nalothchrisswanee734 · MadSwan
Check out our Youtube live stream to watch my son teach the ins and outs of Tile Miner!
The time has come! I am finally ready to announce the version 1.0 release date! Tile Miner will officially be released on: Nov. 11th It’s been a long road! A project that was supposed to take one year ended up taking 7. A lot of hard work has gone into this and I’m proud of the f
Today I am releasing version 0.9. This will be the final early access build! That means that what you see in this version is almost entirely what you will get in the final release. The only differences will be any bug fixes that are found between now and the 1.0 release. I will a
2. House Size: This one is hard to explain but building a house was more complex than it needed to be in previous versions. It’s now much simpler to build a house because it doesn’t take up quite so much space!
3. Hidden Treasures: Throughout the world there are treasures hidden under rocks. Find a red x under a rock and break it to reveal all kinds of great loot!
4. Tutorial: There’s so much to Tile Miner that it would be easy to play the game for hours and have no idea that there are dungeons to conquer and villages to explore (along with many other features). I’ve added tutorial quests to give the player some direction in case they get lost. Since I find forced tutorials annoying, I’ve designed it so you can completely ignore these quests if you want.
5. Dungeon puzzles: Every dungeon now has it’s own unique puzzle mechanic. I designed them to be challenging but not frustrating.
The next step is going to be getting the word out and pulling the trigger on the final release. Stay tuned for a release date!
This is a difficult time for everyone. But the good news is that for Tile Miner, this might be a positive thing. My wife’s software development job has scaled back so she has more time to help on the game which will drastically increase the speed of development. We’re hoping to h
I was in the process of polishing the game. I wasn’t in the final stages of polish, but the game had pretty much all the content I was planning on having in the final release. Then I got frustrated. Parts of the game I loved, but building was practically useless. And, building wa
It’s been a couple of months since my last update so I thought I’d chime in and let you know what I’ve been working on and what I’ll be working on in the future. One of the big things I’ve been doing over the past few months is overhauling the way that walls work. In the current
I’ve now changed walls so that they take up an individual tile space. Here’s the new look of wooden walls:
Recently I did a thorough play test of the game. The goal was to find bugs and gameplay holes. Here’s a list of just a few things I came up with after playing:
1. Player speed needs to be increased.
2. AI needs tweaking across the board.
3. Damage values need to be balanced better.
4. There are too many occupations. I’m bringing it from 12 to 9 and combining some of them.
5. The game needs more farmable animals. You should also be able to breed them. In the end you will only be able to get them by purchasing them from a rancher. Adding Pigs and Sheep.
6. The game needs more crops. I’ll be adding a couple to the game.
7. The game needs more potions. I’ll be adding some of those to the game as well.
8. I'm adding more meals to the game (like beef stew). I’m going to add a Lamb Chop Dinner and Pancake breakfast. These food items will not only restore energy, but they will apply a buff that will prevent energy from decreasing for a period of time. It will always be best too make complete dinners with your food items.
9. Health regeneration should happen at a slow rate all the time. Forcing the player to use health potions just isn’t fun. I found myself intentionally dying just so I could get full health. No more of that.
10. Add a lot more sound effects.
This list is actually a LOT longer. These are just some of the things that come to mind. I’ve been very productive lately and there’s no reason to believe I’m gonna slow down. There’s still quite a bit of work to be done but the plan right now is simple: Finish up this list, then do another play test. If it doesn’t seem like there’s any gaping holes in the game after my play test, then I’ll be 100% focused on bug fixing and finishing touches.
Keep me posted if you have ideas or changes that you think need to be made to the game. I’m in the homestretch!Today I want to talk about what I’ve been working on and what you can expect in the future. Over the past month I’ve been working on two things primarily: Villagers and Graphics. Graphics: Since releasing the graphical overhaul, our graphics guy has had a chance to play the game
Villagers:
-Added new occupations. There are now 12 to choose from:
-Miner - Mines and sells various crops.
-Builder/Lumberjack - Chops trees. Builds houses.
-Farmer - Farms and sells various crops.
-Adventurer - Hunts monsters and sells weapons.
-Hunter - Hunts and sells meat.
-Mage - Casts and sells spells.
-Apothecary - Brews and sells potions.
-Armorer - Forges and sells armor.
-Jeweler - Buys and sells accessories.
-Barber - Cuts and styles hair.
-Electrician - Buys and sells electrical parts.
-Banker - Stores your money.
The greatest addition is probably the builder. If you don’t feel like building your town all by yourself you can purchase blueprints and let the builder build it for you. If you don’t feel like waiting for him to build it you can pay extra and buy prefabs from the builder so you can place it instantly. Don’t like his designs? No problem! Just create some new designs from scratch and turn them into blueprints.
The future:
I’m currently rolling all future releases (including what I’ve been working on) into one more early access build. There are somewhat major changes that will impact quite a bit so it just makes sense to wait and roll everything out all at once. Here’s what you can expect from the next release:
Version 0.9
-Wall overhaul - This is a big one. You may notice that walls in Tile Miner look a bit odd. I’ve changed them quite a few times actually. Right now when you place a wall it essentially places 9 tiles. A single wall tile surrounded by a bunch of interior walls. The reason behind this was to make the dungeons look a bit more like the original Zelda. This is great for dungeons but not so great for housing. It also makes things a bit more confusing when the player is building. We want to simplify and make things look better.
-Music - We already have the music completed. We just need it implemented into the game.
-Dungeon rooms - Right now there are about 30-50 dungeon rooms. I’d like to have 100+ in order to give the dungeons more variety.
-Dungeon traps - These will be magic traps that shoot spells at you once they charge up.
-Polish - This is the one that will be the most time consuming. We’re nearing a final release and we really want the game balanced and feeling almost 100% complete before the next update. The only thing that will be missing from 0.9 will be the final dungeon. With this polish phase many of the speed, damage, and crafting recipes will be adjusted. This will take a while and at some point we may ask for play testers to help figure out balance issues.
The big question: When will this release come out?
All I can do is estimate. Polishing the game throws out many unknowns. We could find that we really need more enemies, potions or plants. These things could turn into creating new features entirely. We won’t know until we start diving in. I’d like to think that overhauling the walls, adding the music and doing all of the dungeon stuff would be complete by the end of June. So I’d hope this would be out in September. But right now this is a rough estimate. I’ll keep you posted on my progress as I go.Our last update was in July. My hope was to have the game completed by now but there’s still a few months left of development before everything is finished. I wanted to get at least one update out before the final release because changing the graphics has made a big impact on the
Above is the new logo for Tile Miner! And here's an update on where development is at the moment... About 90% of the artwork is done. That's the good news. The bad news is that there's still quite a bit of development left. My wife has some contract work to pay the bills which me
Above is the new logo for Tile Miner!
And here's an update on where development is at the moment...
About 90% of the artwork is done. That's the good news. The bad news is that there's still quite a bit of development left. My wife has some contract work to pay the bills which means we can't get quite as much done as we were getting done earlier this year. It's hard to predict how much is left before the final release because I want to make sure the game is heavily polished before 1.0. I'd guess we're looking at early to mid 2019.
With that in mind, it's been too long since the last update! I'm going to release an update by the end of January that will be rather large! It will include all the graphics updates that I have so far. There will also be a new dungeon above ground, portals, and possibly even a few NPC's.
I did a lengthy play test recently and I have to say: The graphics make this game feel like an entirely different game.
Keep in mind, there are still a few big things that won't be in the next update that will be in the final release.
More NPC occupations.
The main story.
The final dungeon and underground layer.
Every single one of these things has been started but is incomplete. I wish I could release it all at once but there's just not quite enough time. I may release these things in smaller updates leading up to the final release.
I can't wait to have everyone experience the massive changes in this next update!It’s been a while since I posted an update. A lot of work has been done but the most interesting bits are probably just getting more graphics in from the pixel artist. Here’s some of the new mob graphics: The Kraken Boss: The Snowman: The Cow: A New Mob - The Imp: I'll continue t
The Snowman:
The Cow:
A New Mob - The Imp:
I'll continue to post updates as the graphics come in!If you’ve been watching Tile Miner from the beginning you know that the graphics have gone through a few revisions. If you’re interested in hearing the story you can read this entire post. If not, just know this: We are updating all of the graphics to a higher resolution! Here’s
THE HISTORY OF TILE MINER PIXELS
OPEN SOURCE
When we first launched Tile Miner in early access we used all open source graphics. Most of these were from the liberated pixel cup competition on opengameart. We liked these graphics just fine but they weren’t original. In fact, I often go back and see old comments that accuse us of stealing these graphics from other games. I always get a good chuckle out of that.:)
Before we entered early access on steam we of course had to go through Steam Greenlight. During that process we read over 400 comments and one of the biggest bits of feedback we got was “change the graphics”. So we did!
CONTRACTED GRAPHICS
Finding an artist was difficult. We talked to quite a few people about doing it. The guy we wanted from day one wasn’t available. We ended up settling on a guy whose work was ok but he was slower and more expensive than what he had originally quoted. It was a disappointing experience overall. The cost was piling up but the ideas I had for the future of the game would require a lot more artwork and I knew it was going to be too expensive. So I tried something…
CURRENT
I was getting better at pixel art so I tried converting some of the graphics we had paid for to be 16x16 tile sizes instead of 32x32. The detail went away but the good news was that I could draw these graphics by myself. So I overhauled all the graphics we had to be 16x16 tile sizes. During this time I got better at pixel art but I always felt my skills were lacking. This is what the current state of the game looks like. It’s clear what’s going on but is less detailed than I’d like. There are some pieces I love and others I hate.
NEW GRAPHICS
As my wife and I discussed the plans for what the final release would look like in terms of gameplay, I was frustrated by what the game looked like currently in terms of graphics. I took the time to estimate what it would cost if we could get the guy we originally wanted to do the graphics to do everything. Once coming up with that ballpark, and confirming that the artist was available, we decided to invest the money and make it happen in order to make the game we really wanted to make. For the past month or two we’ve been working with Tom Filhol (https://tfpixel.myportfolio.com/pixel) to convert every graphic in the game to a 32x32 resolution. For the most part everything will be familiar. It just looks more detailed. I’ll be sharing screenshots as more and more graphics get finished. I’m proud of what we’ve got so far and excited about what’s coming next.
And finally this is the major reason we can’t do more updates until final release. Converting the graphics to this size initially broke everything. We’re still using pixel doubled graphics all over the place in the game. Until all the graphics are in, we can’t put anything out. By the time they’re finished, we should be about finished with all of the code. So the next release, will be the final one! I hope you’re as excited about this change as we are!The bad news is, we’re not releasing any more monthly updates. There is a very good development reason for this that I will announce shortly. We are making a pretty big change and that change will mean we can’t be putting out regular updates for at least a few months. The good ne
Back in February we decided to start delivering 1 update a month. Back then we were on version 0.2. Here’s the basics of each update: 0.3 Dungeon Update - Added the first procedural dungeon to the game. 0.4 Magic Update - Added fire and ice magic to the game. 0.5 Ice Dungeon Upda
Stay tuned for more updates. We’ll be working on the final dungeon in the coming weeks but we will NOT release that dungeon until the final release. The next update will probably bring with it more overall polish. As always keep us posted on your ideas! Thanks!Over the past month we’ve been hard at work trying to bring NPC’s to the game. We wanted you to feel like you’re part of a living world. Claim some land with a land plot, build a house and then put it up for sale. Soon after, an NPC will spawn. When you right click on him you can
Over the past month we’ve had a ton of fun adding a brand new dungeon. This new dungeon is found by defeating the first boss. He’ll drop a staircase that is capable of going deeper into the underground. Once there you can find new ores, new spells, new potions, new enemies and al
Over the past month we’ve had a ton of fun adding a brand new dungeon. This new dungeon is found by defeating the first boss. He’ll drop a staircase that is capable of going deeper into the underground. Once there you can find new ores, new spells, new potions, new enemies and all sorts of other fun things! On top of this we added some new snow biomes and some new creatures to the overworld. This is a big update! It almost doubles the amount of gameplay! We’d love to have your feedback as we begin making final decisions on what will be in version 1.0. Let us know in the forums! Enjoy!
***Don't forget to follow @tileminergame on twitter to stay up to date on all the latest news!***
New Features:
* New underground level
* New Ice Dungeon (first dungeon boss will drop an iron staircase that will bring you down to the next level)
* Added tiaga and tundra to overworld
* Added ice
* A few new mobs in the overworld
* New mobs for the new level (we’ll let you be surprised!)
* Level 2 Magic spells for ice and fire.
New Items:
* Black Fly Repellent
* Collectible Potion
* Light Potion
* Ice Protection Potion
* Carrots
* Sticky Inventory Bag Pendant
* Magic Protection Ring
* Magic Regeneration Ring
* Iron Tools/Weapons/Armor
* Iron Heart Container
* Topaz Magic Orb
* Energy Vial II
* Magic Barrier
Enhancements/Balancing:
* made biomes larger
* Moved slimes to first underground level and moved bats to over world
Bug Fixes:
* Fixed some pathfinding issues with mobs (they’d occasionally get stuck)
* Fixed a lighting issue
* Fixed issue that was causing the world to stop loading so big black holes were appearingThis update was a fun one! The focus was on adding magic and accessories to the game. We also took some time to adjust a few balance related issues. We need as much feedback as we can get so as always let us know about bugs and all of your ideas in the forums. Change Log 0.4.0 Ne
This update was a fun one! The focus was on adding magic and accessories to the game. We also took some time to adjust a few balance related issues. We need as much feedback as we can get so as always let us know about bugs and all of your ideas in the forums. Change Log 0.4.0 Ne
I just wanted to chime in and share some of the things we’ve been working on in 0.4. We are calling this “the magic update”. The original plan was to add a bunch of small pieces of content we feel the game is really lacking. But then when we calculated how long it would take to a
I just wanted to chime in and share some of the things we’ve been working on in 0.4. We are calling this “the magic update”. The original plan was to add a bunch of small pieces of content we feel the game is really lacking. But then when we calculated how long it would take to a
Three bits of great news: 1. Tile Miner Early Access version 0.3 is available now! 2. A second developer has been added to the team. Believe it or not, this is the most exciting part of this update. 3. Our plan is to dramatically increase the frequency of releases. To start, let’