I’ve done a whole lot since my last post, but I still don’t have anything really playable yet. In fact I almost had a fully working game at one point but have since taken some steps back to work on various parts of it. I’ve created numerous prototypes of various functionality including a fully editable, procedurally generated voxel terrain using MapMagic and Voxeland. I’ve purchased a number of amazing assets and have been learning to use them and getting them all to integrate properly.

At one point I had a character creation and customization screen thanks to UMA. I also had a nice looking, temporary, static terrain which I created in Gaia. I also have done some experimenting with terrains in Terrain Composer 2 which is a really nice system. However those weren’t editable/mineable which is one of the main things I want in this game. I also had multiplayer working with chat and a dedicated server running. All that is sort of going to get a rework and an update. It’s a lot of work but I’m in no rush since I’m only working on it as a hobby in my spare time.

I’ve started with the terrain. Using MapMagic and Voxeland I am able to create the kind of terrain that I want. These are awesome assets which when used together can create the infinite, procedurally generated, player editable terrain complete with biomes, shorelines, trees, plants, grass, rocks, etc. I’ve been working on this lately and its pretty fun to play with and seeing what kinds of things I can create.

Another great asset I’m integrating everything into is Ultimate Survival. This asset is about to release a major update with some awesome looking features. It seems like it will be pretty amazing and I can’t wait. The developer has delayed a release for quite some time due to various reasons including a hard drive crash and people are really starting to get impatient but I think it will be well worth the wait.

Some assets I’ve purchased:

Node Canvas – They describe this as a “Visual Behaviour Authoring framework” on their page. It’s sort of like visual scripting. It has great docs too. It’s similar to the more popular PlayMaker asset but includes full source code. It’s also kind of similar to blueprints in Unreal the way you can create nodes and hook them together to make things happen.

Inventory Pro – I plan to use this for inventory management if I can get it integrated with everything else properly. It has integrated ok with uConstruct and UMA and possibly even Forge Networking, but Ultimate Survival has it’s own inventory system that would have to be replaced but I believe they are adding the ability to do that eventually.

TENKOKU Dynamic Sky – I’m currently using this for a full blown weather and sky system with a day and night cycle. I really like it and I think it makes things look great. I may try other similar assets some day to see how they compare but so far I don’t regret getting this.

Relief Terrain Pack – This is a pretty complex asset for making your terrains look nicer. I haven’t taken much time to figure it out yet but Voxeland and MapMagic have some sort of integration with it so hopefully I can make them look nice with it some day.

ICE Creature Control – I’ve played with this one for a bit and it seems quite powerful and has some amazing features. This will power the AI in the game.

Ultimate Survival – Pretty much the core of the game will be from this asset. Or perhaps the next generation of it when they finish this one and release their fantasy mmo style asset they mentioned at one point. But for now this one will do the trick. I may eventually end up implementing my own leveling systems or maybe I will use RPG All-in-One for that sort of thing if I can get them to integrate properly.

RPG All-in-One – This asset has some bugs and is currently undergoing some updates. Though it’s slow going but it looks very promising. I managed to get a little prototype with it working. I had a fire mage character and some spells and monsters but they were having trouble walking sometimes. If the author keeps updating this and fixing bugs then some day I suspect this will be pretty great. It allows you to create crafting recipes, level up your character, have skills with levels, spells, all sorts of goodies. They even added a minimap in the last update. Unfortunately it is almost unusable for me in it’s current state.

uConstruct – Runtime Building System – While Ultimate Survival includes a building system of it’s own, this asset will likely be far superior to it in terms of performance and integration compatibility with other assets. I had managed to get this to integrate with UMA and Inventory Pro at one point and it was just a matter of adding some more custom building parts and customizing everything a little further.

Master Server Framework – This wasn’t always free and open source and I bought it when it wasn’t. I couldn’t do much with it but it seems like it’s probably quite useful to some people. I did get it working and it does what it says it does but it wasn’t something I’ve used for a game yet. Maybe some day though. I am glad it became free and open source though. The same thing happened to Forge Networking and it’s pretty great that these assets went this route because I feel that it will allow them to mature faster, and better and not die out if the developers don’t have time to update them all the time because the community can still push fixes for them.

Voxeland – The voxel terrain engine I decided to go with for now. One of the only ones that still gets updates on the Unity Asset Store last I checked. Most of the big games probably go with Voxel Farm but I’m not a huge fan of their pricing plans, especially since I’m planning on making this game free. Another expensive but awesome looking one I wish I had the money for was Terrain Engine which isn’t on the Asset Store. But for now Voxeland is going to have to do the trick. If you have a bigger budget you may want to look at Terrain Engine or Voxel Farm. If not then Voxeland or making your own system may be the way to go.

MapMagic World Generator – When mixed with Voxeland this will provide player-editable/mineable, infinite terrain with biomes. I haven’t actually purchased this yet but I certainly intend to when I get some extra cash.

Script Inspector 3 – This is an editor tool which lets you edit scripts right inside Unity. I no longer have to wait for Visual Studio or even Mono Develop to open. This opens right up instantly. I don’t always take the time to import this but it’s very handy when you just want things to be quick and seamless and not have to wait or switch windows. Works great for me.

Some other assets that I found which are actually free and useful:

DOTween (HOTween v2) – This is a very handy tool for animating things. Especially for making your UI look fancy but I suspect can be used other places too.

Game Framework – Free – I tested this a bit and was planning to buy their full package for making a mobile game but haven’t actually yet. It works great and has great tutorials for making a nice game that can even make you some cash while you work on your masterpiece.

Acrocatic: 2d Physics Based Character Controller – I plan to use this along with the Game Framework asset above. I’m going to wait until the new developer releases an update to it and see what useful things they add.

TextMesh Pro – This used to cost money but got bought by Unity so now it’s free and it can make some really amazing looking text!

DPLoadScreen – I’m sure there are probably other ways to go about making a load screen or other ways to reliably detect which things are loaded but this was free and pretty simple to use. I managed to get it integrated into the game fairly easily.

Critias Tree System – This seems to create better performing trees. I haven’t actually tested it but I want lots of trees so it might be necessary to integrate into the game.

Line Endings Fixer – Automatically fixes those warnings about line endings not being right.

Nakama – A pretty amazing looking networking asset complete with server, chat, groups/guilds, friends, user accounts, saves, and a whole lot more. Very clean and simple to use. Gets a lot of updates. Very promising looking. Works very well.

CMD+ Game Console Debugger – This didn’t work in Unity 2017 without removing a line that checks for Unity 5 in one of the files. But once I removed that then it works fine. An in-game console for running commands. Easy to create and add your own commands. You can also add buttons to the interface. All I think it’s missing might be auto complete.

SmartConsole – Another in-game console which actually does have auto complete so you can just press tab and it will fill in the rest of the command for you. It seems like it works great from my testing. I can’t decide to use this or CMD+.

 

Alright I think that’s good enough for now. Another thing to note is that UMA has undergone a major update and is pretty amazing. I really am looking forward to the time when I have all of these assets integrated together into a game. Then I guess I’ll just have to customize everything and make it look unique and add all the other features I plan to add. It’s going to be fun!