Big Update

A long time between blog updates due to the festive season. Rest assured that a lot of progress has been made!

Creating an ice cube with circle burst snowflakes

• Light sources have been added to the editor. Each square can have up to 3 directional lights plus ambient light. This takes the look of the game to a whole new level.
  
• Dynamic in-game lights. So far, I am only using this for doors. They have a red light when locked and a green light when unlocked.
  
• Circle-burst particle effect. Rather than have a 100 random particles, which looked like crud, I now use expanding rings of particles, such as fire for explosions and snowflakes for ice. Looks a million times better in my opinion. Plus it gives the game that retro look that I am after, rather than being uber-realistic.
  
• High friction tiles. Nothing can be pushed/pulled onto them, and anything on them cannot be pushed/pulled. I use them to surround my push puzzles to stop cheating (by pushing blocks off the puzzle).
  
• Player now takes damage and dies.
  
• Village levels are now starting to take shape.
  
• Doors are now unlocked by push puzzle triggers, where appropriate and relock when appropriate.
  
• Ice now melts over time
• Ice can be pushed into enemies for massive damage
• About a bazillion things under the hood
  

The development is starting to transition from game engine development to level design. Having said that, there are still quite a few things on the to do list for the game engine.

This morning work started on a 3D map selection map (for want of a better name). It something that requires little effort, but will look brilliant and will add that extra layer of polish.

Multiple light sources but still using BasicEffect

Circle burst explosion of an eyeTank