Today is a special day, because 12 years ago under semi-uncertain circumstances I have created an Ages. But his (close to the) current appearance was formed somewhere after a month or so. Anyway...
It's become a habit for me that by the end of the month I haven't finished the work I started before. And this month is no exception. I finally finished working with the scripting and trigger/event language ("word stream" in further) and... I delayed its integration for its original purpose again because I came up with a different idea. With my experience with Space Station 13 build development it have found out that the map format there uses words instead of binary, which gives it certain advantages:
1. Ability to edit the file outside of map editor
2. Less dependence on map editor version changes
3. Version control, which will help when using repositories
4. The possibility of creating alternative software by third parties to work with these files (if someone will ever do this)
The result:
This is the Forest, where all zones have been combined in a single one. And I made it with relative ez using text editor, but most of heavy lifting was made by math that I integrated with word stream. I'll even say more: this innovation calls into question the necessity for scripting.
Next topic is my next objective: I want to prepare a special update by mid-October, and for this I needed to redraw all the mobs in the game. I use multiple drawing programs for this, so the process is semi-automated, otherwise it would take a lot of time. Even with this help, the process is still lengthy, so I decided to automate it even more by combining all my drawing programs in one single "super renderer", which allows me to build sprite sheets "in one click". Although this may or may not backfire: during its writing, I could have drawn a certain number of sprites, and even all of them. Like this one:
By the way, the Steam Summer Sale is started, you have a chance to purchase a game with a discount. Or buy one for a friend, if you have one.