Improving Melee Combat and Weapon Upgrading in my Voxel Game 

Hey everyone I just wanted to say a huge thank you for all the new subscribers and support recently it's been really motivating. I also want to make a correction. I accidentally left the radius that the hammer breaks voxels too high when I recorded this. I was testing something and I forgot to change it back oops 😬. It will be smaller in the game.

i think increasing the speed off all weapon animations would make them look (and hopefully feel) waaay more responsive

I kinda wish some enemies were out of destructible voxels too. But I do feel like it would introduce inconsistency or unnecesary brutality into the combat. Voxel destruction on death comes to mind, which could balance both of these drawbacks.

it worries me how easy it is to just break the environment in this game, it feels like it would be extremely annoying (both the fact that just swinging your weapon could be a disaster in your house, but also the fact that there's an enemy that literally throws bombs). Hopefully there will be some QoL feature that allows us to deal with this properly.

Looks good , as people said , the "breaking walls" feature looks good on paper but can be easily annoying , being able to disable it might be a good option ! Also I feel like the hammer has more knockback than the sword which is good, I think you can crank it up even a tad bit more to be honest like up to 30% and the hammer would feel really powerfull and it would compensate slow attack speed as usual , great work !

Apart from walking ofc. I put the video a 1.75x speed and the animations looked pretty fluid that way. Theyre good but like weirdly slow, give it a try:P

coming along incredibly well

woah this showed up in my recommended QUICK! I really love the work you're doing, thanks for documenting your journey :D

i love it so much! it's really coming together amazingly from what i can tell! you've done an amazing job Tooley! something I just want to say is i wonder how hiding from enemies works, like i remember from an earlier devlog (i forgot which whoops) you shot an enemy from behind and it turned around and then started pursuing you, and im wondering about the capabilities of it! of course i don't expect any answers, i just mean like a few things that im thinking of was maybe it works like it'll turn around where it got hurt and look for the attacker maybe? or maybe you can hide if you are being pursued at the moment, like if you stay out of sight enough? just a few things i had on my mind on it, thank you for putting out these devlogs for us and working so hard on your game!

It's interesting how you and John Lin both have similarly styled voxel games, but have such different features. Sounds great.

I love the collateral damage weapons can do. Large heavy pieces of metal are dangerous to swing around!

I had been discussing some days ago how I would improve Minecraft's combat and it seems like I had thought of a similar way of improving it as you have made your melee combat to be, I'm happy to see that there's a game like this being made, I'll be following this project now because of it.

I only now realise you might have a 3d noita-like engine slowly cooking alongside your game! I would love to see a game that combines the insanity of noita with the opennes of 3d.

This is awesome, i would recommend blocking, parying, and doging. It helps make melee combat faster paced as well as more exciting

This game looks so great. Please keep working on it, theres so much Potential here

This is really cool! I'll definitely be following your progress!

To have this game running at good frame rates while each voxel having physics is so crazy

I hope it wasn't asked or shown before: How are you writing your engine? Which language do you use? C? C++? Rust? C# maybe? And what graphics API do you use? OpenGL? DirectX? Vulkan? I'm asking because maybe I will try to write my own engine just for fun and I'm looking for some examples how others tackle this.

Love what I’m seeing. If you bring everything your doing together correctly this could be something amazing. Keep up the good work!

this looks like a really fun game, hopefully you don't give up and actually finish it!

Incredible. Looks super exciting. I do think speeding up the animations, as well as giving slightly more generous attack hitboxes, would make the combat feel a bit more responsive. At 2:00 when you stabbed at the skeleton, the sword went right through the enemy's model but didn't count as a hit.

Love how different swings have different hit boxes! Looks like its combo based to get specific swings out? There's this 20 year old game that lets you control swing path based on WASD, if you move forward when pressing an attack that's an overhead if you move: right while pressing attack thats a right swing right and forward is downward right swing right and back is right upward swing back and press attack is a thrust moving left will do the mirrored action of right Another thing is aiming your mouse will further control your swing because the swing is usually locked to your POV, so turning your aim 360 in the middle of your swing will hit everything you see your weapon hit when you spin. Or say your enemy is in front of you you can turn to the side the swing starts from to hit your target as early as possible. This works incredibly well with slow swinging weapons because after initiating the attack you can still freely move in any direction allowing your swing to continue while you strafe in an opposite or different direction if you like. This could help people playing that would either want to target a specific pillar with a side swing and drop a falling physics based item from the top, or it can help in a tight space for someone that doesnt want to damage maybe their own house and control their swing in a very naturally intuitive swing. Swinging in the same direction of your movement pretty natural and easy to learn, which is how Jedi Knight Jedi Academy did this and still has servers playing 20 years after launch. Me and many other players who remember that game would love to see this type of control implemented in a game like this if it were possible! Movement based attacks really deepen combat, and if you would like to see further references there should be Jedi Knight Jedi Academy combat guides for visual reference. Amazing stuff Tooley!

I think it would be a good idea to make it that you can slowly charge geavy weopons like the hammer and then realease them for a fast attack. That would require some tactic and it would still be realistic while making the combat feel more responsive and fun. I hope you still read this comment after 3 months and take that into consideration. also: The game looks great!

I really think enemies should be voxel-based and destructible! Making it so certain parts are required for them to live or function, or that they are destroyed once a percentage of their structure integrity is crossed, would be amazing. It could open up strategies like destroying arms to disarm or legs to slow down, and headstrikes. On that note, I do believe making weapons physics-based like many VR games could benefit the feel of things, even on a PC the striking and deflecting of two swords could be a great strategy and feel, and it allows for VR porting, check how BoneWorks does it. Lastly, as many have mentioned, making the environment stronger and harder to break based on the material and bonded layers behind where you are trying to strike, and different materials differently susceptible to different weapons. If it can be physics-based, that would be even better, and it could simplify future integrations if it worked with hardness and bonded environment vs power of swing with a multiplier on the tool itself against some of the calculated values.

this game is like my dream game, its like if minecraft and teardown were combined into one, i am very excited for this games release and i hope you continue working on it!

Looks wonderful! You might want to check out Clone Drone in The Danger Zone, it's a game with an entirely voxel-based combat system. Also, it's fun.

Great progress! This game _needs_ to make it to public release whatever it takes. Maybe some game studio would be interested in acquiring you and the game to take it to completion (i.e. to be the next Minecraft) :)

love the animations, I can't get over how good the fire animations look.

Reminds me a lot of Dark & Darker's combat, pretty fun once you get used to it.

Love all the progress youve been making! After seeing various windowless structures in your videos i must ask, do you plan on adding glass?

Its crazy how far this Project has gone! I can still remember the beginnings lol Keep it up my man!

This looks sick, I love voxel games

nice concepts, I'm wishing for a voxel engine for a while, nice to see a game so good, next step in research is reducing size of the voxels hehe. A good fixing, for those complaining about the destruction be annoying, I think it would be great to add a resistance based on material, this way a sword can scratch a wood but not a stone wall, the hammer would make a mark in the wood, but chip away some stone wall. Or even: the resistance is one for all tools, just... more resistance and that's it. That would help create fortresses and keeping enemies away. another point to improve: (I didn't see how's been doing the construction ingame) I think it would be neat to have some basic shape materials ( wood plank, wood log, stone brick) and have a "design window" to build up some structure patterns that can be used anywhere ( a stone wall, a wooden wall with planks, a well made of bricks and wood)

I think that environmental destruction with weapons like this might be better if it were to crack or splinter the material it hits rather than just instantly removing a large chunk of it, that way you don't accidentally fully destroy something but you also get more satisfying and realistic destruction!

defo gonna want to add a timed block mechanic. something simple like perfect timing gives off a chime and no damage with some stamina restoration then slight damage and stamina reduction if poorly timed. just relying on health items and key mashing would get boring pretty fast. could add shields with a bash mechanic that staggers those in a semi circle radius for crowd control or just give immunity frames when perfect parrying. idk if its already added or some kind of blocking is done but youll be able to throw way more at the player if you do

Love this so far. The only thing i wish you to improve is animation speed. All actions look like they are being performed underwater. Faster swings and jump would definitely help.

Consider making it so the enemies (or environment) will be effected by the animation's hit direction. If im swinging my hammer to left, it would be very cool to see enemies knockbacked to a bit left

You're knocking this out of the park!

Great stuff! Maybe speed up the hammer swing, but increase the wind up before the attack and increase the recovery time after the attack.

I like the hammer taking bigger chunks. I thought voxel collection would be very slow. Good to see it doesn't have to be like that.

This is getting fire! Great Work

This game looks outstanding. Only constructive criticism I have is that weapon floats mid attack. This can be a design choice, but I think the game would look really cool if the weapons were somehow longer or possibly had a hand attached.

this could perfectly be the next minecraft, take your time and make this game into the best possible version it could turn out to be

A little hurt animation for the enemies would improve the meele feel even more in my opnion, but its look great already!

you should make them ragdolls, also the hammer kinda glides a bit easily, maybe make a animation for when it hits something and save the gliding for when you make a sword

The monsters need to look a little aggressive and responsive. Just that😃 Keep it up!!

In VR this game may be truely amazing!

I personally think you should bring the arm back as it adds more immersion, and use it with the animations, maybe speed them up a bit

Being able to destroy voxels on enemies would be cool as hell ngl

You are doing great! Keep going

You should use the physics system to make enemies crumble when you kill them

looks great! do all the materials have different strengths? so stone is harder to break than wood? it would be cool if the dead monsters didn't disappear so quickly

Its like a combination of teardown, minecraft, and fantasy

Some particle effects shold pop when you hit a wall or a solid object en general with your hammer, to give more a feel to the hit.

This game looks great so far! Do you plan to add more challenging dungeons? I think it would be great to have some dungeons made out of material you can't break so you're forced to do the platforming/puzzles in them. And I'd love to see the addition of spruce/fir/pine forests, would be my go to base location!

This game looks perfect for VR

Hey looks great! What about adding a particle effect to show that you hit something? Looing forward for your next update!

Hell yeah, this looks so cool! Are you planning to add multiplayer? I understand if not since you are just one person, but i've always wanted to play a teardown-like game with my friends Also, a more minor suggestion, but the inconsistent pixel density with the ui (mainly the font) looks a bit jarring to me

Ragdolls would be nice

i think instead of making enemies disapear when they die, you should make them part of the map or maybe a dynamic voxel object (so it can be destroyed and it would be very fun)

Holy that is very impressive! Is your engine a rasterize based approach or was it ray tracing SVO? The fact the PC didnt explode like minecraft with shaders is impressive enough!

I’m so amazing each time you post lol

I have some ideas about voxel engines and have been trying to find resources about them for the past few years. I have searched for a lot of information, but have not found anything suitable until I came across the Teardown Game. However, when I asked them, they said their engine cannot be used for commercial licensing. I wonder if, for your research, it can be used to create a game for commercial licensing. Although I am not at that stage yet, I really hope to have a voxel engine that is both destructible and interactive to realize my long-standing game development dream.

Interesting, you can break down a wall in one hit but takes many for enemies. It is way to easy to destroy buildings.

Maybe you could give us an early release?

Looks awesome. keep at it. Hope you publish something soon.

Will there be melee blocking? Similar to something like Vermintide 2 perhaps? Other than that the player movement feels 'floaty'- especially on jumping. Otherwise this is fantastic! Cannot wait for an early access build!

It looks a bit odd how the weapons just flies around when hitting things. I suggest adding an arm as well

I got an idea, attacks follow cursor moving direction. Keep going your project is very nice !

Imagine how sick this would be in vr

Just want to add a voice saying I love the environmental destruction. Depending on how the game's going I disagree that it would be that annoying. For instance if building is for defensive structures against attacks, then destruction seems almost necessary. If the game's planning on having a lot of building for aesthetics, then it would be. I liked the proposal one person had where a placed structure "remembers" its predestroyed state and can be refilled. Maybe you could also expand the spell system to building? Like when you go to place a structure you can add a spell that makes it fire immune, more resistant to explosions etc. It wouldn't fix the repairing problem, but it would make there be less of a need to repair things in a way that adds a form of progression in the game. Early on your fire sword will destroy your wood house, but you can find multiple ways to stop it from doing that (build with stone, find the fire immune spell, etc.). If the game is planning on having aesthetic building, I hope you find a solution that doesn't just make buildings invincible. I think a lot of games with building have failed to capitalize well on letting players get attached to their buildings then having to defend them with a serious risk of losing their investment. But again, this all depends on where you want the game to go.

If you want a great example of satisfying melee combat i recommend you look at vermintide 2. Also i expected the skeleton to shatter instead of just fall over.

this is sick! good work. would it be a good idea to add the old minecraft sword right click blocking mecanic? because right now you can't do anything to not get damaged except jump away I gess

It would be really cool if this game had directional attacks like chivalry and mordhau

Looking forward to streaming it one day. :)

Looks awesome! I like that the game has minecraft vibes. What are your plans for the story or lore?

Would be so cool if u add bosses and special abilities for weapons like a ability in the hammer that throws u in the sky and u do a big smash with the hammer

Ik you're probably gonna add this anyway but you should add particle effects when breaking voxels (for performance on low end PCs you could perhaps add an option to toggle it)

i can't wait for this game to release

Do you have any plans on putting the system up on unreal engine marketplace? All Current voxel plugins are not the same quality as this and there would definitely sell a lot and could improve your budget for releasing the game. i would buy it immediatly tbh

This game is very similar to lego worlds in terms of creativity

Love it! Great awesome voxel game!

if you make the enemies break into voxel pieces apon death instead of just falling over like in minecraft it will make combat 100 times more fun

Hey, could you add a dodge/hop and a parry mechanic with most weapons? The thing I dislike the most about minecraft combat is that you pretty much always take damage if you choose to melee something, and I think it would add a lot to this games combat.

i think that it would be best for all the models to use the same voxel scale

Are wheat-like plants growing ?!?!? Also, funny that you destroyed a wall while trying to break cobwebs. Maybe walls should be tougher ?

Does this use polygon rendering or actual voxel rendering?

would be nice if u add the voxel destruction to the enimys body too.

Wow!!! Looks amazing!!!

This looks awesome, coming to Steam anytime soon?

take some inspiration form Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, it has a decent physics based, directional combat system

Is it open source? I would like it to be open source. Also can it run on GNU/Linux and AMD/Intel GPUs? This game heavely reminds me FOSS game named Veloren. Modded Minecraft and Teardown.

add a Crossbow or if you're feeling adventurous, maybe something like a Blunderbuss or a Flintlock. Ranged combat has been something i've been curious upon it also, will the game feature Vehicles?

what do you think about implementing better lighting, one of the things that i personally find offputting about voxel games is that lighting is smooth on objects in the world. If that's something you also don't like, are you planning on implementing non-shaded lighting system (similar to when u put 'fast lighting' on in minecraft, the voxels are shaded but with one value rather than a gradient on the individal voxel).

Yo i wonder what this game would look like if it would be "realistic", love this, how did you write the engine?

U can do it, u can be the next minecraft!, The devs have abanded it and they never bother to change it. It's not that their that big that they can't recieve some healty competition ;)

This is really cool. What language do you use to make this?

this game looks so good!

I would like to see these environments fully lit by Lumen. Since you are using UE5 (if I am not mistaken), it would be nice to see something better than the ugly fake flat ambient lighting in the interior spaces :)

This is awesome! Custom engine? What language is it written in?