Sacha Barsa-Yuracko: Coding a Multiplayer Game: Terrafinity

Sacha Barsa-Yuracko spent this past January Short Term working on Coding a 3D block game, Terrafinity, using Zig coding language. Terrafinity, aptly named by combining Terrain and Infinity, allows players to create and explore their own block-based world, adjusting terrain and environment as they see fit.

Sacha first became interested in coding when __________________. January Short Term at Roycemore has provided the perfect opportunity to Sacha to dedicate his time and energy to his newfound passion. Sacha set out this JST to continue this project that has been a focus of his spanning for over a year dating back to last year's JST. He was inspired to create this game due to his love of Minecraft and the belief that he could create a game that would build on the elements of Minecraft that he loves, while improving on the areas of the game that he found limiting. 

A major pain point for Sacha has been the limited view distance for Minecraft. "Minecraft worlds are limited to 384 blocks high, so all mountains and terrain is extremely limited. Additionally, in Minecraft, maximum view distance is only about 512 blocks without modifications," Sacha explained. Terrafinity, directly addresses these issues, as Sacha created a world split into 32 by 32 by 32 cubic chunks, allowing it to be nearly infinite in all directions. 

Having already coded the main layout for Terrafinity over the previous year, these 3 weeks of January Short Term allowed Sacha to narrow his focus and spend time further improving the functionality of his game. This included creating a usable menu screen, where players can change settings and create new worlds to play in. In doing so, this presented a lot of problem solving opportunities for Sacha, as coding so often involves having to take a step back and think of everything that could be impacted by a single change.

When asked what he was most proud of for this JST, Sacha was quick to notice his growth as a coder and how that impacted the game's efficiency. "I am most proud of how I made my game much more usable during JST. You can now change most settings in the game, and can create multiple worlds. I am proud of how efficient my game is. It uses all of the cores on whatever computer it is running on and you can see terrain millions of times further away than in Minecraft."