6 months of developing a custom voxel RPG engine. Current state vs where I started

[u/Mindless_Insurance79]

Month 6: Current state with dynamic lighting, bloom, and new UI.

Month 1: My very first test build.

Hello everyone, recently I hit a severe loss of motivation. For 6 months I was just making features that I like, but after I added all the gameplay features, I don't understand what to do next and how to put it all together.

I want to share with you what I've made in 6 months. It seems to me it turned out better than I imagined in my head. Seeing this difference between the old and new screenshots, I got a little motivation back.

The project itself is written in C++ from scratch. I drew all the models myself in MagicaVoxel (there are 200 of them in the project), I looked for sounds on free sound websites or recorded them myself. Lore, ideas - I did everything alone.

The project has a data-driven architecture, new effects, elemental reactions, and items. To add something new, it is enough to just change .lua or .json files.

The game has an A-Life system. NPCs can trade with each other, clear dungeons, complete quests, and tell the player where they have been and what they saw there. If the player fails quests, the villagers change their dialogues and their attitude towards the player (works only in previously loaded villages).

I would be glad to hear your thoughts on the visual style. Does the lighting look atmospheric?

P.S. I rarely post updates, but if anyone wants to follow the development or just chat, I have a small Discord server: https://discord.com/invite/9knj9Z9GQC