Hello Neyyah adventurers!
It's been a while since I've stepped foot into the Neyyah Steam dev update realm ... So much has been taking place in the development world of Neyyah. So much. A lot of work, particularly, in the Visionaire Studio 5 engine - which is progressing very nicely, and faster than expected!
As well as retouches taking place in the world of Neyyah, I have also been able to incorporate more interior scenes, which is always fun to see come together within the Neyyah world. And ... linking animations between these locations: doorways, opening and closing, strange levers and buttons being pressed ... and inventory too!
The game menu opened at the top of the screen (with a click of ESC) with the inventory item activated upon cursor entering the stone slab icon
Inventory opened - a transparent background enabling player to see their items (enlarging when cursor goes across the item) while also feeling present and connected to the scene they're currently within, keeping the sense of immersion within the game world
Neyyah brings more inventory fun to its gameplay. While being inspired by Riven, my love for other point n clickers such as Broken Sword, The Longest Journey, and Dragon Lore II definitely shines through a lot in this element of the game. I find being able to pick up items and using them in the game world enriches the immersion factor a lot, as you're actually interacting with the environment. You learn about the world of Neyyah. In the process, you get to use the items from Neyyah, too, and work out why and where they should be used :)
YY
There has been a recent feature added to the game. While skipping animations is nothing new in the world of Neyyah - executed with a right click anywhere on the screen when you see an animation (be it anything from a door opening or a full journey mode animation, such as climbing up a ladder or down some stairs) and now a more refined skip for smaller animations, particularly button presses - you can now skip animations with the notification of a cursor change.
Full size raw render of Skip cursor:
Scaled edited in game Skip cursor:
Early skip animation cursor design - using the default neutral cursor design:
Originally it was just the game's default cursor which would appear while an animation played, but I thought it would be more useful to have some sort of visual key to let the player know you can skip any animation that occurs within the game.
The great thing about the Skip cursor is that while it does indicate to the player that you can skip an animation, the player has control over it as a cursor. The player can drag it away to the side of the screen if they feel it will distract them to much from the animation playing - it isn't a static button which appears on the screen once an animation plays, and is very quick to skip animations upon a right click, too.
In this dev log, I explore the implementation of animations using conditions within Visionaire, from closing to opening a 'mysterious case' within the game, plus introducing the skip animation upon another scene (from 9mins 22seconds onwards ...)
Another great example of the skip cursor being used to skip animations is the following scene: opening and closing a door in another scene. It shows the animation in action, and then upon skipping the animations, shows how instantaneous the skip is. (Meanwhile, journey mode animations have a nice fade effect, which creates the feeling that you have still traversed through the scene).
Here are a couple or so screenshots I've taken from the Visionaire Studio 5 game engine, which demonstrates the process of implementing the skip feature:
1. Upon opening the door, the 'animation playing for door open' condition is made true, and this brings up a hotspot across the entire scene which has the skip cursor set, and a left click action which then hides the animation playing (in this case: door opening). I have also set one up for close door animation too.
The main reason behind this particular hotspot being true, and covering the entire screen is that it also cancels out every other interactive hotspot in the scene, such as turning right or left, etc.
2. The way most animations play within Neyyah through the system I have generated in Visionaire, is there's an ending 'opened' or 'activated' image (for instance, the door being open, which is basically the last frame of the animation) and upon opening the door, while also playing the animation, it sets the open door image condition to true, showing the door being opened. However, upon the skip animation, the animation skips, but if it doesn't run straight to the open door image it skips back to the underlying original door closed state, then flicks to the open state, so I had to get straight to that true condition after the animation skips:
3. Here is the open door image, which has its own condition (made true upon the open door action, becoming true after the animation is played OR upon the skip action, after the animation is hidden). This is the scene which the skip animation ends on, which the skip cursor creates upon that right click when you don't want to watch that door animation again. The reverse happens for the close animation!
YY
Hope you enjoyed this update, adventurers! I will be looking at delving more into another Neyyah gameplay mechanic soon called Faster Travel, which is an option the player can enable or disable at any point in the game - a zip mode, to get around faster within the game world! This will also require a new cursor, too, so stay tuned!
Have a great rest of the week, everyone!
- Aaron Gwynaire / Defy Reality Entertainment