Dev blog 1: Tilemaps, why I chose not to use Unity's Entity Component System and new concept art.

Tile maps

I spent some time playing with some tile generation algorithms and following tutorials, learning how to make some nice levels through automation. Matilda is a rogue-like after all so random generation is going to be key to keep the game fresh and repayable.

I used the "Game of Life" simulation to make this.

This was nice and felt like I'd archived something then suddenly Unity dropped a bomb on me (of the good kind). The beta for Unity 2018.3 is out!!! Which for me means built in support for isometric tiles.

I picked up some placeholder art from opengameart.org right away and plugged my code into the isometric Tile Map and it worked more or less out the box! So I'm well chuffed. This is potentially huge for me because it will make certain aspects of development easier as the engine supports more of the features I require.

Unity ECS

What is ECS I hear you ask? It's Unity's shiny new method of programming called the Entity Component system. It's still in beta but in a nutshell it lets you break up your data into lots of small components and your game logic into small systems each only responsible for running one task on any object in the game that has the specified components. (Click here if you are interested in learning more about Unity ECS).

It is extremely performant and there are a few interesting and very impressive demos out there demonstrating how many entities you can render on screen while still maintaining a high frame rate. Very impressive stuff.

So why not use it? There are a few reasons;

- It's still in beta, stuff can and will change and I could do without the instability.

- It's a very different way of structuring your code and not one I am currently used to.

- I'm just one guy making my first game. Time is precious and I can ill afford the additional overhead.

- There is still very little support in the form of community content and tutorials for writing games using the ECS. One of the large incentives for using Unity in the first place is the amount of support there is out there for it.

- I just don't need the additional performance. I'm not rendering thousands of entities, or need millions of particles.

It's a shame, because I do love playing around with new techniques, but this one just is not for me. At least not yet.

New concept art!

Meanwhile my concept artist I hired on Upwork has been busy and produced some new concept pieces to help me figure out what I want for the main character. I'm pretty pleased with where we are with her :-) Next we are going to work on some of the games basic enemies.