So I’m finally done with the 1.5 update! This one took a very long time to make, so I hope you guys will like it. It is the biggest update I’ve done until now, both in terms of new features and reorganization. Still some of you might think that is a smaller update than what you would expect from the amount of time I’ve spent on it.
The biggest reason for this is that I have done a lot of experimentation and changed many features in various ways. Some of this led to dead ends while other times I had to reiterate several times before I had something I was happy with.
What remains are the changes I finally landed on after much trial and error. Some of these changes are large and modify core aspects of the toolkit. For those of you who have already come far in making games using the toolkit the hardest change to implement will probably be the one that changes the old Edge Array into a nested array.
Because of the sheer amount of changes I have not marked these with a version boolean as I have in previous updated. I will instead be making a video later that goes through all changes I’ve made in detail.
Since it is close to the holiday season it is likely that it will take some time until Epic uploads the new version in the Launcher. Until then here is the changelog (less detailed than for other updates due to the size of this update):
v1.5 (being processed by Epic)
- Changed the edge array to be a nested array of structs, with each struct representing a single edge. This change required major changes to all parts of the toolkit that utilize edges, but makes pathfinding even quicker and opens for grids with customized connections between tiles.
- Added touch controls and an option for rotation 90 degrees at a time (currently default, but can be unchecked in BP_GridCamera)
- AI has been improved significantly. AI now selects from all possible tiles to attack its target from, choosing depending on a personality enum. The AI will now move as close as possible to units it cannot reach if the path is blocked by a friendly unit.
- Player units can be set to display all possible tiles that can be attacked from all tiles in move range, similar to Fire Emblem and many other TBS games.
- Tiles in Sight Range and Move Range can be displayed as a frame.
- Improved commenting and organization across the board. Variables and functions are now grouped in categories.
- Included a variety of utility functions in BP_GridManager such as spawning units and tiles during gameplay among other things.
- Split up the Event Graph of Unit_Parent into several sub-graphs for easier modification. Unit_Parent’s event tick now only fires when it is needed for movement, improving performance.
- Added several “slow loops” which spread loops over multiple ticks. These can be used to improve performance when necessary. These are used by default when displaying all possible visible tiles for player units, since this is a demanding operation, and when an AI unit is activated.
- Added an example game called Hydra’s Lair that demonstrates how the toolkit can be tweaked to create a 2D dungeon crawler. This includes many experimental features such as fog of war, weapons and armor.
- The example game contains sprites from Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, which are licenced under Creative Commons Zero and can be found here: Dungeon Crawl 32x32 tiles | OpenGameArt.org
- The example game includes music made by Lunde that can be freely used by anyone owning the toolkit. More of his music can be found at Stream marengs music | Listen to songs, albums, playlists for free on SoundCloud
- Many additional minor changes to blueprints.
I have big plans for future updates and cannot wait to start working on the next one. This time I intend to keep the scope smaller so that I can release updates more frequently. For the next update I’m planning to add true multi-level grids, a cover system and a faction system.