Hello Readers! My thoughts go out to anyone in the southern states currently enduring the landfall of Hurricane Michael. Please stay safe, and best of luck! For those in a more comfortable position, let's see what developers around BYOND have been brewing up.
The results for Game in a Day 2018 are now live! Congratulations to Metamorphman, D4RK3 54B3R, Gooseheaded, and Orange55 on your winning submissions! The prizes have been distributed and a big thanks goes out to IainPeregrine for organizing the challenge, and Super Saiyan X and D4RK3 54B3R for their financial contributions!
BYOND
The latest beta edition of BYOND 512 brings about huge performance gains in the amount of time that it takes for large games (think SS13) to compile, with some reports knocking the time from 3 minutes to 30 seconds! Although most projects won't see that substantial of a difference, Lummox JR explores on the BYOND Patreon page what other resource sinks could be on the hit list for the next round of compiler performance gains. He also dives into the attempt that was made into providing a completion bar, and why we won't be likely to see that feature anytime soon.
BYOND Games
Trying to get into Spires of Agartha, but not quite sure where to begin? Perhaps their new player guide will help! Already into the game? Then perhaps last weeks double activity point bonus day was helpful, and keep an eye out for double activity point weekends going forward! Other ways the team has been helping out is by the addition of the zoom feature, up to 200%. Players can now see a small distance in pure darkness, shopkeepers can be pre-paid, and Daemon's can be summoned more quickly.
Taint_thewizard has pushed a new version of Avalon to the hub page, and shared a quick dev-log on the progress. Musical arrangements have been cast, multiple identical items will now combine and stack as one, spawn points can now be set and saved, and the character creation process has received a tune-up. Graphics media is expected in the next dev-log... or you can just download and checkout the game directly!
Godsring continues to share updates on Allied Nations, doing work in the background. Handling cut-scenes has been offloaded to a presently private library, and savefiles have been greatly optimized. Systems to handle logins and savefiles have also been streamlined, and a few bugs have been squashed.
The residents of Alpha Village have decided that's a terrible name, so Crazah, developer of Zenith's Call, has orchestrated a contest to nominate a new name. To participate, you can either follow the directions and submit though their Discord channel, or stick the idea in the comment thread like a dozen other users have and hope for leniency! The nominator of the selected name will be immortalized by stone in the center of the isometric town square.
S10Games has released development notes for the past month on the progress of Universe 21! Zasif remarks that all three races can be now played, NPCs now wear and drop randomly generated equipment, and enemies attack and flee when they are approached. To help hold all of your newly gathered equipment, a large bag has been developed, and combat keeps players on their toes as the screen quakes and characters tremor.
The board of directors over at The School District:Online is getting ready to begin reviewing applications! The full process in applying for enrollment has been shown over on their Discord Channel, from form filling to photo taking.
Kozuma3 has jumped back (and back, and back, and back) into the MUD styled world of Elora Online! While spending most of their time away from the Internet, that hasn't prevented the creation of an RPG that consists of a dozen skills, hundreds of monsters and items, and a slew of quests to fulfill. Hopefully when Kozuma3 sees this post, they'll also be bringing a game to the table!
BYOND Resources
- Orange55 has released an RTS Starter pack, providing prospective strategists with a hand up in getting started in the creation of their future real-time strategy game.
