by Markus Reichel
Thank you all for testing the first public version of TLD 🙂 ! I got a lot of helpful feedback. My most interesting observation was the fact that everyone sent me screenshots with their highscore, so according to the Lean Startup approach, this must be a user need. Therefore, I finished a global, weekly leaderboard for the next update today. Some fixes are still missing so stay tuned 🙂
Omg! I didn’t believe it will be approved in the store so fast, but thanks to Google Play, The Last Dimension and its Halloween 2020 update are available today! Play it on this special day to get the full spook :)) Happy Halloween 🎃
Today, I upgraded the Android IDEs of my two workstations to the latest Android Studio 4.1. The first one had version 3, and second one even version 2, but apart from some Gradle errors (repositories and versions had to be updated), everything went out fine and I was able to compile my old code. I was even able to build everything with the new 29 SDK and still run it on my old Samsung S3 mini! Thats quite impressive compability. What I am working on? The Last Dimension, as you might have noticed on the website. Of course, soon we have a special date…
It was 2013 when I first tried to port Super MX to Linux. Back then, only the Pyramid Demo quest existed, there were no savegames and the dialogue control behaved strangely. However, I created a makefile which was able to build Super MX on Ubuntu.
Recently, I finished implementing the main quest of MX, so I thought it would be a good idea to review some goals of the underlying engine, and voila – I was able to port the 2020 version of Super MX.
It seems that not only the original Pyramid Demo levels are working, but also the new ones like the Shadow Temple.
However, there are two downsides. Fullscreen is not working yet, as well as the sound. I am currently thinking about solutions which affect the underlying subsystem. I will do some more experiments.
If this does still not scare some of you Linux-friendly users, feel free to download the new Pyramid Demo Build under this temporary Google-Drive link (language is German for now) and find out if it starts:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1THOebjdR8tgswhPFWZ7SasKh7iIwNjVq
Merry Christmas you all, and a happy New Year! 🙂
Currently, the level design of the shadow district is being implemented. Especially interesting for this month are the new mirror mechanics. With movable mirrors, MX is able to change the direction of the Illumination beam as described as in the original mirror post.
I finally got my bachelor’s degree at the Technical University of Vienna in media informatics and visual computing! I wanted to dive deeper into hardware hacking, therefore, my bachelor’s thesis is about emulating the USB protocol of a Trezor cryptocurrency hardware wallet. It is downloadable on my website:
A lot of cool puzzle mechanics were made for the Shadow Temple as you can see in the old posts 😀 Now, a shadow district, a second floor and the boss fight are missing from the planned temple. I am currently thinking about new enemies and puzzles.
Which type of puzzles and enemies would you like to see? Tell me in the comments 🙂 !
Got some progress with the level “wiring”, as I call the scripting of the dungeon.
A nice idea for the puzzles of the dungeon was to add mirrors. They are either static or can be rotated and reflect the trajectory of the illumination beam.
The creatures living in the Shadow Temple are sometimes aggressive and sometimes not, but always dangerous. The most recent enemy I made is the shadow. It is able to turn invisible and regenerate. If they are hurt, they will hide in the dark until they are strong enough to fight again. Only with the Illumination Staff, MX is able to reveal them.
