Tag: 2D

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GameDev Map & Level Creator Humble Bundle

There is a new bundle of interest to game developers, the GameDev Map & Level Creator Bundle. This is a collection of graphics, tiles, backgrounds and tilesets for use in 2D game development. As with all Humble’s this bundle is organized into tiers:

1$ Tier

  • Egyptian Tileset
  • World Map Pixel Art Tileset
  • Super Pixel Dungeon
  • Fantasy Map
  • Night City Game Level Kit
  • Tropical Island 2D Game Tileset
  • Desert Tileset
  • Fantasy Village

15$ Tier

  • Game Level Map Set Kit
  • Fantasy Jungle Pixel Art Tileset
  • House Interiors Tileset Pack
  • City Street Tileset Pack
  • WiraWiri Game Level Map Builder
  • Misty Forest Ground Tiles
  • 595 Medieval 2D Game Asset Pack
  • Platformer Game Tile Set 3
  • Simple RPG Tileset
  • Platformer Game Tile Set 1
  • Super Pixel Ice Cavern Tileset

25$ Tier

  • Cartoon Platformer Tileset Pack
  • Mega Factory Scene Creation Pack
  • Pxiel Art Tileset Collection
  • Game Level Map 9 Different Worlds
  • Underwater Tile Set
  • Isometric Forest
  • Wolfsong Tilesets
  • Top Down Tileset Interior
  • 16 Jump Vertical Game Backgrounds
  • 2D Isometric Starter Style Kit
  • The Dungeon Top Down Tileset
  • Game Level Map Pack Side Scrolling
  • Top Down Tileset Forest
  • Mega Castle & Dungeon Pack
  • Game Level Map Creator For Water Levels
  • Landscape Constructor Set
  • Woodlands Level Map Creator
  • Green Greens Forest Platformer Tileset

As with all Humbles, you get to decide how your funds are allocated, between Humble, charity, the publisher and if you so choose (and thanks if you do!) to support GFS purchasing through this link. An important thing to consider with any purchased assets is the legal license, which is available here. You can learn more about this bundle in the video below.

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Godot 4 New 2D Features Showcase

Over on the Godot Engine blog they recently put together a summary of some of the exciting new 2D features that will arrive in Godot 4. Today we go hands-on with the majority of these new features. In addition to the new tricks showcased in the video there are other 2D improvements in Godot 4 including across the board performance improvements (due to the new Vulkan renderer and internal optimizations) as well as support for 2D signed distance fields.

Highlighted new features include:

  • new 2D CanvasTexture with support for diffuse, normal and specular maps
  • better support for 2D lights (all drawn in a single pass)
  • directional light and shadow support
  • new child clipping feature
  • new CanvasGroup for grouping multiple sprites into a single draw call

In addition to these new features, Godot have also just released an update on the improvements to tilemap support, which will be covered in a separate video. Check out the video below to see these excellent new Godot 2D features in action.

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LDtk The Level Designer Toolkit

LDtk, or Level Designer Toolkit, is an open source MIT licensed Haxe based 2D level editor from the creator of Dead Cells. If it looks familiar that is because we recently covered it when it was known as LEd. In just a few short months though, LDtk has come a long way, including community ports to Linux and MacOS. With the 0.5 release (the re-brand version number), tons of new features were added to LDtk including:

  • Tiles flipping: in Tile Layers, you can mirror tiles before painting them by pressing X or Y (or Z). This also works from group of tiles.
  • Tiles stacking: you can now optionaly stack multiple tiles in a single cell of a Tile layer, reducing the need for multiple layers. For example, you could paint a brick wall, then enable stack mode (T), and add details like cracks or vines over the same wall. Be careful though: erasing of stacked elements can be tricky, so you should use a mix of multiple layers and stacking to get the best results.
  • New editing options bar: Grid locking, Single layer mode and Empty space selection moved to a new more streamlined button bar.
  • File association: project files now use the extension *.ldtk instead of *.json. Therefore, on Windows, double-clicking such files will open the app accordingly. If you prefer the .json extension, you can force it in each project settings (but will lose benefit of the file association).
  • Auto-layer rule preview: when you move your mouse over a rule, you will now see which cells in the current layer are affected, making their testing MUCH easier.
  • Tiled (TMX) export: this optional export now generates proper standard tile layers. However, to support LDtk stacked tiles feature (see above), multiple Tiled layers might be generated per single LDtk layer. Also, IntGrid layers are now properly exported to Tiled (as standard tile layers, with an auto-generated tileset image).
  • New color picker: it supports copy/paste, manual hex value editing and a much better UI (thanks to simple-color-picker).
  • Flood-fill fixes: if you hold SHIFT while clicking in a Tile layer, it will flood-fill the area using currently selected tiles (randomly, or by stamping group of tiles, depending on the current mode).
  • Flood-fill erasing: just use SHIFT+Right click to erase a whole contiguous area.
  • The layer Rule editor now overlaps left panel and allows level editing while being open (makes rule testing much easier). Press Escape to close it.
  • In Tile layers, you can press L to load a saved tileset selection (using S key)
  • Renamed the Level panel to World (for the 0.6.x future update).
  • It’s now possible to change the tileset or even the source layer of an Auto-Layer without loosing your rules.
  • Auto-layer baking: turn a complex Auto-Layer into a standard Tile layer (think of it as the flatten feature in Photoshop). Be careful, it’s a one-way operation.
  • Unified “Show/hide grid” and “Grid locking” options. You can now just press G to toggle grid (which also implies “grid locking” in supported layer types).
  • All options (such as “Grid on/off”, or “Compact panel mode”) are now saved to a JSON file in your app folder, in userSettings/.
  • Help window is now a side panel.
  • Opaque tiles are detected in tilesets for use in various optimizations (mostly related to the new tile stacking feature).
  • Fixed a crash when deleting IntGrid layer while an AutoLayer uses it as source.
  • Added some colors to UI buttons
  • New exit button icon.

You can learn more about LDtk releases here, including an even newer 0.5.1 beta release. As mentioned earlier the project is open source with the code released under the MIT license and available on GitHub. You can learn more about LDtk here with downloads available on Itch.io. You can learn more about LDtk and see it in action in the video below.

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001 Game Creator Humble Bundle

The 001 Game Creator game engine is currently featured in the Game Dev STEM Humble Bundle that just launched. 001 Game Creator was previously featured in a Humble, so be sure to check your library to make sure you aren’t purchasing it twice. If you are interested in learning more about 001 Game Creator, check out our hands-on review available here.

As with all Humbles, this bundle is organized into tiers:

1$ Tier

  • Misc design documents

10$ Tier

  • 001 Game Creator Engine
  • 001 Basics E-Book
  • 001 Resource E-Book

20$ Tier

  • Point and Click Adventure Kit
  • Dragons Den Resource Pack
  • Retro Fantasy Music Pack
  • Sound Effects Pack Vol 1

25$ Tier

  • Enhanced RPG Kit
  • FPS Kit
  • MMORPG Kit
  • Visual Novel Kit

As with all Humble Bundles you get to decide how your money is allocated between the publisher, charity, Humble and if you so choose (and thanks if you do!) to support GFS using this link. You can learn more about the bundle in the video below.

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Godot 3.2.4 Beta Adds Sprite Batching Support

Earlier this week the first beta of Godot 3.2.4 was released bringing several fixes and improvements as well as a few new features.

The primary features of the first Godot 3.2.4 beta from the Godot blog include:

  • Android App Bundle and subview embedding support.
  • 2D batching for GLES3 (remember that we added it for GLES2 in 3.2.2), and improvements to GLES2’s batching.
  • A new software skinning for MeshInstance to replace the slow GPU skinning on devices that don’t support the fast GPU skinning (especially mobile).
  • Several smaller fixes and improvements

Downloads for all major platforms are available for download here. The major new feature of most interest to me is the new sprite batching, an optimization trick to improve 2D rendering speeds. In the video below we run the popular Bunnymark test on Godot 3.2.3 and the new Godot 3.2.4 and we saw respectable improvements.

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microStudio Game Engine Hands-On

microStudio is a game engine that runs entirely in your browser and makes it incredibly easy to get started creating 2D games, with a polished, well designed, comprehensive and documented set of tools. You can start as easily as going to microStudio.dev in your browser, clone an existing or create a new project and start coding, no account creation required.

Key features of microStudio include:

  • entirely browser based, no install or account creation required
  • simple Lua inspired programming language microScript
  • built in multi-file code editor with contextual documentation and syntax highlighting
  • run your game directly in browser or remote test on phones with live loading
  • pixel art editor
  • tile map editor
  • support for multiple devs with automatic synchronisation of changes
  • deploy your game as HTML5, or beta export support for Windows, Mac and Linux

You can learn more about microStudio and see in it action in the video below (or Odysee here). If you want to learn more or encounter a problem check out their discord server.

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MagicaVoxel 0.99.6.2 Released

The popular free Voxel application MagicaVoxel just got a new release, 0.99.6.2. This release isn’t just significant for adding a large number of features added, but also because it may be the last release we see for quite some time.

A tweet sequence from @ephtracy, MagicaVoxel’s creator:

Now back to the release, details from the release notes:

New Unified Material System[06/30/2020]

  • Blend Material: weighted blending Metal/Plastic/Glass/Cloud materials (similar to Disney Principled BRDF).
  • SSS Material: sub-surface scattering. transparency tp control light transmission. density to control light scattering.
  • Aborb/Scatter/Emissive Media Material: emissive cloud. can be contained in the glass with ior > 1.
  • Improved Alpha Blending: glass material, absorb media type, density = 0, ior = 0, transparency > 0

New Transform and Voxel Shader Brushes[09/26/2020]

  • Refactored the brush menu and add icons.
  • Voxel Shader Brush to use Voxel Shaders interactively and directly.
  • Transform->Scale Brush : live scale models, point sampled, low quality but fast.
  • Transform->Wrap Brush : live wrap/crop models with mirroring and spacing modes.
  • Geometry Mode->Line/Square/Circle: the old center mode is combined with the old line mode
  • World Editor->Pattern and Wrap Brush: can create patterns from selected object (check the pattern model menu on the right panel).

Rotate Transform Brush [09/26/2020]

  • Axis rotate : press any inner circle.
  • Screen rotate : press the outer circle.
  • Sphere rotate : press any point inside the outer circle.
  • Snap rotate : press SHIFT or SHIFT+ALT to snap angle to multiple of 5 or 15.

Voxel Shader[09/13/2020]

  • no need to define id for arguments.
  • use var to define alias of arguments. same as float var = i_args[id];.
  • can import and export arguments values.
  • can display compile errors in the console window.
  • can get color selections via: color_sel().
  • can get palette color via: palette().
  • increase number of arguments to 16.
  • add interation number to the interface.

Editing[09/26/2020]

  • Boolean operations for groups and objects.
  • Modify->Mask/Texture: mask and texture models with pattern models.
  • Sort: only sorts selected colors if number of selection is greater than one.
  • command log: display count of models, scene size, count of voxels for each color, etc.
  • command shear [axis] [scale] [scale] shear model, e.g. shear z 0.2 0.2 .

Camera Control Panel[09/26/2020]

  • click the arrow on the bottom bar to show the camera control panel.
  • can change camera global/local position, pitch/yaw/roll angles, save/load camera slots, etc.
  • press SHIFT to change values in smaller steps.
  • the nine values can also be modified by cmds cam x/y/z tx/ty/tz rx/ry/rz

Pattern Pack[09/26/2020]

  • can load all the models in a project as a pattern pack.
  • can create pattern pack from multiple selected objects.
  • use left/right mouse button to rotate the preview model; use mouse wheel to zoom in/out.
  • use 1/2 to select previous/next color in the palette.
  • use 3/4
  • use ctrl+alt to switch to pattern tool.
  • use ctrl to switch to free move tool.
  • use ESC to switch between pattern/move brush and select brush in the world editor.

You can learn more about the release in the video below. Hopefully this doesn’t mark the final release and after a long well earned pause, MagicaVoxel development will resume!

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LEd — Awesome New Level Editor From Dead Cells Creator

LEd is a new open source level editor written in the Haxe language by a developer at Motion Twin, using lessons learned creating games such as Dead Cells. LEd is designed to be user friendly and from my experiences it succeeds.

Key details of LEd:

  • Easy to use: modern UI with a strong focus on ease-of-use and quality-of-life features.
  • Universal and agnostic: compatible with all languages (not only Haxe) and game frameworks in the world
  • JSON: easy to parse file format for any game-engine out there (I promise it’s actually really easy). Haxe isn’t required.
  • Customizable layers: Integer grid layers, Tile layers and Entity layers support
  • Auto-layers: paint your collision map and see the grass, textures and all the small details being drawn automatically!
  • Entities: fully customizable Entity with custom properties (ex: you can have a “Mob” entity, with a “hitPoints” field, which is an Integer limited to [0,10] bounds).
  • Enums: you can define an enumeration (ex: an “ItemType” enum with “Money”, “Ammo”, “Gun” values) and use this enum in your entity custom fields.
  • External enums: enums can be imported and synced directly from Haxe source code files (HX file)!
  • HTML5: LEd is built around modern web standards.
  • Auto update: you get notified as soon as a stable update is released and it’s up to you to install it when you’re ready, with a single click.
  • LEd loves Haxe: a powerful Haxe API which gives you access to fully typed values from your levels. It avoids mistakes like mistyping, renaming or removals: you see errors during compilation, not at runtime.

You can see LEd in action in the video below. The project is open source under the MIT license and hosted on GitHub.

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Wick Editor Hands-On Review

The Wick Editor is a surprisingly capable free and open source tool that defies categorisation. At it’s core it’s a 2D graphic and animation tool, but it also has programmability features making it capable of creating simple games. It supports publishing animated GIFs, movies, soundtracks, sprite sequences and even single click html applications.

Wick Editor is described as:

The Wick Editor is a free and open-source tool for creating games, animations, and everything in-between. It’s designed to be the most accessible tool for creating multimedia projects on the web.

The Wick Editor is a hybrid of an animation tool and a coding environment, heavily inspired by similar tools such as Flash, HyperCard, and Scratch. It was developed in response to a growing need for such a tool for the modern web.

As mentioned the project is open source with the code hosted on GitHub under the GPL v3 license. The Wick Editor runs entirely in the browser and can be run by visiting https://editor.wickeditor.com/. You can also install locally and run using node and npm. You can learn more about Wick Editor and see it in action in the video below (or watch on Odysee).