Hello Readers! Welcome to another edition of Within BYOND! In addition to our typical sharing of updates, This week's edition also includes four 2016 Visions from developers who have taken the time to share their thoughts about 2015, and their goals for 2016.
Polls have gained in popularity recently. First, Mr_Goober presented a few open ended questions, most of which are tailored towards developers. Then Yut Put created a series of multiple choice questions for players to answer.
BYOND
The Webclient has received the bulk of Lummox JR's development time these past two weeks, and the result is that the Webclient now supports all of Dream Seeker's additions that were made in 510. In addition to that, the Webclient now uses a newer edition of StageXL, with reports of significant gains in performance. He also mentioned a feature for .dms files, which suggests that the long requested ability to customize splash screens may become a reality.
BYOND Games
Pixel Realms has gotten the forums set up for Severed World, and has taken some time to update us on the status of their plans for the first beta test. Around 140 quests, four towns, over fifty spells, dozens of monsters and bosses, bagfuls of items, and plenty more is already in the game. Compare that to what has been set as the goal for open beta, and it won't be long now.
Reversal Entertainment has begun work on the Nexus, a construct tasked with maintaining the balance between good and evil in a universe where the human race has just secured a foothold. A testament to character attributes has been published, outlining the aspects of each characteristic that will be found within the game.
The team creating Land of Fire celebrated three months of steady progress with their 10th and 11th development logs. In the former, they created a tutorial, and a video displaying a free-for-all style combat demonstration, received critique, and revamped the attacks and their timing in the latter, which also features guarding techniques, ricocheting ninja weaponry, and smoother icon animation observations. Keep an eye on their progress on Twitch, Tumblr, and Twitter.
Devourer of Souls has updated Sigrogana Legend 2 to version 1.51 over the past two weeks. In version 1.50, new event tools were added so that administrators could create unique and fun custom storylines, and in version 1.51, 100 new LaplaceNet requests were added, allowing players to gain more experience. A handful of adjustments and bug fixes were made as well.
Nadrew has been implementing new features, made possible in the most recent versions of BYOND, in version Luna 1.0 of My Life as a Spy. Dynamic lighting has made day and night natural lighting possible, along with artificial sources, such as flashlights and lampposts, with interactions to boot.
Lux has received a few makeovers and gained a few new enemies over these past two weeks. An auto-homing missile launcher tries to take down the rover, and so does a laser bouncy ball. The beams fired by the rover now have some more variety, and the beams shot by the first boss are now more twinkly. Keep up on the game by following it on Twitter.
Kumorii revealed his classified project formally reported as Redacted to be a new update to his zombie shooter, Feed! Latest .gifs show the atmospheric, dark, and dangerous environment of the zombie apocalypse. Bullets whiz by. Cow bells distract. Waves have been lined up and rainbow leading cats have been shot! What does the cat say?
Solstice Entertainment held a poll in a recent development log for Sword and Soul Online. The query is one of preference in diversifying keystroke commands, with the more interactive and complex choice taking the lions share. Tempestous Heart joined the team, refining a handful of interface elements, stat calculations (Login required to view), and graphics.
Yutput's Lord of the Bugs evolved over the past few weeks, adding dynamic lighting to the open-world survival and roleplaying game. New players are given instructions on how to play the game through the recently added tutorial.
Covert's Global Assault went live this week. The open-world roleplaying and combat game features enemies to fight and tame, crops to grow, strength to gain, countries to conquer, and economies to expand. Then build a wall to keep it all safe from outsiders.
Soma Schicksal has compiled the updates from Tales of Judgement R's Facebook page for those of us who aren't in the loop. Interface elements have seen improvement, along with preferential color varieties. Guarding mechanisms and jumps work better now, and delicious food dishes can be made.
Edit Nero is back with an update log on Eden. The RPG now has added void and blood bending to its collection of element manipulators, although the means by which one would become one of the two aforementioned benders has yet to be determined. Additionally, weather has been added to the environment along with screen shakes during harsh hits.
BYOND Resources
- Lummox JR takes a gander at how BYOND draws the map in his latest edition of Under the Hood.
- DarkCampainger demonstrates how to use the feature of 510 to create some impressive shadow casting.
- Kozuma3 released kHud, a library that uses their custom scripting language to make responsive interfaces better and easier.
It's been roughly a year now the development of Severed World began, a 2D action-ORPG. Our intent, along with releasing a fun, popular game, was to showcase that BYOND wasn't just engine that could produce games quickly, but do it well. I'm extremely proud of the progress we've made in that time, and while we're not where I'd like us to have been-- as these things go-- I think we're heading in the right direction and I'm extremely excited and ready for what 2016 will bring. We certainly made some big mistakes in 2015, such as attempting crowdfunding too early (include a playable demo!), along with mistakes in our development cycle, but I'm content with how things went and where they're going.
As for the future: we want to share an open beta early into the year, and hopefully the interest will bring in enough funds to expand the content/features of the game further. Maybe an Early Access release on Steam depending on how everything goes, since I think the game as is perhaps good enough to sustain a community, but ideally we want to work on it for as long as funds can manage before any sort of official release. By the time 2017 hits, I hope Severed World has a lively community in and outside of BYOND, along with other promising projects trying to get out there, with websites like Kongregate, Newgrounds, and Armorgames looking awfully attractive to us Webclient users :-)
Well, anyone who read my last vision knows I didn't nearly succeed in my goals for the past year. As much as I would of liked to, I am okay with that though, because it's only because I got another job and ended up focusing on personal goals and improvement over the past year.
That being said, I did still improve my skills a bit over the past year, and given how much I work I've come up with much more modest and achievable goals for this year. My plan this time is to focus on a total of 4 projects, instead of 12, which gives me triple the time I had set for each before. Among these projects are Final Resurrection: Redemptions latest redesign, Hunger, and two others that I don't want to lock in yet incase I change my mind. All in all, with so many advancements in BYOND I am really hoping FR:R's latest advancements work out well, and that if anything I exceed my goal instead of fail this time!
A philosophy I live by, is always try to best yourself and leave no room for excuses. This is the attitude I pride on, and what I convey to my team. You might know about our past failures, and I'm reminded of them nearly everyday. I'm not surprised that I push myself harder. I use it as motivation, because if I gave up now, I would become worse each passing year. And who would want that? Not a day goes by when I'm not practicing, making myself better as a game designer. Out of the 365 days, I would say 348 of them are put into game designing, for hours, right after my 8 hour work shift. There are nights when I get 3-4 hours of sleep, because I'm up all night working on my dream. It's the failures that push me to do this, and a little bit of faith. Ever since I was a child, I've wanted to make video games, but now it's time to make that happen. In my work, I have watched myself grow over the years. And no matter what, it'll always be that first step that makes it all happen. I have a really good feeling about this year, confidence in my dedicated team to do what needs to be done. I am proud of myself, my team, for the journey, and the road we'll travel. Together, we are going to make our dreams happen! Here's for 2016 - a dream come true :D
Editors summary: PopLava had many accomplishments in 2015, both within and outside of BYOND. He began work on a card game framework, from which he was able to create Solitaire and poker. He explored table top gaming, and board game creation, such as the checkers image displayed here. Some fun was had creating dungeon crawlers and generators, and a BYOND reference with tutorials. Outside of BYOND PopLava composed a handful of songs, and created a few useful applications, such as WinClickPro and Quickcap. In the present year, he has set goals to focus in on fewer projects, and take those fewer projects further, keeping processes simple, and exercising in-between. To read his full Vision with full imagery, check out his blog!
