that would save every star into its own save file, as well as every stellar system into its own. This was horrendously inefficient and after consulting with a good friend of mine and much trial and error I managed to replace our current system with one utilizing standard Unity JSON implementations. Serialized data objects for every star, stellar system, celestial object, and hex planet, stored within a single central .json file. Our hope is to keep this implementation moving forward as it is incredibly intuitive and reliable.

Due to the nature of a .json file unless we force these files to be encrypted you will be able to directly manipulate the data values within the .json fields as well as add entire stars and stellar systems to the galaxy without even entering the game. It is our hope to keep the file management for Glorious Dawn tied to .json files allowing for relatively simple player modding. An Addons folder within the main games directory could be checked for entries and upon scanning for directories implement their changes or additions based on .json files within the
directories.

Hex Planets

Now that stellar systems are pretty much feature complete, progress has been angled towards making those featureless gray spheres we called planets actually interesting. As was always our intent, terrestrial moons, dwarf planets, and planets will all have a hex sphere that allows you to directly interface with the placement and operation of different surface developments (Ex: Urban centers, agricultural districts, research laboratories, manufacturing plants, resource depots, military sites).

Hex planets are now in the game. They are nowhere even close to being done, however this was one of the more difficult things we wanted to include in the game and thanks to the efforts of a mad lad who made his framework free online we have managed to implement it (albeit roughly) years before I could have hoped to have them. Next step is to begin having each tile index their UV across their material based on data values applied to the tile during stellar system generation. Hex planets are gonna be incredibly awesome, just you wait.

Glyph Generation 2.0

Hello everyone! I have finally got some significant updates for the Glyph system, and I am quite excited to share these developments with you.

In one last overhaul of the glyph system for the Kepler Update, the Glyph creator now draws lines between two points. In the previous iteration, the letters were created by drawing a custom path from point A to point B using a table of probabilities for each direction. This time around, the points are simply connected through lines.

I figured the way that language is standardized and produced on a screen is typically more rigid than they would be handwritten, and in the cases of programming and console fonts they often appear in terms of sheer lines, and most letters have little trouble being reproduced as a series of connected lines instead of curves. 

To facilitate the system of connected lines, the Glyphs are constructed one line at a time, with each line being drawn based on the slope of one of the previously drawn lines, which a given point on that previous line as the starting point for the next one. Here is one particularly good-looking example of the new system:

There are a few minor features with this system that need to be implemented, such as a small probability of creating lines with varying slopes, to allow for a greater variety of patterns. But for the most part, this feature is ready to see the update. Now the focus is on features to handle the Glyphs. Now that the system is set in stone, plans are in motion for fixing up the dictionary system, and finally creating text boxes that will display alien characters. 

Conclusion

It has been a crazy few weeks of late, and some of the gang have been taking a well earned break after the game jam. However we have regathered our strength and are committed to pushing out update Kepler V.1 as fast as we can. Stay tuned and we will keep you updated on our progress as we always have. The future's looking bright, and remember that a still more Glorious Dawn awaits!