The Climbing Update

The time has finally come for a new release! Alpha 3 brings a host of changes, but the centerpiece is the new climbing system lightly discussed in this post. In short, you can climb on any ledges found in the voxel data surrounding the player, dramatically opening up the movement possibilities within a world. As always, this is very early software, and all assets are placeholder “programmer art.”

An incomplete changelist:

Support for climbing on ledges, including Individual control over grabbing a ledge with your left and right hands Pulling up from ledges Moving between ledges and around corners Jumping from ledges Vaulting over ledges now uses the hand button inputs Drop to hanging from a ledge from above from a crouch or slide Full network support

Block editing is no longer constrained to the internal octree grid.

An air “woosh” sound was added when moving and falling quickly

Arm and leg IK algorithm was made more consistent and reliable

Separated editing features into a distinct editing mode

Added flying when in editing mode

Greatly reduced the chance of the camera clipping into world geometry when crouch-walking into a 1-meter gap

Pausing the game actually pauses player movement and behaviors

Future Plans

The the focus for the next release will be on polishing the movement system and making it feel more like you are controlling a living creature. This will involve slowing many interactions, such as climbing along and between ledges, and smoothing any elements that are still rough around the edges, such as moving up and down stairs. Additionally, falling damage (and death) and level checkpoint mechanisms will be implemented. Along with that, we will also be developing more levels for you to explore, and we hope you do to! As with the previous alpha, you can follow our progress on Trello.