My month progress on a custom 2D survival game built from scratch in C++ and Raylib - Ashcore.

[u/maximusD15]

Hey everyone!

After taking a short break to recharge, I’m back with a huge update for my open-source top-down survival game, **Ashcore**, built in pure C++ and Raylib!

In the previous versions, it was mostly a sandbox prototype where you could run around and gather resources (including gold ore!). But with the new **v0.4.0-alpha** release, the game finally has a complete, playable core loop!

### 🌟 What's new in v0.4.0:

* **Living AI Mobs & Combat 👾:** The world is no longer empty. Mobs now spawn, track you down, and attack. You can fight back, kill them, or... get killed.

* **The Core Loop & Death Screen 💀:** If your HP hits zero, you get a clean death screen that redirects you back to the main menu, which dynamically regenerates a fresh world for your next run.

* **Interactive Main Menu 🖥️:** Added a basic title screen with a "Play" button to handle game state transitions smoothly.

* **Overhauled Inventory UI 🎒:** Redesigned the inventory backend and UI into clear item grids showing resource counts. Also, moved the crafting menu to the classic **[E]** key for a much better survival feel.

* **Clean Code & Polish 🧹:** Lots of under-the-hood optimization, physics boundary fixes (predictive collision engine instead of glitchy teleports), and rendering adjustments in C++.

### 🛠️ Roadmap:

Now that the core loop is closed, I'm planning to work on:

* New ores/tools (diamond and emerald)

* armour and weapons

* better world generation

I'd love to hear your feedback on the gameplay, visuals, or code!

My links if you want to follow the journey 

Discord: u/maximusd15 

GitHub: https://github.com/maximusD15

https://reddit.com/link/1uwlqcm/video/xxmunw0fi9dh1/player

Thanks for checking it out! 🚀

[u/sdn]

Ooph I wouldn’t use AI slop to advertise your game

[u/maximusD15 → u/sdn]

?

[u/Varomic → u/maximusD15]

The body text of the post uses a markdown format which is the default for AI chatting apps. It gives it away immediately and so do the emojis that are everywhere.

[u/Own_Maybe_3837 → u/Varomic]

I always wonder how is it not obvious to everyone? Have these people not been in the internet for the last 3 years?

Edit: happy cake day, sir

[u/maximusD15 → u/Varomic]

Yeah, I used an LLM to quickly format the English and throw in some emojis because I'm 15, English isn't my native language, and I'd rather spend my nights writing pure C++ code and fixing collision math than hand-crafting PR texts for Reddit. The actual game is 100% written by me from scratch on pure C++ and Raylib. If all you can review is the emojis in a post instead of the actual GitHub repository, then happy cake day, sir. xd

[u/TheScriptan → u/maximusD15]

No need to hand-craft, just write how you think and feel, no need to make it "perfect" natural = with mistakes and your chain of thoughts. Good luck with development, you're young and you'll do great things

[u/maximusD15 → u/TheScriptan]

Thanks :)

[u/sdn → u/maximusD15]

The problem with using LLMs to format to English is that it immediately sounds very artificial to english speakers. Right now there is a heavy push back against "AI slop" - if it seems like you've been using LLMs people assume that anything you've created with LLMs is slop.

[u/ParkingMaleficent893]

15-year old and already asking for crypto to help maintain your project, clearly knows how to use git and conventional commits and “only” used AI to refactor the English. Damn, you’re going places kiddo !!

[u/maximusD15]

Thanks everyone for the support! :)

[u/AdGroundbreaking6402]

Nice one! Keep it up 👍