User:Emagone/sandbox/Emagone

Emagone is a sandbox game developed by the studio with the same name. The game was created by Christian Bietsch and was written in the Java programming language. Lots of the high quality textures, which give the game its unique look, were created by Ina Gorski. It also uses the OpenGL pipeline to render the game’s content via the computer’s graphics card to the screen. The early alpha version with the official name “Prototype” was released first in early January of 2021, together with its own launcher.

Development
Emagone started off with the idea to create a sandbox game with its own engine, which is virtually infinite in all three dimensions, and has a procedurally generated terrain. All physics and all the methods required for the game to run, were coded specifically for this engine. One of the main goals was to develop a world that let’s you build to infinite heights an depths, not limited by any means. The creation of the sky islands was always intended, and a three dimensional loading system for the chunks an absolute requirement. Smoothly lighting a world with infinite height, appeared more difficult than first thought off, since there was no absolut height to start with the skylight from. A solution for that issue had to be found, and finally was.

The creation of a voxel based game, which enables the player to manipulate the world to his or her liking, was one of the main goals set for the game. Therefore two game modes were planned right from the beginning, namely "creative mode" and "survival mode". Later a third one, called "ghost mode", was added.

Manipulating all of the worlds systems was also one of the intentions, when the game was started to be developed. A highly complex graphical user interface was designed, and a control panel system coded, to make interacting with the program as easy as possible. Lots of things now can be controlled with these control panels, like for example the player’s vital attributes, or the world’s environmental settings.

Map
The game lets players explore a three dimensional landscape, which is procedurally generated. Maps by default are named “Terra Nova”, which is Latin for “New World”.

The main world of Emagone is named Emagonia, and known to be a world in the Enea star system, which is part of the Eonita constellation.

Each generated map has a specific seed, which is used by the generator to form the landscape. This seed of course, can be used to regenerate the same terrain again. Note, that the terrain generator changes with some versions, and therefore the same seed might not produce the same terrain across different game versions.

World Generator
The default landscape is procedurally generated and theoretically infinite in size. The limits of the world size are determined by the float data type of the machine running the program. Emagone saves the world in 16x16x16 chunks, each containing 4096 elements each. The so called "chunk data" is stored in sector files, which are a file format type specifically developed for that purpose with the format specific name esf. The so "called chunk sphere" loads a set amount of these chunks around the player. Emagone’s world is loaded in all three dimensions, which enables the existence of sky islands. The fact that voxels can be loaded, rendered, and stored to an unlimited height makes the game unique. It is the first of its type.

Day and Night Cycle
Emagone has a day and night cycle of 48 minutes. Due to this fact the day and night are both 24 minute periods each.

Since the game has 20 ticks per second, a full day and night cycle has 57600 ticks. One full night and one full day have each 28800 ticks.

The time can be conveniently manipulated with the time control panel intended for this purpose. This control panel is found in the simple world options.

Stars and Constellations
The nightly sky of Emagone has an insane amount of stars. Some of the stars are more prominent to the viewer’s eyes than others. Those more obvious stars form specific constellation. Most of those constellations exist in the real world’s nightly sky, but there is also a fictional constellation visible. All in all Emagone’s night sky has sixteen constellations.

Zodiac Constellations
Emagone has all twelve constellations of the zodiac family. They can be seen along the ecliptic in the nightly sky. They are: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces.

Eonita Constellation
The Eonita constellation is a fictional star constellation, which contains four star systems: Enea and Neo, Agitas and Magenos. Enea is the home star of Emagonia. The three stars visible during night time are below the constellation Cancer.

Constellations around Polaris
There are three constellations around the North Star, also called Polaris. Polaris itself is in one of these constellations. The name of these three constellations are: Little Dipper, Big Dipper, Cassiopeia

Polaris is on the very top of Emagone’s sky. It can be seen in the constellation of the Little Dipper, and is surrounded by two more constellations, the Big Dipper, and Cassiopeia.

Another star that is visible to the viewers eyes is Arcturus. This star seems not to belong to any specific constellation in Emagone’s night sky. But like in the real world’s sky, Arcturus is placed, so that the Arc to Arcturus can be observed.

Moon
The moon in Emagone illuminates the night in a slightly blue shifted light. Depending on the moon phase, the night is brighter or darker. While the brightest nights are during full moon, the darkest nights are with new moon. Weather effects, such as clouds and rain also take an influence on the brightness of a night, meaning it is not only determined by the moon phase alone. The moon in Emagone has a 24 phase cycle. Moon phases change each day, and the next phase can be observed in the upcoming night. These phases can be manipulated with the moon control panel in simple world options.

There also is a blood moon event that occurs with a certain probability. The blood moon in Emagone is colored in red. During such a blood moon event, the landscape is immersed in this red hue, instead of the usual moon blue. The blood moon and its probability to occur can be changed with the moon control panel, as well.

Weather system
The weather system in Emagone consists of four specific subsystems that control the environmental conditions regarding the weather. These subsystems are interdependent and require each other. Rain and snow are part of the precipitation system. The wind system controls the directions and strenght of the wind, which has an obvious effect on the clouds, waves and water surface in general. The cloud system is responsible for spawning clouds in different shapes and sizes. Fog, consisting of gradient and density, is regulated by its own system.

Precipitation
Depending on the temperature, which is determined by the biome, time, and the actual height, precipitation is occurring as rain drops, or if temperatures are below a certain value, as snow. Above the clouds, rain or snow fall is not occurring.

Wind
From time to time wind changes like every other weather effect in Emagone. This change in behaviour of wind is controlled by a complex combination of various values, which create a natural feeling. Depending on the strength and direction of the wind, the leaves and the surface of the water are moved.

Clouds
Clouds in Emagone are actual objects, which spawn in a specific height range above the landscape. Speed and direction of the clouds are determined by the attributes of the wind. Interactions between clouds, players, or any other entities do not happen. Clouds spawn in a variety of shapes, scaling, and orientations. Extremely huge clouds only spawn in worse weather conditions, and are always aligned horizontally to the ground.

Fog
The fog density is considered as one of the game’s weather conditions. It also changes over time, and can obscure the vision of the user over larger distances.

Female and male models
Emagone lets you choose between a female and a male player model. The female character is selected by default. The model with its belonging texture can be switched in game. The player can also be dressed and the outfit changed. The individual clothing parts of the outfit also protect the player against environmental influences, such as cold temperatures.

Eye blinking
The eyes of the player blink from time to time, to convey a more natural feeling. This behavior can be switched on or off in the options of the game, but is by default enabled.

Wet hair
The hair of the player character will also get wet, when the player is exposed to water. Being in rainy whether therefore causes a wet look, such as swimming.

Temperature sensitivity
The skin color changes into a cold blue, when body temperatures drop below a certain value, to indicate that the body is in a dangerous hypothermic state. A orange coloring of the skin instead, indicates an overheating of the body. Both of these extrem states are dangerous for the the player, while in survival mode.

Hurt animation
The player’s skin shortly turns red, while being hurt. This indicates that the player took damage, and therefore looses life.

Poisoning indications
A green colouration of the player’s skin is a sign of poisoning.

3D Models and Textures
To create the 3D models of the game, Emagone has its own block and entity editors. The models utilize a file format separately written for the game. Entities are rendered with their specified models and textures. Blocks are stored as separate faces, and required face later added to the chunk’s model by the constructor code written for that purpose. Block textures are stitched together on a texture map during the model and texture loading stage.

Game Modes
Emagone has three different game modes, which determine how the user can interact with game. Those three game modes are: creative, survival, ghost.

There is a command button in the header of the player’s inventory,  dedicated to switch between the game modes. The correct authorization level is required. The game mode button always displays the game mode the player currently is in.

Creative mode
Being in creative mode makes one literally a god in the game, and is therefore often referred to as “god” mode. It lets the player fly and hover, makes it immortal, and lets it manipulate the world in any manner. It allows the player to spawn entities. Items and blocks can be gained directly from the item tab. Creative mode enables the player to change the world’s conditions. Also cheats like for example instant teleportation can be used in this game mode. If not blocked by any authority issues, creative mode hands the user full control of any controls in the game.

Survival mode
The survival mode makes the player mortal. Things really can hurt in this game mode. Flying is not possible, and items and blocks can not be cheated. Everything has to be obtained in the world, nothing new can be created. Things just can be moved, changed or retrieved. To stay alive the player has to do something. Basic needs have to be fulfilled, to not freeze, starve, or die of thirst, or any other thing. Staying alive can be a challenge at first. The better the player is in taming the world to their needs, the easier their survival becomes.

Ghost mode
In ghost mode he player is enabled to fly and hover, like in creative mode. Interacting with the world is almost impossible. The only known interaction between a player in ghost mode and the world, is with items, which are on the ground. Those items are dragged towards the player as usual, but are not picked up into the inventory. When flying in ghost mode, players can fly through collision boxes. Also the ghost mode enables to get inside other entities, and in that way observe the world from their perspective.

Versions
Emagone’s released versions have a specific naming order. The name of the versions always start with a human understandable name and is followed by a prefix together with the actual version number. The prefix comes in two different types itself. Versions that contain the prefix “v” in their name are default releases, while those with “x” are experimental versions. Experimental versions are more likely to crash or contain other errors, and are early test versions of an actual later release. Therefore the experimental versions are often released before the official versions.

Example of a complete version name: Prototype v1.07

Example of a complete experimental version name: Prototype x1.07

Launcher
The launcher was created for Emagone specifically. It lets you create a profile, and it automatically downloads and installs the selected game version.

Worlds and other game depending data are stored within the profile, and are not lost, when a specific game version is deleted.

The launcher can be obtained on Emagone‘s website.