guidebook/docs/changes.md

Changes

v0.8.0 (September 4, 2021)

This release brings some new features, new doodads, and new levels.

New features:

• Checkpoints for gameplay will ease the pain of dying to fire pixels or Anvils by teleporting you back to the checkpoint instead of resetting the whole level.
• The Doodad Properties window while editing a doodad grants access to many features which were previously only available via the doodad tool, such as:
  • Edit metadata like the Title and Author of your doodad
  • Set the default hitbox of your doodad.
  • Attach, open, and delete the JavaScript for your doodad
  • Manage tags (key/value store) on your doodads: how you can communicate settings to the JavaScript which can receive the tags via Self.GetTag("name")
• Some Generic Doodad Scripts are built in. Using only the in-game tools, it is possible to create custom doodads which have some basic in-game logic and you don't need to write any code. The generic scripts include:
  • Generic Solid: the hitbox is solid
  • Generic Fire: its hitbox harms the player
  • Generic Anvil: harmless, deadly when falling
  • Generic Collectible Item: it goes in your inventory
• All Characters are Playable! Use the Link Tool to connect your Start Flag with another doodad on your level, and you will play as that doodad when the level starts. The Creature doodads are all intended to be fully functional; playing as buttons and doors leads to strange results.

New doodads have been added:

• The Anvil is a heavy metal object which is affected by gravity. It is harmless to collision, but if the anvil is in freefall, it will destroy every mobile doodad that it touches, and is deadly to the player character.
• The Electric Trapdoor is a trapdoor that opens and closes when powered by a button or switch. It is a horizontal version of the Electric Door.
• The Thief is a new character which will steal items from the player or other mobile doodads. The Thief is able to pick up items and unlock doors and he walks back and forth like the Azulians.
• The Blue Azulian is now selectable from the Doodads menu. It behaves like the Red Azulian but moves at half the speed. The Azulians can pick up items and open doors.
• The Checkpoint Flag will remember the player's spot in the level. Dying to fire pixels or Anvils no longer forces a restart of the level - you can resume from your last checkpoint, or the Start Flag by default.

New levels have been added:

• Castle.level: introduces the new Thief character. Castle-themed level showing off various new doodads.
• Thief 1.level: a level where you play as the Thief! You need to steal Small Keys from dozens of Azulians and even steal items back from another Thief who has already stolen some of the keys.

Some doodads have changed behavior:

• The Bird can no longer pick up items, unless controlled by the player character.
• The Anvil and Box will reset to their original locations if they receive a power signal from a linked button or switch.

The user interface has been improved:

• Tabbed windows! The Doodad Dropper window of the level editor and the Settings window use new, tabbed interfaces.
• Doodad Categories: the Doodad Dropper's tabs are divided into a few major categories.
  1. Objects: Anvil, Box, Crumbly Floor, and Flags
  2. Doors: Doors, Trapdoors, and Keys
  3. Gizmos: Buttons, Switches, Electric Doors, etc.
  4. Creatures: Bird, Azulians, Thief
  5. All: a classic view paging over all doodads (and doodads not fitting any of the above categories).

New functions are available in the JavaScript API for custom doodads:

• FailLevel(message string): global function that kills the player with a custom death message.
• SetCheckpoint(Point): set the player respawn location
• Self.MoveTo(Point(x, y int))
• Self.IsPlayer() bool
• Self.SetInventory(bool): turn on or off inventory. Keys and other items will now only give themselves to mobile doodads which have inventory.
• Self.HasInventory() bool
• Self.AddItem(filename string, quantity int) - zero quantity for permanent items like the colored keys.
• Self.RemoveItem(filename string, quantity int)
• Self.HasItem(filename string)
• Self.Inventory() map[string]int
• Self.Hitbox() - also see Self.Hitbox.IsEmpty()

The Events.OnLeave() callback now receives a CollideEvent argument, like OnCollide, instead of the useless actor ID string. Notable properties on the CollideEvent will be the .Actor which is leaving and Settled=true.

Other miscellaneous changes:

• The Link Tool can now un-link two doodads by clicking on them again.
• Actor UUIDs in your levels will now be Type 1 UUIDs (time-based) instead of random. This will ensure each newly added doodad gets a larger ID than the previous one, so in cases of draw order conflicts or that sort of thing, the winner can be picked deterministically (most recently added renders on top).
• A death barrier will prevent Boy from falling forever on unbounded maps should he somehow fall off the level. The death barrier is a Y value 1,000 pixels below the lowest pixel on your map.
• Mobile doodads no longer "moonwalk" when they change directions.
• A new color is added to all default palettes: "hint" (pink) for writing hint notes.
• A maximum scroll speed on the "follow the player character" logic makes for cooler animations when the character teleports around.
• Levels and Doodads are now sorted on the Open menu.

v0.7.2 (July 19 2021)

This release brings some new features and some new content.

New features:

• Loading screens have been added. In previous versions, 'chunks' of a level were rendered on-demand as they first scrolled onto the screen, but busy new chunks would cause gameplay to stutter. The loading screen is able to pre-render the entire level up front to ensure gameplay is smooth(er).
• Compression for Levels and Doodads: levels and doodads are now compressed with Gzip for an average 88% smaller file size on disk. The example level, "Tutorial 2.level" shrank from 2.2 MB to 414 KB with compression. The game can still read old (uncompressed) files, but will compress them on save.

Some new content:

• New Levels: two desert-themed levels were added. One has you platforming and climbing the outside of a pyramid; the next is inside the pyramid and has puzzles involving movable boxes.
• New Doodad: Box is a pushable crate that is affected by gravity. It is taller than Boy and can be used to gain some extra height and reach higher platforms.
• New Palette: To the "Colored Pencil" palette was added a new default color: Sandstone (solid).
• New Pattern: Perlin Noise was added as one of the available brush patterns. Sandstone uses this pattern by default.

Some miscellaneous changes:

• Slowly scroll in editor: holding down the Shift key while scrolling the level editor will scroll your drawing very slowly.
• 'Doodads' Hotkey: in the Level Editor, the Q key will open the Doodads window instead of the D key, as the D key is now part of WASD for scrolling the drawing.

v0.7.1 (July 11 2021)

Fixes a bug on the Windows version:

• Built-in wallpapers other than the default Notebook were failing to load in the Windows release of v0.7.0

v0.7.0 (June 20 2021)

This is the first release of the game where the "free version" drifts meaningfully away from the "full version". Free versions of the game will show the label "(shareware)" next to the game version numbers and will not support embedding doodads inside of level files -- for creating them or playing them. Check the website for how you can register the full version of the game.

This release brings several improvements to the game:

• Brush Patterns for your level palette. Instead of your colors drawing on as plain, solid pixels, a color swatch can sample with a Pattern to create a textured appearance when plotted on your level. Several patterns are built in including Noise, Marker, Ink, and others. The idea is that your brush strokes can look as though they were drawn in pencil graphite or similar.
• Title Screen: the demo level shown on the title screen will leisurely scroll around the page. The arrow keys may still manually scroll the level any direction.
• Attach Doodads to Level Files: this is the first release that supports truly portable custom levels! By attaching your custom doodads with your custom level file, it will "just play" on someone else's computer, and they don't need to copy all your custom doodads for it to work! But, free versions of the game will not get to enjoy this feature.
• Settings UI: a "Settings" button on the home screen (or the Edit->Settings menu in the editor) will open a settings window. Check it out!
• Horizontal Toolbars option: if enabled in the Settings window, the toolbar and palette in the Editor will be horizontal instead of vertical, along the top and bottom of the screen. This may be better optimized for smartphone-sized screens like the Pinephone. If the program is started with -w mobile the first time, it will use horizontal toolbars by default.

Some small bits of polish in the game's user interface:

• Some buttons are more colorful! The "Ok" button in alert boxes is blue and pressing Enter will select the blue button.
• When opening a drawing to play or edit, a blue Browse... button is added so you can more easily find downloaded custom levels and play them.
• In the Level Editor, the "Level -> Attached Files" menu will let you see and manage files attached to your level, such as its custom wallpaper image or any custom doodads that were published with the level.
• The keyboard shortcut to open the developer console is now the tilde/grave key (`) instead of Enter.

Bugs fixed:

• The WASD keys to move the player character (as an alternative to the arrow keys) now works more reliably. Previously, they were affected by key-repeat so Boy would do a quick hop followed by a longer one when pressing W to jump. Also, his animation would not update correctly when moving via the WASD keys. Both bugs are fixed in this release.
• Shortcut keys advertised in the menu, such as Ctrl-N and Ctrl-S, now actually work.

v0.6.0-alpha (June 6 2021)

This release brings less jank and some new features.

The new features:

• Choice of Default Palette for New Levels: when creating a new level, a "Palette:" option appears which allows you to set the default colors to start your level with. The options include:
  • Default: the classic default 4 colors (black, grey, red, blue).
  • Colored Pencil: a set with more earthy tones for outdoorsy levels (grass, dirt, stone, fire, water)
  • Blueprint: the classic Blueprint wallpaper theme, a bright version of Default for dark level backgrounds.
• Custom Wallpapers: unhappy with the default, paper-themed level background images? You can now use your own! They attach to your level data for easy transport when sharing your level with others.
• More Wallpapers: a couple of new default wallpapers are added: Graph paper and Dotted paper. They are both on light white paper and offer a light alternative to Blueprint.

Some bugs fixed:

• Collision fixes: you should be able to walk up gentle slopes to the left without jumping, as easily as you could to the right.
• Debugging: the F4 key to show collision hitboxes around all doodads in Play Mode now functions again, and draws boxes around all doodads, not just the player character.
• Hitboxes are tighter: a doodad's declared hitbox size (from their JavaScript) is used when a doodad collides against level geometry or other doodads. Meaning: Boy, who has a narrow body but a square sprite size, now collides closer with objects on his right side.
• Physics are tweaked: Boy now moves and accelerates slightly faster.

v0.5.0-alpha (Mar 31 2021)

Project: Doodle is renamed to Sketchy Maze in this release.

New Features:

• New Tutorial Levels: the bundled levels demonstrate the built-in doodads and how they interact and shows off several game features.
• Level Editor: you can now set the Title and Author of the level you're editing by using the Level->Page Settings window.
• The Inventory HUD in Play Mode now shows a small number indicator for items which have quantity, such as the Small Key. Colored Keys do not have quantity and don't show a number: those are permanent collectibles.
• Fire Pixels: when the player character dies by touching a "Fire" pixel during gameplay, the death message uses the name of the color instead of calling it "fire." For example, if you name a color "spikes" and give it the Fire attribute, it will say "Watch out for spikes!" if the player dies by touching it.
• New cheat code: give all keys gives all four colored keys and 99x Small Keys to the player character. The drop all items cheat clears your inventory.

New Doodads:

• Warp Doors allow the player character to fast travel to another location on the map. Drag two Warp Doors into your level and use the Link Tool to connect them together. Doors without an exit link will be "locked" and don't open.
• Small Key Doors are locked doors which consume the Small Keys when unlocked, unlike the colored doors where the key is multi-use. The player character can hold many small keys at once and only unlock as many doors as he has keys.

Updated Doodads:

• Several doodads were increased in size to better match the player character: Colored Locked Doors, Trapdoors, the Crumbly Floor and Electric Door, and the blue and orange Boolean State Blocks.
• Colored Doors now have a visual locked vs. unlocked state: while locked, a golden padlock hangs from the door, which goes away after it's been unlocked.
• Switches now interact differently with Electric Doors: the door will always toggle its current state regardless of the 'power' setting of the Switch.
• Buttons which are linked to a Sticky Button will press and stay down if the linked Sticky Button is pressed. Or in other words, the Sticky Button makes all linked Buttons act sticky too and stay pressed while the Sticky Button is pressed. If the Sticky Button is released later (e.g. by receiving power from a Switch) it releases its linked Buttons as well.

v0.4.0-alpha (Nov 21 2020)

This update brings improvements to the editor; you can now fully draw all the graphics for a custom doodad using the in-app tools!

A key difference between a Level and a Doodad is that doodads have Layers where they keep multiple frames of animation or state. The editor tool now supports working with these extra layers.

Other new features:

• The Guidebook has been updated with tons of good info and screenshots of the game's features. Press F1 in-game to open the guidebook, or check it online at https://www.sketchymaze.com/guidebook/
• Layer Selection Window for Doodads: when you're editing a Doodad drawing, a "Lyr." button is added to the toolbar to access the Layers window.
• Global UI popup modals: when you're about to close a level with unsaved changes, you get an Ok/Cancel prompt confirming if you want to do that. Hitting the Escape key will ask you before just exiting the program. Alert boxes are supported too, and an alert command added to the developer console.

v0.3.0-alpha (Sept 19 2020)

This update introduces the player character to the game. He doesn't have a name; the game just refers to him as Boy.

His sprite size is bigger (33x54) than the 32x32 size of the placeholder player character from before. So, the three example levels shipped with previous versions of Project: Doodle no longer work. This release comes with two replacement levels which are better decorated, anyway.

Other new features:

• Palette Editor: you can add and modify the colors on your level palette! Pick any colors you want, give a name to each swatch, and mark whether they behave as Solid, Water or Fire. Without any of these properties, colors are decorational-only by default.
• Doodad Window: when selecting the Actor or Link Tools in the editor, the Doodads window pops up. Doodads can be dragged from this window onto your level, instead of the Palette toolbar turning into a Doodad palette.
• The Palette toolbar on the Editor is now thinner and only shows colors. Mouse-over tooltips show the name and properties of each swatch.
• Added a --window option to the Doodle program to set the default window size. Options can be a resolution (e.g. 1024x768) or a special keyword "desktop", "mobile", "landscape" or "maximized"
  • Default size is desktop: 1024x768
  • Mobile and landscape mimic a smartphone at 375x812 resolution.

v0.2.0-alpha (June 7 2020)

This release brings Sound Effects and Menus to the game.

New features:

• Added some User Documentation to ship with the game which teaches you how to create your own custom Doodads and program them with JavaScript. More documentation to come with time.
• Sound effects! Several doodads have a first pass at sound effects using some free sounds I found online. More doodads still need sounds and the existing sounds are by no means final. Buttons, switches, doors and keys have sound effects so far.
• The game now has a Menu Bar with pull-down menus in the Editor Mode instead of just a top panel with New/Save/Open buttons.

v0.1.0-alpha (Apr 13 2020)

New doodads:

• Start Flag: drag this into your level to set where the player character will spawn. There should only be one per level.
• Crumbly Floor: a rocky floor that breaks and falls away after a couple seconds when the player (or other mobile doodad) walks onto it.
• State Blocks: blue and orange blocks that toggle between solid and passable when the corresponding ON/OFF button is touched.

New features:

• An inventory overlay now appears in Play Mode when the player character picks up one of the colored keys.
• While editing a level, you can click the new "Options" button in the top menu to open the level settings window (like the one you see when creating a new level): to change the wallpaper image or the page type.

Other changes:

• Added better platforming physics to the player character: acceleration and friction when walking.
• The colored Locked Door doodads have been re-designed to be shown in a side-view perspective and have an open and closed state in either direction.
• Tooltips added to various buttons in the Editor to show names of doodads and functions of various buttons.

v0.0.10-alpha (July 18 2019)

New features:

• Added the Eraser Tool and support for brush sizes. Now you can clean up your mistakes and draw shapes with thicker lines!
• Added the Ellipse Tool for drawing elliptical shapes.
• Added a third example to the game's built-in levels.

Bug fixes:

• The Undo command now restores the original color of a pixel instead of just deleting it. Only works for thin lines so far.
• Improved collision detection algorithm to prevent players from clipping through a solid doodad, regardless of speed. This change is invisible this build, but opens the door to improvements in the 2D platforming physics and making the player character move and fall faster.
• Fix mobile non-player doodads from sometimes being able to clip through a solid doodad. For example, a Red Azulian could sometimes walk through a locked door without interacting with it.
• Sometimes hitting Undo would leave a broken "chunk" in your level, if the Undo operation deleted all pixels in that chunk. The broken chunk would show as a solid black square (non-solid) in the level. This has been fixed: empty chunks are now culled when the last pixel is deleted and existing level files will be repaired on next save.

v0.0.9-alpha (July 9 2019)

First alpha release.