I’ve recently moved towards a weekly release cycle with RPG in a Box, and I feel that it’s been working well so far. I am going to try to consistently post updates like these, with visuals for any interesting changes, as new versions are released to give everyone an idea of what I’ve been working on. While this release contains mostly bug fixes, there are a few changes worth mentioning that are included.

Increased Size Limit of Voxel Models

I have increased the width limit of voxel models to 24 voxels, and the height limit to 48. This should allow for greater flexibility in the visual style of your game. To adjust the size, you can use the new Grid Widthand Grid Height sliders in the Voxel Editor. There are currently no restrictions on object/character size in relation to tile size, so even if, for example, you are using 16×16 tiles for your game, you are free to create a character whose arms extend beyond the 16 voxel width of your tiles. I also added a Tile Size filter to the tile selection panel, which is especially useful if you are creating a game that has maps of varying tile sizes.

Wrapping Dialogue/Message Text

This is more of a bug fix than a new feature, but it’s something that I had not gotten around to implementing until this release. The dialogue/message box has been improved so that any text displayed will now wrap to a new line when its length exceeds that of the text box. While unfortunately the UI customization is almost non-existent at this point, I did plan ahead in this regard by taking into account the font being used, so, when the time comes, text wrapping should continue to work properly regardless of the font.

Mouse Look in First-Person View

While in first-person view, you can now hold down the right mouse button to look around and examine your surroundings to a certain degree, similar to Legend of Grimrock. It’s experimental at this point and I still have some tweaking to do on the camera – for example, if the camera is off-center and you turn left or right, the camera may briefly go a bit wonky, but it will return to normal after the player has finished turning.

Refresh of Edited Models

Another bug fix worth mentioning is the fix to automatically update any voxel models that have been edited and saved. Any changes to the model will now be reflected in the resource selection panel when you save the model. To see these changes in any maps using this resource, you will need to close and re-open the map. Previously, an application restart was required to see any changes made to a voxel model.

Full List of Changes

New Features:

• Increased the width limit of voxel models to 24 and the height limit to 48. There are now Grid Width and Grid Height sliders in the Voxel Editor that will adjust the grid accordingly to allow for larger models.
• A Tile Size filter was added to the tile selection panel to filter by a specific tile size (16×16, 8×8, etc.).
• Strafing is now possible in first-person view by pressing Q/E or Shift + Left Arrow/Right Arrow.
• Initial implementation of “mouse look” in first-person view. While in first-person view, you can now hold down the right mouse button and drag to look around (to a limited degree) to get a better view of your surroundings.

Bug Fixes:

• Voxel models that have been modified and saved will now be properly updated in the resource selection panel to reflect any changes. Any maps using this resource will need to be closed and re-opened. Previously an application restart was required to force the meshes to be reloaded.
• Dialogue and message text in-game will now be wrapped when the length exceeds the width of the text box.
• Fixed an issue where the view mode was inadvertently carried over when opening another voxel model in the editor. The view mode would show as “Front” in the newly opened editor, but the actual camera would still be on the previous editor’s view.
• When continuously walking forward or backward in first-person view, the camera now remains smooth and no longer stutters briefly at the center of each tile.
• The Clear, Import, Export, and Shift toolbar buttons are now disabled when the active Voxel Editor is in camera mode.
• Fixed a graphical issue in the Voxel Editor where voxels will start disappearing when the model contains more than 4096 voxels. This limit was increased as a temporary solution.
• Fixed a texturing issue where you would occasionally see glitches along the edges of meshes when moving the camera around, especially when the camera direction was perpendicular to those edges. You will need to re-save any affected voxel models to benefit from this fix.