Please do not quote the entire topic.
Welcome to my latest and greatest and most
original project to date!
Videos coming later.Bricktopia is a game that I am designing in my free time that is heavily based off games like Blockland, Roblox, and Minecraft. I want the game to feel very familiar if your use to Blockland, but also be very adaptable to a varying number of play styles. From the most casual player, to the most talented builder, to the smartest coder. From the crappiest potato, to the most powerful gaming rig on the planet, I want Bricktopia to appeal to everyone with a lust for creation!
Big Announcement!I have succesfully teamed up with [ASF]Ghost and we have started to work on a single project together! If you would like to talk to us or any other developers directly, or just be around for updates and announcements, you can join our discord channel using the link below!
All are welcome! Please bring a positive attitude! The more feedback and constructive criticism we receive, the more inspired we'll feel to work on the game!
https://discord.gg/NuHfMP5
The Big Reveal!So the reason i haven't released any details until now is because there is what i consider to be a big deal about my game. One that showing any features or really talking about in general would spoil, so without further ado, I present:
Completely 3D bricks ftw i win peace out.
I
could not FATHOM why nobody was making their brick building games with 3d bricks... then i tried to make one... holy crap are there complications. Most notably for me specifically, with physics. See, to make a physics object, to your object you add a collider, (Can be a provided primitive shape, which is slightly faster, or a mesh, which is slightly slower; depending on the mesh) and then you add a Rigidbody, and bam, physics. But here's the stupid thing. Unity no longer supports concave mesh colliders for physics objects. So basically, every brick needs five colliders, (One for the main body and cap and one for each of the four sides of the bottom of the brick) for accurate physics collision.
There is a $10 possible solution, but i have $0 to spend, so that'll have to wait... for..... uhh, got any change? Anyway, physics is kind of inefficient and i hope i can fix it eventually. It's not horrible, just not as good as i would call good enough. I can spawn a good 200-250 physics enabled bricks with minimal lag, but my computer is a BEAST so, i wouldn't call that a fair test. I would like to find a way to make physics super light weight, but that's beyond my area of expertise for now. Other than making a "Light physics mode" where all colliders are replaced with basic box colliders, inaccurate collision, but faster.
The Big Name Debate!I'm going to put all the names i'm currently considering here, starting with my own alternatives that i made up alongside Bricktopia, Blocktropica and Blocktropolis. They DO roll off the tongue better
BlocktropicaBlocktropolisIf you have any ideas for names put them down below! If you like one that's already on the list say so!
Current Information about BricktopiaCurrently the features are:-Fully functional GhostBrick who's movement controls will rotate with you.
-Fully color-able bricks using 4 RGBA sliders.
-Ability to make bricks use physics on command using a placeholder control scheme.
-Love in every brick
...and thats it. I'm still getting the base features stable and everything working as it should on the most basic level, so hang in there with me while i do that :)
I work on this game almost daily so expect daily updates.
I'm going to start posting hourly updates on Twitter as well, whenever i'm working on Bricktopia,
@TennoHack
Plans / IdeasThis is what I want to do with this game, always open to being appended.
Anything i do that was on this list will be crossed out, symbolizing another dream that i made come true through hard work and dedication.Custom brick dimensionsI imagine a Blocklandish bar across some side of the screen showing preset blocks, you could open a brick store much like Blockland but you could define your own brick dimensions here, as long as it's square and normal shaped you could get anything from 1x1x1f to 16x16x16 from a simple interface
Main Menu and Basic InterfacesA main menu screen with placeholder assets, just to get functionality functionally functioning.
With this should come an Esc Menu, an Options Menu (which should take some time), an Admin Menu, a Server/Game Settings menu (Depending on if your playing in single player or multiplayer. They'll be essentially the same except the Server Settings menu will have additional settings for everything related to the Server)
Inventory System for Items and bricksI imagine a "Cloud Inventory" that basically acts like the Items drop down list in Blockland, except you don't need to spawn items in through a brick to get them you can pull them directly into your player inventory, and have them that way. This would be disablable in a Server Settings menu.
Brick OptimizationsTime for me to sit down and code bricks to work dynamically, snap onto the grid the brick it's being placed on is snapped to, Baseplates would be still by nature, no physics, and anything you build on them would be the same, (Eventing aside), any brick that is placed not on a baseplate (Or on a flat baseplate, discussed later)will be open to physics, any bricks placed onto this brick will become part of the same object and will have combined mass and all that jazz. From there it's not a difficult jump to making your own vehicles, machines, whatnot.
Octaginal BaseplateLike a normal baseplate but bricks can placed on it in 8 rotations as apposed to 4. Maybe there will be an octagonal bricktype?
Flat BaseplateWill be equivalent to placing bricks on a map with no baseplate. Mainly for the default slate map that's nothing but baseplate, but you could use it where ever.
Flat ModeA Server/Game Menu option that will fold down all studs to become flat, replacing all 3D model represented bricks with texture represented bricks. Not only will this be an aesthetic choice, but it should also drastically increase performance with many, many bricks on screen, and should also allow for many more physics objects at once.
Custom Brick ModelsProbably coming with an in-game interface to craft them and save them to the Cloud Inventory without leaving the game. The cloud inventory would be saved so you could access it across multiple sessions and it would still have the same custom and other various bricks you saved and are available.
Tools/Items systemMainly my goal here is making tools and items addable with simple add-ons.
Ingame Brick Feature EditorBlockland Wrench
Brick Saving and LoadingObviously. Should probably be further up the list but whatever.
Full support for directly loading non modded legacy savesI want to have the ability to load .bls files directly into my game, idk if it's possible.
Full support for legacy modsPossible support for Blockland Addons, defiantly a number 1 priority once i get addons up and running in the first place.
Some mods would be kinda useless, like VCE for example, as variables and conditional events would be standard in my event system, but damn, if i could get Glass working in Bricktopia, that would be really forgeten cool.
Brick Options and featuresYou could change things like the name of the brick, various visual effects and shaders that emits from it, whether or not it's collible, weapons or tools can interact with it, if the brick will render, and anything original i can think of before i get to this point.
Node Based Event SystemThis is defiantly something that i'm going to be putting... probably the most time and effort into. I think i can make it simple for beginners and powerful for coding vets. Eventing is the most fun part of Blockland for me and i want that to be a major part of Bricktopia
Modular Control Scheme / Movement systemLike Blockland? Just set up the appropriate movement nodes.
Prefer Warframe's movement system? Just set up the appropriate movement nodes.
I imagine a node based editor where you could design your own movement system and control scheme based off of available nodes in the options menu.
This could be temporarily overwritten in servers with some kind of "Do you agree to temporarily change your control scheme to: [diagram] Yes/No"
If it turns out that the overwrite was a troll or something, changing back would be as easy as going to your options menu and selecting one of your presets.
I would also make it so you/servers can't overwrite specific controls like Esc for the esc menu, so that you can't be completely richarded over.
A Real PaintcanWhen i first opened Blockland, for the VERY first time, I was so confused about the Paintcan. I thought that it left, like, paint behind, you know, like a
Paintcan. Well a few googles later i found out that wasn't the case at all. It just changed the color of bricks.
Boooorrriiiinnggg!!! So i want to add a Paintcan to my game that actually leaves a trail of paint.
Let the richards flow forthIt will be washable and will have remove-all and remove-all-by-player commands as well as perhaps a commend to not allow a specific player to paint.
Basic Maps======
HouseA really cool idea i've been wanting to do for forever, but I can't map. I can try but it's not something I've ever tried, I figure i'd add just a few maps and leave the rest to the community.
Modular SlateThe map that I'm currently using for testing, It's going to evolve into a super dynamic slate.
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Comment with your own ideas! I'm open to suggestions!
Update LogThis is what's already doneIteration 1 | 10/7/2017 -Set up an example player for basic level interaction.
-Gave player an example item, does not function.
-Made a baseplate to stand on, bad collision.
-Made a prototype 1x1x1 brick to place in scene, just for looks
-Made some basic materials for the example assets.
Iteration 2 | 10/8/2017 -The player's example item can now place down prototype bricks, as well as destroy existing ones.
-The prototype brick will now snap to a grid when placed.
-The prototype brick and baseplate are now more optimized and have accurate collision.
-Added a crosshair.
-One ground model is 16x16 bricks, they are grouped into a 9x9 square (minichunk), which are then grouped into another 9x9 square (chunk).
Iteration 3 | 10/12/2017 -Player's example item is now the Brick Gun.
-Brick Gun now lays down a controlable Ghost Brick.
-Bricks are now colorable from 12 different preset options.
-Bricks now have collision and can not be placed on top of each other.
-Gave the ground proper collision for raycasting and player collision seperatly.
Iteration 4 | 10/17/2017 -Player now closer to goal functionality, and can now jump.
-Brick Gun is now a seperate item from the player that will automatically work when dropped anywhere into the scene.
-Chunk loading is now implemented. (As a temporary fix, It's not completely perfect yet, but it works)
Iteration 5 | 10/22/2017 -Bricks now have very basic placement logic.
-Preset colors removed and replaced with an RGBA slider based GUI.
-Bricks will not give a FLOATING error if placed in such an illegal spot. Instead physics will be applied to them.
Iteration 6 | Unfinished -Trying to get basic brick resizing mechanics stable. Very complicated as there is a lot to do with that.
-Still trying to stabilize the bricks detecting what it's being placed on. As it stands it's currently detecting something above it, no matter what... Not to mention with the current system, even if it was stable, if you have 2 bricks one on top of the other placed at the same time, they'll detect eachother and just float there.
I would prefer if people kept things positive in the comments.
I don't mind critiques or negative opinions as long as it's not directly insulting.
Also, just because an opinion is bad doesn't mean the person is trying to be mean.
That being said, I do seriously appreciate when people come to my defense when someone
is being unnecessarily harsh, because that has happened already
I really appreciate everyone's support!
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