News

This is my first release since becoming the defacto ika guy, so let's see how this goes!

Windows zip
Source zip
Core (exes only) zip


Changelog

ika

    ika.Map.Save

    ika.Video.DrawArc

    ika.Video.DrawLineList

    ika.Video.DrawTriangleList

    ika.Canvas.AlphaMask

    ika.Canvas.DrawLine

    ika.Canvas.DrawRect

    ika.Entity.spritewidth

    ika.Entity.spriteheight

    ika.Font.wordspacing

    ika.Font.linespacing

    ika.Font.StringHeight

    Reimplemented ika.Video.DrawEllipse; no longer uses "3d" ellipse so filled ellipses look normal now.

    Added ika.MultiplyBlend blendmode

    Added ika.PreserveBlend blendmode

    Fixed implementation of ika.Matte blendmode

    Changed doublesize to default to a nearest resize instead of bilinear.

    Added in new user.cfg option "filter". Setting "filter 1" will set doublesizer to use bilinear filtering.

    Fixed GetClipRect so it functions properly in doublesize mode.

    Map camera now centers on the center of the player's hotspot, instead of the top left.

    Implemented game.ika-game files, which stores game specific data. This supercedes the resolution settings in user.cfg for now.

    Renamed ika.Video.colours to ika.Video.colors. ika.Video.colours still exists but will be removed in the future.

    Map looping should work in all directions now.



DLLs

    Updated to newest version of audiere, fixing sound slowdowns and Vista issues.

One of the larger changes is the requirement for a game.ika-game file inside your game folder. ika now checks for this file when loading to set the title and resolution for the game. You are also able to define where ika should load map files from. It also has an entry for metadata but this is currently not used in the engine. I hope to get some articles up soon detailing the format more specifically.


The Future!
We are going to be doing some heavy modifications to ika from here.

- New integrated editor that is extensible!
- Very powerful database system that comes as a plugin in the new iked.
- Reworked script interfaces for a few areas.
- Premade codebase for people to quickly get going with their game.


I apologize for the lack of life around here. The website feels pretty old and antiquated and it just doesn't feel that nice to use for me! I've been thinking about doing a lot of things to get this site pumping and I'll post about them when I can.

Just to keep people up to date on ika development. Swordsman and I (mainly Swordsman!) have been doing some solid work on iked. Most notably in the map editor area!



Swords has done a pretty good job! The look will improve once we get some more icons made for the various tools.



As for other things, I have been working more on engine-specific things. IGL (ika game library) is what I have been working on mostly. My goals are to include basic RPG, sidescroller, and shmup engines for people to use right off the bat. I have mostly been working on the RPG engine code primarily.



It isn't anything great at this point and doesn't yet have full sprite support. But it does mesh together with the various pieces we have built out (iked, IGL, ikaDB). I have some more items to work on before it's more usable.

Stay tuned for some more news in a few days!

RPGMaker.net is holding a 2 week game making compo from December 9th to December 28th. Most any engine is allowed (including ika), so go out there and show people what ika is made of! Despite the name of the site, entries do not have to be RPGs.

More details and sign up here

Just a quick update as I noticed this article was submitted but never approved. Anyhoo, I don't have Debian so I can't verify its accuracy, but there are greater things to worry about.

This one comes from Rivon, and it's here.

Overkill and I have been doing some work fixing current wonkiness in the engine. Thanks to his help, we should be seeing some very promising improvements to the engine.

I will be releasing ika 0.63 in the very soon future (most likely this week), which includes numerous bugfixes (including better Vista support) and a few small feature additions in the Canvas system.

Once that release goes out, we will be starting to implement our more radical changes to ika, such as the integration with the new iked, continued work on IGL, and other such goodies. I will be writing up some articles detailing these works and our planned changes.