Seeing as it's been a while...
The current state of the game is as follows:
- Screenshots are still out of date.
- I made a mod loading system and some form of simple scripting I named Loken.
- The mob refactor's kind of been left in the dust, and I don't know if I can bring myself to wrestle it into a working state.
- I started some weird namespace refactor for some reason I can't remember which has left most of the items non-functional, so I'll probably have to rewrite the mod handling and such.
- I dropped it for a year to work on Ninja Cat Remewstered, which took much longer than anticipated but allowed me to at least release something and learn some stuff too!
- I've started working on a new, more robust engine that may replace the old one this game is built on, you can check it out on its
GitHub page.
The new engine mentioned is entirely driven by Asset Packs with Json data, Lua scripts, textures and sounds. No more hardcoding of functionality; the only in-engine functionality should be rendering and the most basic of game functionality like input handling, collisions, etc.
I'm not entirely certain on how to progress with Everlost Isle specifically. I could work on both engines in parallel, and switch to the new engine once it's mature enough, or keep this new engine for future projects and push forward with the original engine here. Hmm. My main concern is that the old engine is absolute spaghetti, but I suppose only you and I have to know that now.
It's been a great learning experience at the very least, for example I might adapt the Warehouse system from the new engine to handle loading mods in the current one, as well as some other systems like the InputManager.
Maybe I'll replace the mob refactor with Lua again, now that I've got to play around with it more and realised I was creating a new script for each mob every frame. Or, maybe the refactor's Minecraft-Bedrock-like Behaviours system is the better way to go.
Colours need a bit of a spice-up too, especially looking at the Nenene Boss Fight screenshot where the boss, projectiles, obstacles, and ground are all mostly the same palette. Perhaps slinghotting rocks at a rock boss who is also throwing rocks while in a rock biome isn't the best idea, heh.
Anyway, this has been my dream project for a while, and I don't see that changing any time soon. So, as long as you'll stick with me... it'll be here when it's ready.
If you wanna chat directly with me about this project,
I've set up a basic Discord server for Evelost Isle here.
Everlost Isle is a survival game I've been working on, largely inspired by other games like Terraria, Stardew Valley, and partially Don't Starve. At time of writing it's been over two years since I started development, from January 2021, and even more since the initial idea in 2018.
I'm not entirely sure about what the story's supposed to be, but I suppose we don't need that yet. I mean, Terraria's doing just fine and its lore is comprised half of actual lore established after the fact and half of random Twitter posts.
The idea (for now at least) is that the bosses will slowly progress into more bullet-hell style fights the further into the game you go, some of them might even be stationary targets.
Prior to 2023's mob refactoring, the core mechanics were pretty much complete; you could break things, craft things, place structures, attack and be attacked by mobs, and even travel to another dimensions through a portal. There were even 3 bosses fully implemented (Nenene, Heides, and Shivera), and the remaining planned bosses were spawnable, so you could technically complete the game though they only had the default chaser AI.
It's built with
MonoGame, which funnily enough is the same framework Stardew Valley uses, and the music I'm currently using is from
opengameart.org and a
free music pack by Muchkin Music, released under
CC BY.
I might post some extra information about gameplay, characters, story, etc later on, and make a proper announcement on Twitter once I have a demo/early version ready for release on itch.io. Also, suggestions are welcome, send them to me! (Social links are under the Links button!) I can't guarantee they'll make it in, obviously, but I'll definitely make an effort to consider them.
For now,
Anyway, here, have some screenshots and such. A lot of them are outdated, but what can you do.
If you want to see what I'm up to, there's a
Trello board here.
