Latest Screenshots.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/99583484/Far%20From%20Home/Images/Screenshot%208.png
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/99583484/Far%20From%20Home/Images/Screenshot%209.png
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/99583484/Far%20From%20Home/Images/Screenshot%207.png
New Crafting GUI.
Weapon slots are gold when selected.
Tool slots are blue.
I forgotto mention earlier, but I’m dropping parts of the sandbox to make it more fun in the end.
Here is my draft, partially-implemented design for construction:
(Example for wood constructions)
Of course this is time consuming so I may add blueprints (macros, not showing the patterns. You work the patterns iut yourself) to save time.
As a side note, I keep getting nullpointerexceptions when I restart too quickly as the Sky-Lighting Thread can’t keep up when the world is removed. No fixes planned for now as it doesn’t break anything.
I spend way to much time on the artwork sometimes:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/99583484/Far%20From%20Home/Images/bar.png
Closer:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/99583484/Far%20From%20Home/Images/bar_x4.png
100% pixel art. No gradient tool.
Had to keep messing around until I got the right shade of “wood-color”.
Far From Home Alpha 0.5 is OUT!
Features the new construction system and more crafting (all the recipes were changed. Press I to bring up the inventory crafting).
(PS: find the debug controls switch ;D it enable endless zooming in/out)
Here’s some screenshots on the construction system.
First you put everything in position…
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/99583484/Far%20From%20Home/Images/Screenshot%2010.png
An then you click the button…
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/99583484/Far%20From%20Home/Images/Screenshot%2011.png
The hammer is also an effective weapon against zombies…
New hepl system out tomorrow as I don’t have the time.
Download the Stable release.
SPOILER ALERT! CRAFTING RECIPES!
Okay, I’m not going to give away the recipes, but here’s the ingredients.
[spoiler]
Inventory crafting: (press ‘i’)
Sharp stick: requires 1 rock and 1 stick
Useless axe head: requires 1 rock and 1 wood
Branch Axe: requires 1 stick and 1 useless axe head.
Carpentry crafting: (right click on a carpenter’s workbench)
4 Planks: 1 wood
Panel: 2 planks
Post: 2 planks
2 Bars: 2 planks
2 rods: 2 bars
Platform: 2 panels
Slab: 2 platforms
(a clue to crafting at the carpentry is to look at the width and height then stack in the according axis)
Wooden construction: (spacebar while holding a hammer)
Carpenter’s workbench: requires 3 platforms, 4 posts, and 1 bar.
[/spoiler]
END SPOILER
[s]Okay, I hate the current artwork. (It doesn’t help that I’ve been looking at Crusaders of Yore. That art is amazing)
So, I’m switching all the textures to 16x16.
If anyone wants the old textures, I will put up a download. But if no-one is interested, I won’t bother.
I will be posting the new textures as I get them finished[/s]
Okay, forget that. 32x is here to stay.
I might make a different game with a different style of art…
You’re making some nice progress 
That’s because I get more time on the weekend ;D
I am open to ideas on anything so feel free to make a suggestion. :point:
Combat System mechanics are undecided.
I might just leave it as is where you smack enemies until they die.
Latest Dev Screenshots:
Cave are now properly implemented, but pointless at the moment as you just get stuck. :-\
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/99583484/Far%20From%20Home/Images/Screenshot%2012.png
An zoomed out… (with the hidden debug controls ;))
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/99583484/Far%20From%20Home/Images/Screenshot%2013.png
Anyway, I fixed the lighting AGAIN and now lights from tiles SHOULD work.
Oops, I forgot to mention I implemented a save/load system (works only on worlds, not progress).
And I just added my super-speed cheat to the debug controls. (You can move 2 or 4 times as fast :persecutioncomplex: :o)
How the f. can you render so many tiny blocks at once? Wouldn’t that practically devour your framerate?
Well… it works fine for me on a Lenovo Thinkpad e520.
It is really simple.
Each map is 256x256 tiles (I have had 512x512 but I removed it for gameplay reasons, not performance. 512 blocks is a lot of walking).
Each chunk is 32x32 tiles.
Each chunk has a VBO.
The VBO only changes when the blocks/lighting.
All the VBOs are rendered anyway as I found it causes more lag to work out which ones are visible (either that or I was doing it wrong). 
I just used glScalef() to scale the world as I haven’t learnt how to use shaders and re-buffering everything is terrible (especially since I added a smooth zooming function).
So, I just render it, it works, I don’t care about optimizing because the gameplay suffers before the framerate.
Framerate drop is noticable at 1024x1024.
Unfortunately, I can’t fit the whole map on the screen because opengl can’t seem to render 1 tile to 1 pixel. 
EDIT:
512x512 is fine:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/99583484/Far%20From%20Home/Images/Screenshot%2014.png
By the way, I’m in that little light spot halfway down on the left.
1024x512 causes movement glitches and the occasional skip in frames.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/99583484/Far%20From%20Home/Images/Screenshot%2015.png
EDIT: Just so you know, the first picture with the tiny tiles was 256x256. that’s half the height and 1/4 the width of this one.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/99583484/Far%20From%20Home/Images/Screenshot%2016.png
That little red square
I managed to explore a whole cave :o I think :-\
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/99583484/Far%20From%20Home/Images/Screenshot%2017.png
(By the way, back to normal size)
Good news!
I’ve been quite sick for the last week (and I was away too), and so I wasn’t able to focus properly on development, and having also just switched from Windows 7 to Linux Mint, I was busy preparing the tools neccessary. However, as soon as I reinstall java (just removed java 6 because it was getting in the way of java 7) I will put up a new dev build.
I also promised some GUI source code a while ago. I have been too lazy/busy to actually release it to the public. I will release this in the shared code forum after I clean it up and make sure it’s efficient.
Also, some screenshots will be up soon with the new content.
An Alpha MAY be available next week depending on whether I get better quickly.
Development will speed up halfway through this week as school ends too.
TL;DR: Good news all around. (And you need to read more because that ^^^ was a small amount of text)
EDIT: Then again, no dev build today as I can’t get it to build properly. >:(
Maybe it will work if I get some sleep…
Yay! New Dev Build!
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/99583484/Far%20From%20Home/Images/Screenshot%2018.png
Features tiles in the background*, lighting fixes, caves, redesigned (but still procedural) levels, new items, improved AI, new tiles, some other stuff I forgot about because it’s been such a long time, (updated LWJGL to 2.8.5).
(Face it: I don’t care if it makes it more like Terraria, it NEEDS tiles in the background to avoid ugliness in caves :))
Download the Dev Build to try it out!
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/99583484/Far%20From%20Home/Images/Screenshot%2019.png
New hints to the constructions…
Guess what this?
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/99583484/Far%20From%20Home/Images/Screenshot%2022.png
And something else secret…
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/99583484/Far%20From%20Home/Images/Screenshot%2023.png
Also, the new item (wooden frame) can be crafted at a carpentry from 2 wooden panels.
Have fun…
By the way, a Challenge:
Reach the very end of the current world in the latest Dev Build and get the highest possible score, and survive as long as possible(9 maps to cross).
At the moment, this challenge is quite boring (I even added 6x speed in debug mode I got so bored (Shh… …new debug mode switch as the old one messed with Linux… …three keys to be held down at the same time…)).
Don’t attempt it unless you have lots of time and find small repetitive actions exciting.
Next week, it will be more interesting…
More screenshots…
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/99583484/Far%20From%20Home/Images/Screenshot%2024.png
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/99583484/Far%20From%20Home/Images/Screenshot%2025.png
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/99583484/Far%20From%20Home/Images/Screenshot%2026.png
New Entity: Villager (placeholder texture for now)
New AI: Wander (with adjustable levels of activeness)
An attempt at a house out of boxes 8). Did not work :emo:. Need to make wood walls…
Also, A lighting glitch in the last one with the house. :clue: Got to find a way to stop that.
Back to smooth development again.
Oh and school is over! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D :persecutioncomplex: ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
So far today I have prepared my Ludum Dare basecode, switched to a fixed timestep instead of delta time, and changed the Tile rendering (twice).
Firstly, my basecode works.
Secondly, The game runs more smoothly, with no velocity glitches.
Finally, the tiles.
Before, tiles were 2 triangles. This caused lighting glitches such as:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/99583484/Far%20From%20Home/Images/Light%20Fix.png
See how some corners are square and others are slopes depending on the diagonal direction?
So, I changed to 4 triangles per tile. It made it worse (unfortunately I don’t have screenshots) because it gave me a shaded box in the middle of each tile.
So now, I have 8 triangles per tile. And with the proper interpolation (a + (b - a)/2), I now have smooth lighting. (I also made trees more transparent 
It was too dark in the forest)
The result:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/99583484/Far%20From%20Home/Images/Screenshot%2027.png
;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D