A sandbox survival game set in outer-space, I used Habitat to try my hand at engine development. I used the Lightweight Java Game Library’s OpenGL bindings to get a better understanding of how rendering works on a lower level. With these frameworks, I created a sprite based isometric rendering engine. The engine featured tile based lighting, which could support many dynamic light sources at once. I also wrote all the code for input handling, scene loading, particles, file serialization, and audio management.
Habitat featured procedurally generated star systems with unique names, atmospheres, and surface features.
Planetary surfaces were created procedurally from isometric tiles. A day-night cycle is also featured in the video below.
Brian Ostrander 