RPG Development

Jasper Ellis's development blog for a role playing game he is developing as a hobby. This RPG is focused on replay-ability by using algorithms and AI such as the Diamond-Square, and A* to create varied and unexpected gameplay.

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Crops now grow from planted seeds.

The acorns and pinecones the lumberjack plants will now after a short random delay grow into trees. this functionally will allow for farming and wood production for any towns that have a lumberjack.

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Started adding farming starting with planting new trees.

Once the LumberJack has chopped down all the trees in their collection area and deposited the logs in a chest they will use the acorns and pinecones they have gathered to start a tree nursery to grow more trees.

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Started to add life to the world starting, of course, with Bunnies.

This bunny needs to eat grass to stay alive or it will starve to death. I had to rework and create several AI tasks to allow the bunny to eat and randomly wander. The bunny also has a territory that It won’t navigate out of. I can use this territory for any other animal or NPC as a way of preventing them from wandering off too far.

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Metals with low melting points can be extracted in a campfire.

After a bit of time in a fire pit some ores can be extracted from their ores like tin. you just have to wait for the fire to cool down before you can reach in to get the tin nuggets left behind. Just be careful around the fire if you get too close while it’s still hot you will get burned.

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Build yourself a fire and rest.

I added a fire pit you need to toss some logs in before using it for it to light. I’m going to use the fire pit for some ore refining and cooking once I add animals.

I’m working toward having enough items to be able to add a miner villager and a smith villager before adding shops. You need items to sell after all.

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Brave explorers have started to chart the caves and have left behind handy ladders you can use to go ever deeper.

Each level of caves now creates a ladder down to the next level by scanning the next level down for valid places for a ladder. Each layer down has fewer and fewer ladders until their are almost none between each level when you get down there.

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The deeper you go the better ores you find and the more rocky the caves become.

I used another iteration of Cellular Automata with a chance dependent on your depth to add more stone to the ground as you descend into the depths once it is all stone it continues to change to other types of stone. I also added gold, silver and Iron ore and added a system that generates rocks with the ores in them at diffrent depths and with higher chances the deeper you go.

Now that I have added more raw materials that you can gather I’m going to start work on a way to make items and trade them with Villagers.

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Stone and Ores have formed in the caves of this world. The deeper you go the more there are and the rarer and stronger materials you can find.

I reused the Tree placing code to add rocks and ore to the caves. the amount of rocks is dependant on the depth you are in the caves (top level here) the deeper you go the more rocks and ore you find. At the top level you can find copper and tin but at deeper levels who know what you might find as you go deeper into the depths of the caves.

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Caves have been carved into the depths of the world. Soon many layers of tunnels will weave deep into the earth each level deeper will be filled with more monsters many that have never seen the light of day but with this risk will come rarer materials you can harvest from the depths.

I used some left over code for the Cellular Automata algorithm and modified it work better in my sectioned world. Each level will be connected to the level above it and also below. I plan on procedurally generating levels down each more difficult to master then the last but providing more rare resources.

I have to add the connections between the levels but that shouldn’t be too difficult because the doors already do that type of thing. Then I can add the resources and monsters that you will find as you explore deeper.

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You can now use the chest to store your items, or steal the items the lumberjack puts in the chest.

The chest updates when you move things around or when an entity adds items so you will be updated with the logs the lumberjack is collecting when they add them to the chest.

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You can now manage the items you pick up.

I finaly got around to implementing the UI for the players inventory, it allows you to view and organize your items or remove them from your inventory. When you pick up items they will stack with the other items in your inventory before starting to fill a new slot.

Now I have to work on using the chest and equipping weapons and armor, and eventually add a crafting system.

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Villagers finished building their houses and now are sheltered from the skeletons.

I redesigned and changed large parts of how the world is stored and managed to allow the user to enter houses. I had to seperate the land from the world and add another level of management of the world so you can switch between diffrent areas without much problem. Also the world keeps on moving when you are in the houses so monsters keep moving and Villagers keep on doing whatever they decided to do (watch the lumberjack when I enter the white building) including joining you in the house if they want.

I’m going to work on the player inventory and item management and a shopkeeper Villager and then start working on making villages and a more lively Villager area including quests and more.

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Villagers are starting to make buildings because they are being attacked by the skeleton hoards that roam the land.

These basic homes are randomly constructed based on their dimensions. the roof, wall and foundation materials are randomly selected and then a door is randomly placed on the front wall. Windows are then placed to fill up the remaining space on the front wall.

I plan on adding more complex buildings that are not just rectangular, as well as adding more building types like a shop or keep. From here I’m going to work on making the buildings usable and making shopkeepers/merchants and then move on to adding villages to the world generator.

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Skeletons now wander the countryside looking for their next victim.

Using the spawning system I just implemented I added a system that spawns entities in the loaded area of the world but a good distance away from the player so they are more naturally part of the world because you don’t see them spawn but they are there and more will be added as you explore or kill some.

I also added the art to show that the skeletons are using a dagger instead of a sword. This was added in a way that if the player equipped a dagger it would render properly allowing for any new weapon to be rendered with its own art on any entity that has it equipped.

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This chest is being guarded by an ever replenishing supply of skeleton sentries that raise from the dead to replace any fallen soldiers.

I added a spawn system and weapon system to achieve this. The spawn system will try to randomly spawn an entity after a delay until there is a max amount of that entity type (5 skeletons here) in the area (marked in grey) and can be setup to spawn multiple diffrent types of entity inside of the area each with their own max. The weapons allowed me to give the skeletons daggers (no visual difference yet) that deal significantly less damage then my sword. I also added an attack cool down so there is a short pause before you or the skeletons can attack again.

Note: there are 6 skeletons at one point and that is because one left the area and a new one was spawned to replace it before I walked into the area

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Added a skeleton monster that will track you down and kill you using the new Ai and because of that had to add respawn mechanics. now that the player can take damage and combat becoming part of the game I realized that I need to add attack delay so the skeleton can’t hit you repeatedly in a very short period of time and kill you nearly instantly. next I’m going to work on making the backbone for a weapon system and spawn mechanics for NPCs/Monsters.

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Gave NPCs the ability to move to and attack entities and also gave the lumberjack a gather items from trees AI task. Using this I can add farmers and combatants because NPCs can now move too and attack any entity including the player. The gather items from entities AI will kill the nearest entity of a specified type until the NPC’s inventory is full then stop.