Hi again! The last update was some time ago now, too long in fact! This is not a post to announce a new update, but to give some insight into what is going on.

Hit the jump for the full read.

After the last update we got a bunch of bug reports, and they are still coming in. The most troubling ones were related to random crashes and other equally bad stuff. We have gone through a series of fixes now on our side, but one of the bugs took longer than expected and have held us back from having a stable executable for a while. We have also received some feedback that a weekly or bi-weekly update tempo would be great, and we can only agree. We enjoy development in that tempo and we should be getting back to that after the coming update.

In the meantime we have been building the Adventure component of the game. This includes work on the editors as well as the content of it and the implementation of running it.

An example shop setup in the adventure editor

We are looking forward to see what people will be able to do with these editors!

As of this week things seem to be on track again and we are basically in release preparation mode trying to make sure that all the things that we have worked on since the last update gets packaged and presented in the best way possible. I’m currently sitting on a train, the weekend will largely be occupied by a wedding, and next week the Mojangstas and Kinten are away and I’m in Denmark. So as of right now, we cannot say a date, but I will be working today and the next week to make this happen as soon as possible.

Also, here is a flying brain:

In this post I will talk about:

• Adventure mode!
• Item Comparison

Hit the jump for the full read!

Adventure

Our main focus right now is the adventure mode. We’ve been working intensely on it for about 2 months, and while we are not ready to release anything of it just yet, I can show you some of the ideas and concepts we are working with.

Light and Dark

We love exploration.

We love dark and scary!

But just making everything black isn’t a good solution.

You need contrasts and varying moods. To achieve this we had to work on improving the lighting of the game. One component is that it is now possible to render most common tiles with individual colors for each corner:

Then we let lights affect those colors. Left light is only using the shader, while the right light is also affecting tile corner colors.

Having this we could now create really dark areas, while still being able to light them up nicely for contrast:

Procedural + Design

We also love exploration!

The key component in exploration is not knowing that will come next or what you will find. I’d go so far as to say it pretty much defines it. Because of that, and because we want to give the adventure good replay value, we have created a system that combines design with procedural content generation on a number of levels. Let’s examine a normal room:

1. The cabinet may or may not be there, it may or may not be locked. It’s contents are unknown.
2. The entrance leads to another procedurally created room.
3. There may or may not be items on the table and there may or may not be actors hanging around there. What items, and what actors and what they will look like or what items they possess is unknown.
4. The door may or may not be locked. What kind of lock is unknown.
5. The urns may or may not be there, and the contents of them is unknown.
6. There may or may not be items on that shelf. What kind of items is unknown.
7. (not shown in picture) a bunch of assorted decorations may or may not be there.

What spawns where is controlled from higher up. Maybe the room is owned by a pirate mushroom clan that is preparing a spikebird feast on the table, or maybe the room belongs to a hermit lunatic that stores its bomb and grenade stash in those urns and to guard it has put a hefty pad lock on the door.

What about exploring those dark and scary caves?

Lets examine a 3×3 dungeon:

The dungeon has incoming travel where the red lines are. When the adventure is generated, it creates paths between all travels and places other optional things like a goal. As you can see, 1,2 and 3 are all just different solutions to the same dungeon making sure that every time you play, exploration will remain fresh and surprising.

So finally, you find yourself exploring a dark procedural cave, fumbling with the light enhancer to try and find a way out.

Item Comparison

Another fun thing I have been working on is item comparisons. Since the game contains a bunch of both weapons and equipment, playing the game effectively in an adventure would almost require you to have a wiki or similar open on the side for you to have any chance at all to make an informed decision. Do I buy item 1, or 2? Do i equip this helmet or that helmet? Do I buy this upgrade, or that upgrade? Here follows a couple of screenshots of me using the system:

Comparing two weapons

Inspecting the effects of an upgrade

Equipping a helmet

Also, as you can see in the last screenshot here, equipping a helmet or any other piece of equipment has a really complicated effect. This is likely the first glimpse into what a helmet actually does since they were introduced.

That is it for now!

If you have any questions, just drop a comment!

Hello again! Today we uploaded v120! Some bug fixes, minable rocks, and some design adjustments! Hit the jump for the full change log!

Change Log Alterations:

• All slugger weapons have had their rate of fire halved, damage doubled, and bullet time generated doubled.
• Slugger bullets now retain ability to hit after deflect.
• Punch is now more adaptive to how far from max range the hit was, in regards to how fast the next is charged up and damage
• You can now hold use to keep punching at max charge.
• Added a bunch of minable tiles

Bug-Fixes:

• Fixed incorrect speed calculation for tiles leading for crazy bobbing in fluids
• Fixed incorrect door rendering
• Added automatic adding of “simple” locks to io-connected to lock slots on old maps.

It seems that some of the files uploaded were corrupted on upload and will result a whole string of strange bugs! v120 tomorrow!

We updated Cobalt to v119 today with some new stuff and some bug fixes! We added a new actor and lots of new locks! Hit the jump for the full change log!

Change Log Alterations:

• Locks are now modular and can be used both for doors and containers.
• Added 6 lock types.
• Added new deathmatch map Amanita!
• Added Amanita actor
• Added a bunch of mycelia tiles.
• Added a bunch of generic symol tiles.
• 3d-ish boxes are now by default physical and destructible
• It is now possible to draw the color of the quad vertices for basic tiles. Check tiles menu in editor for more details.
• added credit value to pickups section in tile browser

Bug-Fixes:

• Graphics and engine related crash fixes
• Fixed hackscreen related crash bugs.
• Various other undocumented bug fixes.