I tried the "new" version of Minecraft just last night, and I wasn't really impressed. I couldn't figure out how to get a mine cart or even build land. The old version let me build as much as I want, which was boring in its own way, but the new version doesn't seem to let you build at all. Sure, you can move objects, but you can't add objects or change their color or anything like that.

I miss playing Sauerbraten (Cube2) and building really awesome levels. Later, we'd play those levels in deathmatch mode. I miss sliding down portal-filled race courses and avoiding lava pits. I miss making giant game consoles in the sky and having them spark and smoke in various spots. I miss playing Sauerbraten.

Minecraft had its nice points, though. I don't know exactly what all of them were, but I did like some of the stuff I saw in videos. The mine cart was what I wanted to try, after all. I wish the game gave more direction and explained what you're supposed to do.

My first submission, "I am Frog", featured a crude but functional tilesheet system used for rendering text from the following: text array, bitmap font (font made as an image), and base image/frame. It was great for a dialogue box, and it had all the basic features of a sprite engine.

I cloned this script to a new file, modified it greatly (eventually starting over), and I developed a sprite loader which does the following:

1. loads a tileset image as a sprite
2. determines how wide and tall each sprite in the image is
3. crops the image into a visible sub-image, showing only one tile at a time
4. allows me to use simple methods to control animation and direction
5. allows as big of an image as I want for each sprite
6. automatically handles direction and animation by default

This is similar to a blitting engine, and in my opinion, it surpasses a blitting engine in some ways. It is inspired mostly by RPG Maker, which allows you to use tiled sprites on an image as your character graphics. Now, I can do the same in Flash or anything that supports AS3.

Now, I have both a text engine and a sprite engine. Next, I need a tiles engine with collision detection and dynamic objects. Then, I need a system to control the NPCs in a natural way. You know, dialogue, sets of actions, the good ol' RPG Maker stuff.

I'm not sure how I'll implement the dialogue or action systems, and I'm unsure what kind of tiles engine I'll need. This will all have to wait until I have a good idea what I'm making. I also want to try forming a team to lighten the workload.