Around the start of July, Clonk-Karl and I were able to meet in person in the country I call home: Canada. Since I am currently the only developer living on the western half of the planet, it was a fortunate event that we were able to meet at all. But as luck would have it, his destination wasn’t too far off from my hometown.

During the visit, we played a few rounds of OpenClonk (and found a few dozen bugs), a few rounds of Clonk Rage (of which were melees, on average I lost miserably :] ), and even had a trek up one of our famous British Columbian mountains with another friend, Andrew (numbers is always better against wild animals). This was one smashing adventure… before we even got to the mountain I almost stepped on a snake. After hiking up a fairly steep trail, we were spotted by a black bear that had the civility to run away, which we found would be a good idea as well.

Andrew on the left, Clonk-Karl on the right, and my quirky self in the middle

And possibly the most talked about part of the meeting: Doppelkeks. Well, at least by us Canadians. These little cakes taste damn good. And they don’t sell them in Canada.

:'(

[caption id=”attachment_105″ align=”alignleft” width=”300″ caption=”Top row from left to right: Loriel, Sven2, Clonk-Karl, Zapper. Bottom row: Newton, Irina, Maikel, G

I’ve been longing to report about the gamepad controls for weeks but I continuously added new features to simplify the controls over the past weeks (which produced some bugs too). The gamepad controls are now pretty much working how they should. Here they are:

In text:

Button 1 – use primary object
Button 2 – interact (enter, exit, grab, …)
Button 3 – jump
Button 4 – use secondary object
Button 5 – throw primary object
Button 7 – throw secondary object
Button 8 – select next crew member
Button 9 – open / close menu
D-Pad and analog stick: move, aim and select in menus

These are by no means the final controls but for how clonk is controlled now, it’s the best assignment.

Of course, OpenClonk is meant to be played with mouse and keyboard. Thus, gamepad users will never be able to control their clonks just as nimble and fast as mouse users (ever played GTA3 on console? hoho!) do but this is not our aim. Our aim is to maintain the classical split-screen game (yes, you can play clonk in split-screen :-)) for when friends come over. We don’t want to cripple the standard mouse controls by considering the limited possibilites of the gamepad – or say keyboard-only – to be equal. That said, it doesn’t mean that I don’t try my best to make the controls with gamepad as comfortable as possible.

Aiming with the gamepad cursor

The biggest difference to mouse control is of course how you aim. With the gamepad, you can’t just point and click somewhere, so here is how it works: When you press down the use / throw button, the clonk stops and a cursor appears with which you can control in which direction the clonk should aim. The cursor moves in a circle around the clonk, you can control it either with the D-Pad or the analog stick. Now with the D-Pad you are not limited to 8 directions – like with the analog stick, you can aim in any direction you like. With the analog stick, it’s faster and more precise of course. When you let go of the use-button, the clonk shoots / throws into the direction in which you aimed.

There are a few tools that are already used as soon as the use button is pressed down, like the shovel. However, when you press the button down, the cursor is already aimed automatically in the direction you pressed before, both with the D-Pad and with the analog stick. This is a huge help to be able to aim faster.

Now gamepads for the PC are a big mess, there is no standard in what order the buttons are numbered and no standard in what controls the D-Pad and the analog stick(s) send. I only got two gamepads to test the controls and it would be great if I heard some feedback of how the controls work for you. 🙂

Presenting a new scenario for OpenClonk. The “guardian of windmills”, this is you, has to protect the windmills from the evil windmill-eating rockets which come flying towards your little sky isle from all directions.

The scenario is pretty much a simple cooperative survival shoot-em-up for testing the bow and the musket. Those two weapons recently got some cool sound effects from Checkmatey, a modder from the game Mount&Blade. In this scenario, you got unlimited ammunition, so shoot the hell out of those evil rockets!

The screenshots show a network game round with 5 players.

The next attack wave is approaching...

Shooting down the rockets

The "boss"

Perhaps you noticed that the pictures of your crew selection buttons in the upper left corner of the screen are now animated synchronously with the actual movement of the clonk you control. Ever tried to aim a javelin in such a way that the little clonk in the upper corner throws it right in your face?
It happens so fast that you can almost not see it, but here is a snapshot of the exact moment 🙂

Ouch!!

Who knows what other miracles perspective rendering has in store for 2D Clonk?

Believe me when I say we’ve really been putting some effort into OpenClonk. The work we’ve put into the game over the past month has really started to speed up, and we’ve already got some nifty objects the team has been working on. Since a picture can fulfill what words cannot, I’ll keep the pictures plenty and the words few.

Using the shovel

This time around, we’re taking full advantage of mouse control. This functionality has helped us develop new and interesting items, and drastically improve such objects from previous Clonk titles. Starting with some of the basics, how could we not have a shovel?

Shooting with the bow

Aiming the musket

With mouse control we need to have some weapons, of course! Here we have a Clonk testing his Bow. The bow may be a fairly old design, but Clonks can make excellent use of this versatile weapon in any terrain.

Another creation of ours is the Musket, pictured here. The musket is a fairly lethal weapon, and can be loaded with different types of shot for devastating effects. Though the musket may be fairly powerful, and more accurate than a bow, the musket requires a moment of time to load shot into the barrel.

Clonk riding a boompack

And here we are with an incredibly ludicrous, yet effective, tool: the Boompack. The boompack is basically a rocket, except Clonks have gotten it into their heads it would be a fantastic idea to ride it. And surprisingly, they were right! Any clonk foolhardy enough to ride one may tilt the boompack’s direction while flying to avoid mountain sides.

And here is a completely fresh idea for Clonk: the Magical Jar of Winds. The Wind Jar is a multi-purpose tool: it is able to propel enemies away from you, and possibly even incoming weapons hurled by the enemy. It can also be used to give friends an incredible boost to their jump to get to out-of-reach places. And lastly, when timed correctly it is possible to launch yourself great distances by funneling the wind behind you.

A tremendous jump using the wind jar

Here we have a Clonk doing what they are well known for: mining. However, the Clonk now has new tools at his disposal. By far the most effective is the Dynamite Box. Each stick of dynamite taken from the box will be interconnected by a fuse, which the Clonk may light with his ignition box, causing a mighty explosion.

Clonk mining gold with dynamite box

Lastly, here is a crew of Clonks defending their small settlement with a variety of weapons. As you can see, the clonk on the right side of the settlement is using a javelin. The Javelin can be thrown to deal large amounts of damage, but at distances it can be quite difficult for the javelin to find it’s mark. The Clonk seen in the middle of this picture is using a sword and shield, which are still in the process of development.

Clonks defending a settlement

Comprising this settlement is the Tools Workshop, where clonks shall create basic tools for production and combat. As one can clearly see, the second building is a windmill, used to generate power for a settlement.

Hey folks,

Sven2 has reworked the digging system, and the Clonk is a lot more agile in close underground situations now. The Clonk does now not stop digging when he is hindered, for example by an obstacle or undiggable material, when you keep the mouse button pressed. If he is tumbling or falling, he will instantly restart digging, as soon as it is possible.
You can view the topic in the forum here: https://forum.openclonk.org/topic_show.pl?tid=368

The other important change is, that you can now start digging from scaling and hangling. This gives a huge boost in many situations, for example if you are stuck and could not free yourself, you can now just dig yourself out. If you are hangling on a very thin brigde out of loam, you can now dig a few pixels of them out, allowing you to pass through it. But of course, you can not dig vertically in the ceiling, this would be overpowered. All in all, this change is great in my opinion.

The Masterserver is still running and works fine. A very popular scenario, which seems to be the favourite of Sven2 at the moment (maybe because he can test the new digging system there), is “The Cavern“. It is a race from the bottom to the top in a high, but not very wide landscape. It also uses the new checkpoint system for races, which allows scenario developers to create a more complex route, or forcing the players to not always take the straight way.

We also have a screenshot series for you this time, which shows the scenario “The Cavern“. You can see how the new digging system looks like, and, if you have not played OC yet, how it looks ingame.

Zapper hasn’t yet, so let me inaugurate this blog. We, the OpenClonk team, continue the development of Clonk since matthes does no longer have time to steer the direction of the project. So since about 3/4 years many changes have already been implemented into the Clonk engine and much work has been performed overhauling the Game content. Since most graphics would have to be recreated due to the new Zoom functionality we took the opportunity and decided to redo the whole core objects pack, leading to a different GamePlay so that OpenClonk will not “just” be another iteration of the existing 2D titles but also be a bit different. Rest assured that the core principles such as controlling small human-like beings in hectic scenarios will stay, though :). For more information feel free to explore our Wiki and forums, which is also where most discussion takes place, along with #openclonk-dev on irc.euirc.net.

On a technical note, and to show what I have been working on, let me show what changing a sign and renormalizing a vector can do:

Before:

After:

The usual disclaimer for screenshots of software which is in heavy development applies of course: Everything is work in progress, so neither the clonk graphics nor the (pixelized) landscape graphics are final.