Taking Blockmania to a new level ?

[Jake Powney]

Hello guys!!

I was thinking every game has to have a step up point? ( am i correct )
So how about just fixing some bugs with the version of Blockmania that is out at the moment, and call it Alpha version and then start work on a better version that could take this minecraft style game to a whole new level with survival, monsters ( everything that minecraft has to offer ) and add an actual point to the game?

Get a small team together of
Programmers
Artists
Testers
Advertisers ?

To work on the game and take it to the next level, i have alot more ideas but as wondering was you guys though about it.

+ P.s = i don't really like the name Blockmania sounds weird.

 

[Cervator]

Hi Jake, and welcome

We're actually doing just that! Well, no dedicated testers or advertisers just yet, that's still a tad early. But there's stuff going on behind the scenes - you can check out our activity on GitHub to get a better idea of what is going on, along with the blog posts etc.

We need a bit more content before Alpha - currently just pre-alpha as the engine is there and evolving, but gameplay is still being worked on. Have to have something to do within the game before it is really worth pushing out there

There'll be more to look at very soon!

 

[Jake Powney]

Ok well I will join the team if you like

And one thing don't make it an opensource game so people can copy it

Cba to type much am on tablet

 

[Cervator]

It is already open source, there's no going back, nor an interest to - we want to be able to build a very interactive community with lots of contributions from different people

Besides, making it closed specifically so people couldn't "clone" it would be rather ironic considering how much we're in turn inspired by the awesomeness that is Minecraft, along with other good games

If others like what we put together and want to do their own take on a similar concept they're very welcome to source material from us. Although we'd be even happier if they'd just join and help make this project even more awesome!

What would you like to work on? Your intro post says you've done C++, but we're all Java plus some Groovy. Interested in learning those?

 

[Jake Powney]

I'll try to learn them as well as C ++
And i can help through the internet side as well as i have noticed Blockmania does not have it specific website or forum ?
I can also help in the artist side of it as i am pretty good at it.

 

[Cervator]

I'll try to learn them as well as C ++
And i can help through the internet side as well as i have noticed Blockmania does not have it specific website or forum ?
I can also help in the artist side of it as i am pretty good at it.

... you wrote that in our forum

We've got both a blog and a wiki in addition to this forum (there is more too it than currently visible to the public), then GitHub and Jenkins for dev tools, FB, Twitter, and soon G+ for social, etc - we're fairly well set there and solidifying more. Now artist side would be absolutely great, as we are going to need our own artwork beyond the texture pack we're using, as well as GUI elements and such. And since you know C++ you can probably deduce fairly well from looking at the project where you can inject new graphics even if you don't know a lot of Java.

Maybe look up low-res texture making specifically? We're only using part of the awesome Good Morning Craft package from http://www.carrotcakestudios.co.uk/gmcraft/ currently, and will need more textures. For instance Minecraft has only a few mineral-style textures, and I'd for us to have more and different material types - like copper. Dwarf Fortress has a lot of different kinds of stone, but is ASCII with some very basic texture packs available. So a variety at the DF scale for the MC-like graphic style would be great

Here's a linkie for some examples of what we'd want to represent on a standard block texture - http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Ore

Gems is a similar story, although there we'd probably want the basic texture for the stone/ore you can find the gem in with a small graphic representation of the different possible gems. Again DF has a whole pile: http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Gems

Later there are also creatures to texture, but we need to make those first

 

[Jake Powney]

Okay

Well as i am still studying C ++, i will just focus on the artist side and if you would like to send me the link or the file of the default texture pack so i can work over it please ( makes life alot easier )

Thanks

 

[Cervator]

Here's the package containing the current textures:

https://github.com/begla/Blockmania/tre ... a/textures

the terrain.png is the main one of interest, which is from the Good Morning Craft package. We only use a small set of those textures, since the world is still fairly simple.

A cool initial project might be making a new one, say minerals.png, and filling it with RL-inspired block graphics for assorted minerals, stone, blocks with gems in them (unless it would be easier for that to be a mostly transparent overlay or something? I'm not a graphics guy I'm afraid..), etc.

Then it should be fairly simple to use those textures on in-game blocks with a more advanced geology approach, which is one of the current todo items (generating geology in a more realistic and diverse fashion)

That would be a great help and a nice intro to contributing

Have you set up on GitHub yet? Take a look here sometime if you haven't yet! http://wiki.movingblocks.net/Main/DevSetup

 

[Jake Powney]

OK i will look at that and edit it.

I Willy just change the ones you give me to hopefully a better standard? , and as you ass more blocks and other stuff i will create textures for them

+ one thing is moving blocks ( a company kind of thing? )

 

[Cervator]

Well, the thing is that we don't necessarily want higher resolution textures, even if that sounds weird. That's part of the "charm" and fits with the blocky terrain

It also helps performance (I think...) since we're painting those very primitive textures on thousands and thousands of blocks every render. I'll refer to begla for more graphic details on graphics, since that's sort of his thing

And so is "Moving Blocks" - dunno how he came up with the name, but we're using that site for the different tools for now. We're still thinking about long-term organization and what not

I'd be happy to write up a "wish list" for exact block textures sometime soon, if you'd be happy working that way!

 

[Jake Powney]

Ok well ill do what you wish
Yup i would be happy to work that way, and i like the name "moving blocks" and i am thinking of doing a new logo for it taking the one now and making it it more 3d and up-to date ?

 

[Cervator]

Don't worry about a logo just yet - I think we need to get more of an artistic direction for the game itself down before we try to symbolize it in a new logo

Mineral textures and such would be a good start, since then we can use those (now unique) textures in crafting a logo.

I'll try to post some more details on that tonight after I get home from work (which is more than 8 hours away, boo!)

 

[Jake Powney]

Okay well i will just work on the texture pack atm !!
and my internet runs out because i am using dongle about 6 so i will see what you said on the weekend or whenever i put money on it again because just moved house.

 

[begla]

Sounds great! As Cervator said – Blockmania will never become the high-definition version of Minecraft many people are looking for. I love the pixelated style of the game because it fits the blocky worlds so well (blocks within blocks within blocks within blocks...).

And regarding the graphics stuff – the blocky textures have to fit into one texture atlas. If we need more space for some unique minerals (so if we exceed 16x16=256 different block textures) we'll have to double the size of the atlas to 32x32=1024. This should not impact the performance that much.

 

[Jake Powney]

I shouldn't think it would make a differ with the impact of the game only just editing the texture would take longer

+ i just downloaded the new version because i had the old one and it will not let me play it i open the folder and click on it and it loads then shuts down straight away