In this first post we will go through a basic overview of the building mechanics of Skywanderers.

Posted by tsunamayo on Nov 3rd, 2016

Hello and welcome to the first post on Skywanderers !

At its core Skywanderers is about construction and exploration : today we will focus on the building aspect of the game. Players can use blocks to create various constructions like spaceships or space stations. To do this the game use a voxel engine like Minecraft.

Basic Construction

The player can choose from a wide range of building blocks, some coming in various color and shapes. It is possible to combine them together to find interesting pattern !





The building logic was designed to be very simple : one mouse click to build a block. To control the block orientation the player can simply hold the mouse button and rotate the block in the direction wanted.

The building sensation is very important to us : it has to feel natural and physical, like if you were using Lego, and not like an "edit mode" of some 3d Software creation. For a construction game this is as important as the shooting sensation in a fps, or the driving sensation in a racing game !

Logical system mecanism

Of course what would be a spaceship without any complex systems ? It this short demonstration we can see how a door is made from a Rail System brick.





Using the brick, the player can create any sliding system he wants, like a simple door, a bigger hangar door, or an elevator among other possibilites.

It is also possible to activate this system remotely by linking a button to it. Again the linking logic is very simple, it starts by just one click on the button and finish by selecting the system to activate.

In the following demonstration we use a simple button, but is possible to make much more complex logical system, that will be the topic of another post !





If you would like this in more details, please check the following gameplay presentation video :





Putting in all together we can create spaceship like this one !

That is all for today, I really hope you liked this introduction to Skywanderers. Stay tuned as there is more to come !

Tsunamayo