Seriously, no camera rotation?

[Atari 2600]

We can't rotate the ship to see around walls, angles and corners? Or am I missing a key?

I just did the tutorial, and already desperate to be able to rotate around areas for all placement, etc.

[Mharr]

It's a 2d pixel art game, so no. This is why the button to show / hide internal and external walls exists.

[FalconerHG]

Originally posted by Mharr:

It's a 2d pixel art game, so no. This is why the button to show / hide internal and external walls exists.

Sorry, but that has nothing to do with anything at all. There's no reason why 2D pixel games can't have camera rotation.

But it is significantly more work, and in some engines this is difficult to do.

That said. if we get a Space Have 2, I this would be my #1 request too.

[Death Approaches]

nah the #1 will be multi-level ship design. good gawd that one comes up like a herpes outbreak. it can be #2 though.

[CryonicSuspension]

You have to constantly flick through the wall display options, to find one that works ( for whatever you are trying to do ). Yes it kinda sucks.

[neo5apien]

Also the key to change the show / hide walls is Alt by default, so when alt-tabbing to another window, it changes the setting and has to be changed back when you alt tab back into the game.

[Atari 2600]

Game is great, but yeah, some of the QOL issues really detract. Movement and selecting people is also very clunky...kinda wish it had more Rimworld or Stranded: Alien Dawn flow.

[CryonicSuspension]

Yes the interface is ... very... non-standard.

[Mharr]

Originally posted by FalconerHG:

There's no reason why 2D pixel games can't have camera rotation.

Not having a camera to rotate does make it tricky. You could chunk things around 90 degrees at a time, rotating every object and redrawing the entire map but that just puts different walls in the way.

[FalconerHG]

Originally posted by Mharr:

Originally posted by FalconerHG:

There's no reason why 2D pixel games can't have camera rotation.

Not having a camera to rotate does make it tricky. You could chunk things around 90 degrees at a time, rotating every object and redrawing the entire map but that just puts different walls in the way.

I had to look it up, but Sim City 2000 did map rotation in 1993. :) There were many others, in a time where programmers had to build their own engines from scratch almost every single time.

The game is already quite clever in knowing which walls to hide or show based on changing situations. It does not strike me as hard to recalculate which walls should be up or down. Especially considering how quickly everything renders now. To me, the game seems to have plenty of graphical headroom.

I don't know in which engine this was created, but something like Unity provides everything a dev needs. But yes, if THIS engine doesn't support it, it will be very hard.

I would guess that most of the work involved revolves around object design. The work on that explodes.

But none of these things is why I replied. You said that it couldn't rotate because it was a 2D game. That hasn't been true since 1993, possibly earlier. :)

[Heavy Rain]

Originally posted by FalconerHG:

There's no reason why 2D pixel games can't have camera rotation

There's no such thing as a 2D pixel art game where you can rotate the camera. Being able to would make it a 3D game by definition.

[Gryphon]

Originally posted by Heavy Rain:

Originally posted by FalconerHG:

There's no reason why 2D pixel games can't have camera rotation

There's no such thing as a 2D pixel art game where you can rotate the camera. Being able to would make it a 3D game by definition.

???

Are you saying that we cant do it because then we'd have to change its definition?

For the record, you can rotate a 2D object within its own plane without invoking a 3rd dimension, which is what is being talked about.

See xenonauts, prison architect etc.

[Lanthrudar]

Originally posted by Gryphon:

Originally posted by Heavy Rain:

There's no such thing as a 2D pixel art game where you can rotate the camera. Being able to would make it a 3D game by definition.

???

Are you saying that we cant do it because then we'd have to change its definition?

For the record, you can rotate a 2D object within its own plane without invoking a 3rd dimension, which is what is being talked about.

See xenonauts, prison architect etc.

I think the point is the game cannot rotate in 2D, the objects can as psuedo 3D, and they already do. Prison architect doesnt rotate the game, or it used to not do so as far as I recall, but could be wrong

[FalconerHG]

Originally posted by Heavy Rain:

Originally posted by FalconerHG:

There's no reason why 2D pixel games can't have camera rotation

There's no such thing as a 2D pixel art game where you can rotate the camera. Being able to would make it a 3D game by definition.

In that case, it seems you are calling SimCity 2000 from 1993 a 3D game, then I would like to invite you to look up some videos or screenshots. It is as flat as they come. It absolutely does not have a 3D engine. And as I said, it rotates.

By your definition, the recent Civilization games are also 2D - no camera movement, flat, so 2D! I assure you, they are 3D games.

We started calling games 3D games from around the time that Wolfenstein came out (it was even specifically called Wolfenstein 3D back in the day). Not too long after that, we started calling all games that required a GPU to play 3D games (they didn't always). Today, I suspect most people define 3D as a game that gives you 3D models and has at least camera viewpoints from multiple angles (from Call of Duty to Mario Kart).

I looked up the engine for SpaceHaven, and it is LibGDX which does support 3D games. Although I imagine you'd have to start building it that way from the ground up.

[Eventide]

Larger game objects are multiple sprites that would need to be drawn in the correct order in a full ship Rotation. It wasn't designed for from the beginning - it must be more base engine work than the programmer wishes to take on, or it would be done already, given the number of times it has come up over the years.

[CMsgtReaper]

Woa, no camera rotation or multi-level builds... so you're reduced to flying space brick for ship design... this far into development and single-level... whoever on the dev team forced single-level should be hog tied and slow-fed through a rusty wood chipper feet first, ABSOLUTE worst call possible for this genre. Thanks for the heads-up, almost bought the game.

EDIT: Screw it, game looks too fun and it has workshop. Bring on the buyers remorse and regret, I think I can live with that, take muh munneh.