REASONS GAMES
Day one: the foundation
Ironfall begins as a top-down survival game in Godot. This first update sets up the project, the controls for keyboard, mouse and PS5 controller, a test map, and the art pipeline the rest of the game is built on.
What's new
- A top-down player with 8-way movement, sprint and mouse aim.
- Controls for keyboard and mouse and for the PS5 DualSense: every action is bound to both.
- A test map with walls and collision, and a camera that follows the player smoothly.
- The art pipeline: a Lua script draws the sprite frames, Aseprite exports them, and a script turns them into Godot animations.
How it was made
- Aseprite was not on the system at first. It was built from the AUR source package, since the binary needs a paid licence. The build took a few hours, mostly compiling Skia.
- The player sprite is generated by a Lua script (tools/aseprite/make_player.lua). It draws the frames in code rather than by hand, so it is a stand-in until the real art lands.
- tools/aseprite/export.sh runs the Aseprite command line to write a sheet PNG and JSON, then json_to_spriteframes.py builds the Godot SpriteFrames resource.
Screens
Tools used
| Godot 4.7 | The game engine. All gameplay code is GDScript. |
|---|---|
| Aseprite 1.3.18.6 | Pixel-art editor. Built from source for personal use, then driven from the command line with Lua scripts to generate and export sprites. |
| Python 3 | Build tools, including the step that turns Aseprite's JSON output into Godot SpriteFrames. |
How to try it
- Open the project in Godot 4.7 and press Play.
- Keyboard: WASD to move, Shift to sprint, mouse to aim, left mouse to attack, E to interact.
- PS5 controller: left stick to move, right stick to aim, R2 to attack, Cross to interact, Options to pause.
Known issues
- The player sprite is a placeholder and will be replaced by the art direction work.
- Only one test map exists.
Ironfall dev log · Update 1 of 18 · All updates