2019-07-22 Build (preview-71)


Buzz buzz!

Today's update adds a new model to make it possible to visually identify upgraded workshops (model isn't final, just needed to get something in there), and brings in some new role-specific floor colouring for role-specific cells. This should make it easier to spot the lone Workshop you have wedged in between a cluster of Nurseries and a bank of Map Rooms, and will hopefully serve as a cue for identifying which bees go to which cells.

It's always tricky to find the right balance between subtle and useful - it can often feel like the venn diagram of both has no overlap, but iteration, feedback and a bit of time to step back and let things stew tends to make it easier to home in on a good implementation.


There are also some changes to how music and event/vignette sprites are handled, but most of this is internal. The only thing that matters to users is that custom music tracks now go into custom_music/background/ for background music and custom_music/events for event-specific music (which we don't have any of and so isn't really usable yet).


Separating out foreground characters from vignette backgrounds is a little more involved than it sounds. Since the hexagonal event/tutorial/vignette shape doesn't have solid pixel boundaries (anti-aliased transparency results in partially visible pixels along the angled edges), overlapping two separate sprites isn't really an option. Instead, I needed to combine them into one image at runtime, and then mask that to the hexagon shape.

In the long run, since it's all done automatically by the game now, this means less fiddly masking/cropping when making new art, and it means that I can either re-use characters with different backgrounds (upgraded Workshops can use the same Builder as normal Workshops), or I can potentially add vignette-specific/random variants (a happy Queen image might work well with the Queen's birthday vignette, while a sad image would better fit paperwork one).

Enjoy!


Full changelog:

  • Added upgraded workshop model
  • Added role-coloured floor textures to role-specific buildings
  • Added setting for toggling role-coloured floors
  • Removed some extraneous log output
  • Moved event sprites into a subfolder
  • Separated vignette backgrounds from foreground characters
  • Moved music tracks into subfolders
  • All music tracks are now loaded dynamically at runtime

Files

hive-time-linux-preview.zip 87 MB
Version preview-71-gf82b1815 Jul 22, 2019
hive-time-mac-preview.zip 88 MB
Version preview-71-gf82b1815 Jul 22, 2019
hive-time-windows-preview.zip 85 MB
Version preview-71-gf82b1815 Jul 22, 2019

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