Hello all,
Been a while since there has been consistent updates here. I've been posting small amounts of updates and screenshots on twitter lately but nothing with enough meat to post here.
I'm going to summarise where some of the elements of the game have been changing.
Level Generation
Over the past week or so I've been spending a lot of time working on and testing all of the basic scenes in the games while making sure the saving/loading/death states persist properly. This is key for most of the game as the more that I add the more complicated it will be to come back and troubleshoot issues. I also had to spend some time reworking how the seed generation was working to make sure the levels are constant. The scaling of the level generation is also a lot more flexible and can be used to make additional states when doing runs. Small Note: I wanted to avoid having a double loading screen because it normally drives me nuts but things were getting unnecessarily complicated trying to split it up and keep everything the same.
Enemies
I reworked parts of how the enemy attack system would function to allow for more flexibility. After this I was able to add 2 more standard enemies and I'm seriously arguing about designing a few more smaller ones for variety. Basic boss mechanics are functional with the new attack system and properly pulled into the overall game flow properly.
Puzzles
I have a handful of basic puzzle systems created and gone through small scale testing. Right now the puzzle system has been removed from the level generation in order to clear basic functionality. I also know based on some of my other changes to the load/save system that some re-work will be needed here to ensure generation is consistent with puzzles.
UI Rework
I spent some time re-working and tuning some common UI elements like the main menu and the map in the inventory screen. All screens prepared for full HD output. I also redid my retro monochrome shader because I wasn't happy with the old result.
Weapons
All of the weapons went through a few days of tweaking both functional and visual elements. The damage/cooldown/ammo count were all tweaked as well as particle systems, sound and trailing effects to make them all unique. I'm still arguing about coming up with additional weapons and adding them in. Maybe a kind of mine launcher? or some kind of ricochet based weapon?
Existing Systems Completed:
- Full basic inventory has been created (with assets). Weapons, Usable Items (health), Keys, Weapon mods, Special equipment
- 8 Separate floor "themes" (ie: Factory vs Gallery vs Greenhouse) each with their own room assets
- Main character designs and animations (male and female) each have multiple skins that can be unlocked (still need to do unlock system. Right now it's all unlocked by default)
- Common area (no functionality other than starting a run)
- A handful of videos have been pre-viz'd but are a long way from completion. I am arguing about not doing fully rendered CG movies and instead have screenshots with sound/voices overtop that shift.
- Weapon modding system (during run)
- Game world event timeline
Outside of all of the above the game is in a state where you can:
- Launch the game
- Either start a new game or load an existing game
- Go through intro cinematic
- Go through tutorial area
- Enter Breach Research Labs (BRL)
- Interact with deployment computer and begin a run
- "Play" through the 3 main floors
- Enter and fight/defeat single Boss
- Return to BRL
At any of the above states the user can save and exit to re-load their existing position/inventory/health. The player can also die which will restart them in their current area (and will alter the save) but this hasn't been 100% tested since making newer changes.
Anyway I hope for more updates soon :)
