This week I worked on grass and rivers. Initially I just wanted to automatically remove the grass when you build floors. But once I got that working, I got a bit carried away tidying up the grass code and added new grass types, as well as making grass highly configurable in scripts. That will allow mod authors to go nuts and make all sorts of different grasses and decorative ground textures for different biomes.

After that I completely re-wrote the river generation code. I want the rivers to be a transport network, so now they are placed in a sort of grid where you can use them to travel between big lakes. It will make for some more interesting game mechanics. I also added a sort of gravel biome which will be a good source of rocks near rivers and lakes.

Next week I might finally make it so you can place walls and roofs and build houses? We’ll see!