Description

Terraria + TD + automation = Countdown

I didn't get the time to finish the core feature before the deadline. There is the start of the automation features but no UI screen, no crafting beside the furnace refining iron and copper.

I'll certainly continue developing this outside of the Jam.

UPDATES

UPDATE 1

player, mining, inventory system (no UI), controller, pickups, placement, clamped camera

UPDATE 2

basic HUD

UPDATE 3

base core with placeholder art. Base core HP bar. Wave countdown (no wave yet) with timer and special animation at 10 sec left. Technically the gameover mechanic is present but nothing can damage the core yet.

UPDATE 4

Computing pathfinding for future enemies. Only the top ~120 rows. Recompute when a block changes within that range (with a debounce). For now it's synchronous (half-forced by the web platform) in a single frame (~120ms). But I plan to spread the computation over several frames later. Press F3 to show the DEBUG overlay. Also, press F9 to automatically finish a wave.

UPDATE 5

first enemy, can chew tile and jump 1 tile high. Try to avoid dangerous fall by chewing block. try to reach the core and damage it. Agro system to chase and attack an aggressor. New debug keys: F10 spawn walker under mouse, Shift+F10 deal 5.0 damage to nearest enemy. It is a bit stupid right now, it wont dig stair upward to reach the core and can be stuck under it.

UPDATE 6

Wave manager (mob takes a while to arrive, balancing later). New debug key F8 reduce countdown to 5s.

Known problem: perf sucks when mobs chew blocks. If you move at the same time you get micro freeze.

UPDATE 7

Better perf and F4 toggle perf capture

UPDATE 8: 

Monsters do damage, you can attack with left click (their is also a projectile weapon on slot 2). 

Forgot to mention earlier: blocks can be placed with right click. 

A lot of background work to setup item data and left click action (activation/swing, speed, melee dmg, mining dmg, super customizable hitbox). 

On death drop inventory (death bag) but not hotbar. Debug option exist to test it.

Added a debug menu to consolidate the debug options:

The menu (F3)

Row	Was
Flow field overlay	F3
Perf readout	F4
Skip countdown	F8
Clear wave	F9
Poke nearest mob	Shift+F10
Give test loot	new
Kill player	new

And spawning a mob on cursor is now F

UPDATE 9:

XP & levels

- You now gain XP and level up. XP bar sits under your health and mana, showing Lv N — current / next.

- Three ways to earn it:

  - Mining: a flat amount per block broken, no matter how tough the block was.

  - Looting: picking up a drop. This one scales hard with what it is: stone is worth 1, copper 6, iron 12, gold 25, magmatite 40. Going deeper is where the levels are.

  - Killing: each mob is worth its own XP value.

- Levelling grants +10 max HP, +5 max mana, +2 move speed, plus 1 upgrade point.

- A level-up raises your current HP by the same amount it raises your maximum so it's a reward, but not a mid-fight heal (might change that later TBD).

- Level-ups announce on the centre banner.

New: mobs drop loot

- Walkers now leave a pickup when they die, which feeds the looting XP channel like any mined ore.

Anti-farm rule

- Blocks you placed yourself are worth zero XP, no mining XP when you break them again, and their drop pays nothing either. Walling up and re-mining the same block is deliberately worthless. No exploit there, be on your way.

- Recovering your own death loot bag also grants no XP (congrats you died! What, you want a candy for being a weakling?).

Debug

- F3 menu has a new Grant 100 XP row, so you can reach a level-up without grinding for it.

Known limitations: please don't report these!

- Upgrade points can't be spent yet. You'll accumulate them with nowhere to go; the skill tree is next.

- Levelling is almost certainly too fast. Expect to hit level 4-ish before the first wave even arrives.

- The walker's coal drop is a placeholder; real mob loot comes with the item content pass.

- No save/load yet runs are single-session. I'm a machine but still 𝚋̶𝚞̶𝚐̶𝚜̶ art takes time.

UPDATE 10 Let's there be LIGHT!

Depth is where the good ore is, and it's freaking dark down there. You cannot descend without bringing the shiny. This is the biggest change to how the game feels since digging existed!!!

Lighting is now propagated tile by tile, the way Terraria does it (why re-invent. perfection). Practically, that means:

- Light seeps around corners and pools in open space instead of being a flashlight cone.

- Light dies inside rock after a few tiles, so a cave reads as a cave.

- Daylight pours in from above, it fills open sky, stops a few tiles into the dirt, and fades down a shaft you dig. Sink a deep enough shaft (that's what she said) and the bottom goes dark on its own.

New: torches

- You start with 20 torches (hotbar slot 3).

- Right-click to place one. Same rules as placing a block: within reach, on an empty cell, and it must touch a solid tile no floating torches (don't have time to implement backwall a la terraria), mount them on a wall.

- Left-click to take one back: the same swing you mine and fight with, so it works with bare hands, a pickaxe, a weapon, or a fistful of dollars dirt. Point at it (it highlights amber) and swing. A torch comes off in one hit.

- A removed torch pops out as a pickup you walk over.

- If a monster is in swing range, your torches are safe hits go to the monster, not the torch behind it. You can fight next to your lighting without wrecking it.

Other

- Placing in a buffer zone (the flat dirt beyond the playable area) now tells you why instead of silently doing nothing. (but its not visible right now so really who cares)

- Debug menu (F3) gains Full bright, kills the darkness (too bad I loved this band)  use it to check whether something is broken or just unlit. And a give-item row (pick any item + quantity).

- Perf readout now shows the light grid's region and draw calls.

Keys:

• Movement: WASD
• Jump: Spacebar
• Use tool, place block: left click
• Change zoom: Z  

Credits

I will add credit here for the code, tools and art used in the project.