Hi!

Cobalt v103 Alpha is finally ready, and it contains improvements in many spread out unrelated areas, however, the biggest addition is the Map Editor! For the people who have accessed the editor previously, there is a huge amount of unlisted changes that have been made, but for the others, this will simply be the first encounter with making your own maps.

Bugs discovered post upload:

1. Due to the reorganization of the maps, there are some oddities if you are updating from v102. You might see some duplicate maps with different names in your menu. If this happens, reinstall the game from a v103, or clean out the maps folder prior to updating. (all map files that does NOT have a .localization file next to it are old.)
2. The map editor will crash if you try to place a tile that has a default ID (which goes for a lot of important tiles). This crash is bad enough that if you are already using the map editor, it is advisable to keep separate installations.

If you find bugs, please post them at http://getsatisfaction.com/cobalt/ we will be making another update tomorrow!

Hit more to read all about it!

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I just wanted to give you a small heads-up on the next Project B secret gift!

The next gift will be sent to somebody who creates something interesting in our Lua prototyping engine, DaisyMoon. We haven’t decided on the hows, whens and whys yet, so the challenge hasn’t officially started yet. We’re waiting until the documentation is more complete and we have a Mac build working again (progress has been made).

Anthony Salter of Viridian Games has planned to do a small video blog series about DaisyMoon. Something to keep an eye on!

/jeb

Hey

We’ve made a new game prototype called “Horror Tactics”. It’s a “move’em’up” kind of game inspired by Games Workshop’s old Space Hulk board game.

The game has been scripted in our DaisyMoon Lua engine, so you can view and edit the source code if you want to change settings or difficulty. The music has been made by Blackspawn.

Please give the prototype a go and give us feedback on what you think about it!

Windows: http://www.oxeyegames.com/files/HT/HorrorTactics.zip

You may also discuss this in our forums.

Cheers!

/jeb

As you know, we’ve been using Lua to make prototypes and add mod support to Harvest. However, I’ve always thought that the C++ binding we’ve used hasn’t really worked the way I’d like it to. Basically we’ve used simple C functions to create our own Lua library for callbacks, and some Lunar objects in Harvest. Lunar allows you to do stuff such as this:

local stuff = lib.getStuff()
stuff:foobar() — call C++ member method

However, it doesn’t allow you to do this:

local stuff = lib.getStuff()
stuff.onEvent = function(self) print(”Recieved event!”) end

The problem is that with Lunar all objects of the “stuff” class share the same meta table. It’s possible to modify the meta table in Lua by calling getmetatable(), but then you will be modifying the meta table of all instances of “stuff…”

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Remember “Because it’s fun, Fay?” It was a game we made for the TIGSource Procedural Generation Competition, held earlier this summer. We created it using our Lua script engine, Daisy Moon, which we usually use when we want to prototype different game ideas (we also use Multi-media Fusion sometimes, depending on the situation). The game turned out to be a two-player platform game with one character living in a rotated dimension, and with a JRPG end-boss fight. Maybe not our greatest game, but if you haven’t tried it, you can find it here.

Now it’s time for a new TIGSource competition and a new game! This time the theme is Bootleg Demakes, and people have posted over 100 threads about competition projects. A “bootleg” means “inofficial copy” and “demake” means “that is made to look as though it were running on older-generation hardware”. We could obviously not resist competing again and, using our Daisy Moon engine once more, created House Globe.

Hit the jump for the full story!

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It’s time for another “Harvest: Massive Encounter” update. The new version is numbered 1.14, and is a non-crucial patch that adds mod support to the Creative Mode. We have started a whole new section on the forums related to Harvest modding, head over there now and check out all the mods that are being made! The forum section also contains all the necessary information needed to get started with making your own mod. For example, check out How To Create Mods or How To Create Custom Graphics to get you going. All mods are open source and easily changeable in any text editing tool.

The patch contains the following mods:

• Emulate Normal Mode: A mod that works just like the Normal Mode.
• Emulate Rush Mode: A mod that works just like Rush Mode.
• Emulate Wave Mode: A mod that works just like Wave Mode.
• Starhawk: A mod that allows the player to send in a small fighter jet with custom graphics by entering “starhawk” in the input field that appears after pressing Enter ingame.
• Super Gun: A mod that allows the player to upgrade defense towers into bullet spewing super guns! These guns don’t require energy, but instead eat credits when they need to refill ammo.
• Infinite Credits: A mod that gives the player infinite credits.

Here’s the Mac OS X updater for registered users (2.6 MB). Open the dmg and run the patcher, then simply drag and drop the Harvest application on to the patcher’s window.

The Windows update is available here (1.3 MB). This patcher requires a previous installation of Harvest, simply use the same application folder when you run it.

Happy Modding!

During the last couple of weeks we’ve been working on a small game for TIGSource’s Procedural Generation competition. The deadline is tonight, and we are just finished! The game’s called “Because it’s Fun, Fay”, and is about a woman called Fay who has been trapped in a tower by a lonely fairy known as Cornipolous. Not interested in being anybody’s pet prisoner, Fay decisively begins to find her way out of the tower. Cornipolous knows there are many dangerous monsters around, and he doesn’t want her to get hurt, so he’s forced to assist in her escape.

You can either play yourself or cooperatively with a friend, but in both cases the objective is to get Fay and Corn to the top of the tower, where an evil boss awaits. The topic of the competition was that the game should be different every time you play, so the game’s level and boss are randomized when the game begins. Download the game here:

• Mac OS X: http://www.oxeye.se/files/stuff/BIFF_Mac.zip
• Windows: http://www.oxeye.se/files/stuff/BIFF.zip

Like the mods for Harvest, this game has been written completely in Lua. This has been an interesting experiment, and feels like an easy and quick way of testing new game ideas. You will probably see more of this from us

Hit the jump for a screenshot from the game…

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As some of you might already know, we’ve been working (experimenting) with adding Lua to Harvest. The mods allow you to alter the game rules in Creative Mode, and can be used to add new effects, triggers and even gameplay elements. While there still is a lot of work to be done (such as modifying alien AI), it’s already running nicely.

The mod support has its own forum category, where you will be able to find documentation and other people’s mods. So far we’ve released a “beta patch” for those who wants to try the mods or make their own ones. You find the patch, and some basic example mods, here: http://www.oxeyegames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=246

/jeb