Koder makes Games

Improving the shaders

2018-04-28 koderΔV: Rings of Saturn

Godot 3 has a built-in normal mapping shader for 2D sprites. It works, but doesn’t really offer anything outside standard normal mapping. I want more. My new shader adds separate diffuse, specular and ambient occlusion[…]

The Emergent Emergency

2018-04-242018-04-24 koderΔV: Rings of Saturn

Sometimes you design a game mechanics, and sometimes, when you are lucky enough, it emerges out of nowhere and surprises you. ΔV had a power balance mechanics in place for a while now. All systems[…]

Render sprites with normal maps in Blender

2018-04-202018-04-20 koderDevelopment

Both “ΔV” and “In Dead Company” use 2D sprites with normal maps to make 3D visual lighting effect. Oversimplifying, a normal map is a map showing where each pixel of the sprite faces. It’s a[…]

Getting things under LIDAR

2018-04-162018-04-16 koderΔV: Rings of Saturn

A bit longer gameplay video, featuring precision ring maneuvers, enlarged asteroids, Doppler Effect LIDAR and a bit of Coherent Light CL-150 Mk3 mining laser action. The big addition is the LIDAR. I found designing long-range imaging is[…]

Coherent Light CL-150 Mk3

2018-04-14 koderΔV: Rings of Saturn

CL-150 Mk3 mining laser is a powerful tool for any ring prospector. While expensive, it can be easily retrofitted even to ancient K37-TNTRL and will boost mining output by orders of magnitude. Pilots should be[…]

Expanding the HUD

2018-04-10 koderΔV: Rings of Saturn

Continued work on HUD of K37. I’m trying to design its display to mimic modern civilian jets. Today I added ship mass data and prototype mouse control – it will allow player to fine-tune ships[…]

A dive into The Ring

2018-04-092018-04-10 koderΔV: Rings of Saturn

I always envisioned the initial sequence of diving into The Ring as a short cutscene showing starship on final approach on a pillar of nuclear fire, providing a comfortable standard gravity for the crew for[…]

How big is The Ring anyway?

2018-04-092018-04-09 koderΔV: Rings of Saturn

The ring is enormous. It’s area covers more than 81 times surface area of the earth. Playfield is a square of 3000x3000km. This seems huge and it is – it would take over 8 hours[…]

The title

2018-04-072018-04-07 koderΔV: Rings of Saturn

Today I finally made a title screen. Much nicer than initially expected. I probably should have a title on it, somewhere.

Overcooling the reactor

2018-04-02 koderΔV: Rings of Saturn

Nuclear Thermal Rocket relies on high internal temperature to provide thrust. Phase-change of the medium consumes significant heat and excessive use of thrusters can lead to overcooling and subsequent shutdown of the main drive. While[…]