

I'm 2 years into development of my sandbox game, Moonman - eigenbom
http://bp.io/post/1501

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dvt
Been following Moonman for 2 years :) I am a relatively quiet lurker on
TIGSource but I can't wait until Moonman is finally out (as in.. out out). The
playable demos so far have been amazing.

Unfortunately, the start-up community is more cynical than the indie gaming
one (blah blah Terraria clone). But, I for one, wish you good luck sir!

I love the indie community because it fosters creativity over success; the
process over the end result. Unlike the start-up community (where the exit is
what _really_ matters). I dabble in both. The realism on HN keeps me grounded
but the naivete on TIG keeps me dreaming.

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CmonDev
Terraria is a clone itself. Also it's probably a separate genre already.

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foobarbazqux
What is Terraria a clone of?

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hartator
I guess minecraft.

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hobs
Which itself clones many attributes from dwarf fortress. Frankly, if they are
fun games and "different enough" then I don't care.

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dkersten
Minecraft is a clone and evolution of Infiniminer.

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kbenson
Notch has stated that he originally wanted a game like Dwarf Fortress in tone
before he stumbled upon Infiniminer[1]. I think you are right in that it's
more correct to say Minecraft is a clone and evolution of Infiniminer, but was
heavily inspired by Dwarf Fortress.

    
    
      [1]: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2010/09/building-a-hit-one-block-at-a-time-the-creation-of-minecraft/

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dkersten
Oh definitely. I didn't really mean to say it wasn't, even if it sounded a bit
like it.

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sspiff
As someone who tried repeatedly to make a game but never finished (or came as
far as you have), I can only congratulate you on doing better.

I could only see the video on youtube as the site is down, but it looks a lot
like a "2D Minecraft". Not that that's a bad thing, but a lot of people will
dismiss it because of this. Do you have any plans of expanding the gameplay
into a direction different from Minecraft?

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eigenbom
The mining and crafting is like the bread and butter of this genre, which I'm
happy to call minecraft-like. I'm inspired by the traditional rogue-likes
(like nethack) and modern ones (like brogue), so I hope to bring elements of
those into the game. Procedural quests, ancient machines, and richer
landscapes are also priorities.

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sspiff
Procedural quests and ancient machines sound promising. Good luck and keep up
the good work!

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Impossible
I find it interesting that you took the classic advice of "just use Box2D" for
a 2D platformer and it worked well for you. It doesn't seem like your game
using anything much more complex than basic box vs. tile grid collision and
doesn't use any of the advanced features of Box2D. No complex constraints,
rigid body usage seems simple or non-existent, etc. I could be completely
wrong about that though, this is all speculation based on the video and your
devlog.

What kind of issues were you running into with implementing tile based
collision? Was it intersection tests with slopes? Performance issues?
Stability (crashes)?

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eigenbom
Intersection tests mainly, I'm sure the reason is buried somewhere in the
devlog. At the same time it looked like complex dynamic machines (with
pistons, pivots and other parts) were also going to be a priority. It was
definitely worth the extra effort, and I still have plans for simpler
machines, rope-style bridges with connected parts, and more complex monsters
which will no doubt have constraints between their parts.

In addition Box2D has given me super quick spatial tests, which I use for
melee, mouse-picking, and ray-casts for the particle system (which is a quick
custom built thing).

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zerooneinfinity
Not to mention helps you solve some more advanced problems like tunneling and
collision resolution with no extra effort. I think it was a very smart choice
to use Box2D rather then rolling your own solution.

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Impossible
Those aren't advanced problems in most tile based platformers. It's pretty
easy to solve tunneling by making sure you check every tile along your
movement path for objects that try to move through more than one tile in a
frame. Collision resolution is also simple in most platformers, clamp to the
tile edge you intersect with and set velocity to zero.

OP gave solid reasons for using Box2D though (machines, rope bridges, fast
spatial tests).

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telephonetemp
Is there a standard FOSS world generating library for use in video games?
I.e., one that would generate the right kind of 2D and 3D noise, average it
out according to parameters, apply "biome" tags to regions, create underground
tunnels, etc.? These tasks are probably typical enough that most games need
not reimplement them.

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alx
Moonman v0.4 in video :
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lna75hti3jM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lna75hti3jM)

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dested
This looks great. I would play this. Cant wait to see the progress.

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eigenbom
Thanks guys. Sorry about the server crash! Follow me at
[https://twitter.com/eigenbom](https://twitter.com/eigenbom) for news about
the game in future.

[D:]

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jessedhillon
At ~1:58 [0] there is what looks like a piece of pie in the dirt near Moonman.
Is that an homage to Dan Piraro's Bizarro comic? He hides a piece of pie in
every comic.

[0] in this video from a sibling comment:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lna75hti3jM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lna75hti3jM)

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eigenbom
Heh, yeah it's a pie, but I've never heard of Bizarro. I was playing Fable 2
once, in which you can dig up pies, and my wife commented on how ridiculous
that was. So the pie is an homage to her.

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willvarfar
Wow, hadn't seen [http://www.tigsource.com/](http://www.tigsource.com/) nor
its forums before! Is it the place to unveil your indie hobby games once they
become big and playable?

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devindotcom
Great website. They used to update news way more often but for a year or so
now it's been more an active community than a frontpage.

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johnyzee
Looks very cool - I love the idea of a deep platformer. I personally feel that
(first-person) 3D is way overused, 'because we can', when it usually restricts
rather than enhances gameplay.

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xerophtye
Woah! AWESOME! You actually MADE all that? That's the ambitious kinda stuff I
only manage to dream about. But you actually BUILT that stuff! Major Kudos! :D

Please put it up on github! I am sure there's a ton of stuff we could all
learn from it, not to mention we'd love to help, pushing the project closer to
completion.

(Unless of course you plan on putting the game on a market place and earning
money from it)

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eigenbom
Ha, thanks, yeah it's taken a while, and I took a lot of wrong turns. The game
is commercial and so closed source, as I'm trying to turn this into a paid day
job. And besides, my code is dense and horrible. ;)

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sillysaurus2
Sigh... You can open source it and turn it into a paid day job. No one is
going to not pay you because the code's available.

That said, 2D Minecraft? Hell. Yes.

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xerophtye
Yeah, how many do you think would want to compile the game themselves? :/

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eigenbom
Thanks Hacker News for keeping me sane during that time. :)

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voltagex_
Looks like Hacker News has also killed your DB!

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sfjailbird
Hacker News giveth and Hacker News taketh away.

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mugenx86
Cached:
webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:[http://bp.io/post/1501](http://bp.io/post/1501)

Sounds like an interesting game. Too bad I can't see any of the images.

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mweibel
Clickable:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://bp.io/post/1501)

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ph4
I love the music in the YouTube video. Anyone know of bands/groups that do
something similar?

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eigenbom
The music is by [http://giolobato.com/](http://giolobato.com/) who has some
more albums on bandcamp if you're interested.

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babuskov
Cool. I was considering making something like this a few months ago. Didn't
know Moonman existed. Now I'll just remove that idea from my list and wait for
you to finish it so I can play ;)

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eigenbom
I uploaded a few images while I fix the server..

[http://imgur.com/a/y7nC8](http://imgur.com/a/y7nC8)

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brokenparser
Moonman is Minecraft 2D? I'm okay with this.

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progx
Cool Idea ! Some Minecraft parts in 2D combined with a jump & run... and old
console/c64 retro look :-)

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zomgbbq
The background music and game sound effects are mellow, subtle and beautiful!

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phoyce
Congratulations on your determination, persistence and effort. Seriously.

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tofof
And here I was excited by the prospect of a Terraria-clone set on the moon.

.... Not so much. More like a terraria clone set on an atari 2600.

Terraria devs, if you're listening - moon! Lunaria! It writes itself.

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eigenbom
set_gravity(1.622) set_landscape(flat_boring_and_homogenous)

Done ;)

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CmonDev
Two years full time? Impressive in any case.

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eigenbom
It was probably about 1 year equivalent full time.

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Kiro
Fix the server. I want to see the pictures.

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chatman
Moonman? Like Neil Armstrong?

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muhfreedoms
yay..another pixely indie game...yay..really..yay

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okamiueru
You do know the reason behind why this tends to be the case, right? It's not
like indie-developers have the man-power, resources and (sometimes) experience
to make a AAA-game.

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Chrisplux
......

