Latest in Cosmorists - Apr 2025

Hello Cosmorists!

I've largely been busy outside of game development lately, causing the relative lack of updates. Progress however is still being made, especially within maps!

Increasing political activity as of late

• I won't go deep into current events, especially since this is about progress for my game. Just wanted to give a heads up to the recent slowdown. If you live in the US like I do, you might know that there's a lot going on.
• In response to this, I've been a lot more politically active outside of developing Cosmorists, such as attending peaceful protests.
• There's a likely chance for it to remain this way for the next 4 years as more events unfold here, which will likely cause a moderate slowdown for game development progress.


Despite the political activity, I still made some amount of progress, especially on implementing a map into the game, and will likely continue to make progress in other areas.

Map progress

• At the moment, I now have most of the map implementation figured out! This is what the map looks like in a jungle cave for instance with torches placed around, and the influence of glowing tiles such as torches!
  
• This also works for day/night cycles! This map shows the player exploring the world as day gradually turns to night from right to left, as certain newly explored chunks gradually become dimmer!
  
• Now for a GIF of the map in action! So far, the map can be zoomed in and out, be moved around, and the white outlined target icon close to the water is the player's position. Exiting and entering the map will recenter it onto the player's position in case the map's position is lost. It's planned to be accessed after repairing the spaceship with the key.
  

Remaining things to do for maps

• Some bugs that have to be worked out, as well as further optimization (hardest part).
• Icons for cave exits and entrances, the spaceship, and the spawn point in addition to the player (easiest part).
• Making it inaccessible until the spaceship is repaired to continue incentivizing the bronze compass early-game (easier part).
• Make existing worlds with a repaired spaceship have immediate access to the map (likely hard part).

Progress done outside of maps

• I didn't just work on maps, but also new player animations when using their tools. When the player uses their pickaxe, axe, or sword, there will now be a new animation!
• Here's what the new sword swinging animation will look like:
  
• And here's what the new pickaxe animation will look like, axes will have the exact same animation:
  
• Outside of that, I also fixed a few bugs in between, such as one where the heat and cold resistance buffs don't show the time remaining.

Assuming the current slower pace as of late, the next update, 0.1.4, will most likely release sometime in mid to late May! Once that's over with, I'm probably going to focus on making it easier for Steam Deck users to play the game, but that's if I can remember to do so.