It's been an exciting week at Gamercade this past week! We are continuing to make solid progress on the audio tech that will power the engine the editor, and the community is continuing to grow with more contributors and members in the discord each day! Here's to another great week ahead.
General Updates
In this section, we discus changes and improvements which happened over the week.
Hoppy Announcement
We are excited to announce that the Gamercade team has partnered up with Spicy Lobster to collaborate on a game project: Hoppy! A spiritual successor to Jump n' Bump or Super Mario War, Hoppy is a fast and fun game about running, jumping, and bonking your friends. It's an ideal match, since Gamercade makes writing small, networked games simple and fun. The project is actively seeking contributors, and will be a completely open source developed game.
New Centralized Monorepo
We have combined all of the main Gamercade repository into a single place! gamercade_console is the new repository which combines all of the separate projects into a single one. This helps with organization of issues which span across multiple projects, as well as making sure that each project, and their dependencies, are all compatible with one another. From this point onward, everything related to Gamercade itself, will take part in this repository.
Audio Engine
After quite a large rewrite, the audio engine is getting much closer to hit a state where it's usable in engine. Who knew audio programming was so difficult? We didn't, but we do believe that the current solution fits the unique requirements of Gamercade much much better: Lightweight, retro-style sounds, while also supporting full gameplay rollback with minimal sound glitches. There is currently a draft PR open on the main repository, so expect to see (or hear) audio in your favorite games soon!
Console Improvements Odds & Ends
- Minor changes and preparations made to support the Audio Api in the near future.
Editor Improvements Odds & Ends
- Minor changes and preparations made to support the Audio Api in the near future.
Website Improvements Odds & Ends
- Various minor spelling and grammar fixes.
- Additions to main features and FAQ pages.
- More detailed Audio Spec.
What's Next
In this section, we discus primary focus areas for the project. This includes features actively being worked on, as well as things potentially coming in the near or long term future.
Console & Editor Audio Engine Integration
Similar to the past few weeks, the main focus area is on both console and editor audio integration. We are getting closer to finally having sound as the next major feature and are working hard to get this ready as soon as possible. Expect to hear some rudimentary music and sound effects in console games soon, with the editor to follow shortly after. Take a look at our audio specs to see what's coming.
Improved Community Outreach and Support
Gamercade is starting to make its way around! We've had numerous questions and suggestions made in the community Discord, and both user count and engagement are growing. It's important to have a strong community in a project like this, so we will continue to do what we can to keep things as strongly as they are now, or even better.
Call to Action
What can you do to support the project?