Multiplayer flooding my brain now

Here's a menu mockup I just made in order to guide my thinking while I restructure Spacemind:

For some reason, the art concepts I make (music, sounds, or pictures) give me such a better idea of what I'm coding than thinking about it abstractly.

Also, online only games are made by losers who can't understand the joy of cheating in a game and/or actually playing a game without internet (i.e. me playing on a laptop on a train going through tunnel after tunnel).  Here at Startroop Inc, we don't tolerate that mentality, or I'd have to boycott my own game!

Stay with me people, we'll get there!

Back to the drawing board

I've been heavily focused on making smooth animations happen in a way that handles large-scale multiplayer without errors while also not showing any input lag to the player.  I believe I've found a solution, but it requires a near-complete re-work of the systems I currently have in place under the hood in Spacemind.

I also need to improve the code architecture while I'm at it, and I'm starting to work on the server-client design as well.

So basically, v0.0.9a and earlier need to be mostly scrapped, and I need to start over.

My goal now is to create the skeleton of a new Spacemind that will work with large-scale multiplayer off the bat and also accommodate the demanding timings of every game event that could possibly occur while also not bringing a mobile device to its knees while trying to compute all of this and render an entire world view.

It might sound impossible, but it's not.  I have a pretty good idea of where I'm going now, but it could be a good while before I have anything pretty-shiny to show off here.

One thing's for sure.  I definitely have to torch the world I just lovingly created, and that stings a bit.

I'm sure I'm going to have to do this at least a few more times over before we're finally on the right track for good.

Stay with me Aevans!  We'll get there!

Spacemind is now public

It's time!

Play Spacemind Here  (Browser game, mouse only)

This is version 0.0.8a, and the game is 99.9% incomplete.  I had a few kids playtest it yesterday, and I kept hearing comments like "I'm in space" or "I'm on an island."  That tells me I've managed to capture some of what my ultimate goal is.

A killer week of nonstop development

It's been a grueling week, making so much in so little time.  The world looks a lot more like a..world.  Moving feels a LOT easier than it did earlier in the week, and I even found a strange stick in the ground...

I made the mistake of touching it and I found myself in...

SPACE!

I wandered around my newly discovered spaceship, but I won't spoil the details for you.  v0.0.8a of Spacemind will be released tomorrow on May 17th, 2019 for all to see!

See you on the flip side everyone.

First Light!

Well hello there!

I'm still trying to get a lot setup and working at the moment, but I figured I should start up my blog before I get too deep into building Spacemind. Otherwise, I won't be in the habit of posting updates here, and that wouldn't be good.

I suppose I should introduce myself shouldn't I?

My name is Eekolo Qwerku, and *looks around*.....it looks like I'm the first one here. It feels a little weird saying this, but I guess I'm the first Aevan to exist in Spacemind.

What's Spacemind?  What are Aevans, you say?

Spacemind is a virtual universe for all of us humans to live in, and Aevans are aliens that the first, last, and only hope for that universe. I only started this blog because, technically, Spacemind does actually exist as of now...

Yes, that purple thing is me, Qwerku, and no, you're not seeing me at my best.  I know it doesn't look like much, and it's really rough around the edges, but at least I've landed on my first planet. Now I just have to find something more than just grass, strange looking rocks, and water...

Or maybe I should figure out how to get back to my spaceship first.

Either way, Spacemind has just begun, and it's going to be a long journey as we whip this universe into shape. Don't worry though, I'm definitely in this for the long haul. I've waited my whole life for the ultimate space experience, and it's clear now that it's not going to happen in my lifetime unless I start making it.

At some point I will need your help in building it and in saving it from the evil that threatens us all. We'll get there.