Welcome back to The Great Circle! Since Dev Blog #1, TGC has released 8 significant updates and patches. Towards the end of April, I discovered a serious bug that required me to stop updating and do a comprehensive audit of the entire game code. Thankfully the the flaw was found and removed, and I'm now ready to resume releasing new updates.
THE APRIL BUG...
Best practices ensure that TGC updates are tested at several stages before releasing on steam. Most flaws go unnoticed by players, and are so minor that they are often accepted as part of the ongoing early access development process, but every once in a while (1-2 a year for TGC) a truly game-braking bug is discovered. One day a player updates their game and suddenly cant even launch it. That qualifies as a very serious bug, but how does something that bad even make it so far onto steam? The April bug was of a variety I call phantoms. Phantom bugs don't trip any of the automated alarms, they don't get in the way of in-editor testing, and they don't prevent final renders or packaging of the game onto steam. They are basically invisible and well-behaved all the way until the game is launched from steam. The only solution? Audit the game's code top to bottom, until you find the problem. Yep, full audits are like looking for a needle in a haystack. Depending on the size of a game that can be practically impossible. Indie games often collapse under the sheer size of what they've created, and even AAA games usually have strict budgets and deadlines, so management will pull the plug or shelve projects for years if they hear "invisible bug" or "full audit". Anyway, this was TGC's 3rd phantom bug in 2 years. The full audit took about a month and a half working full time. Done. Good riddance. Back to business.
DIRECTION
I want you to be there, in Africa. To be present inside every moment in The Great Circle. And to know that your survival is impacted by everything you can see and hear. I want your immersion to be effortless, built on the foundation that nothing in TGC is meaningless, and that your chances of survival are in constant flux.
IMMERSION
I want each player to see the wildlife and flora and immediately feel present inside a living breathing world. In order to guarantee this experience, TGC focuses on an environment full of sentient NPCs instead of multiplayer servers populated only by role-players. I am also working on co-op and multiplayer modes, but these modes will be treated as addons to an already living environment.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Significant time goes into programing AI. Each creature is independently capable of navigating the world and making decisions that are in the interest of its own survival. I'm continuing to expand the lives of NPC animals & humans within Survival by adding more activities that can be clearly observed by the player and also the aftermaths of such activities which leaves a clear impact on the environment which can also be observed (Example: Elephants pushing down tress while foraging, poachers leaving behind litter after spending the night in an area). Another cool application of ai has been the idea that the entire world could be given intelligence, not just the creatures within it. A sort of artificial God I've been calling Duara.
DUARA
Duara is the AI that initializes and observes the world. Weather, the season, situational music, and ecosystem health are few aspects within Duara's control. Once the game starts the rest is up to the creatures and the player. Duara mostly just observes the player and thousands of NPCs, and uses the info to classify each region's overall health in real-time. In the future, Duara will have more control, and will provide lifetime player stats, tutorial info, and occasional active intervention via difficulty settings.
MACHINE LEARNING
NPCs with unique lives and the ability to observe conditions in their environment and respond in a way that best suits their survival is the future. But a lot of what's happening with animals and humans goes unnoticed without visual cues for the player; so in addition to working on the ability to learn, I'm working on ways the NPCs can communicate their mood and activities, both to each other, and to players. First clearly, and then naturally.
HERBIVOUR GAMEPLAY
I will be improving the general experience of surviving as a herbivore by expanding the set of daily activities expected to keep a healthy lifestyle(gameplay loop), and to increase the range of interactions NPCs of the same species can have with the player.
CARNIVOUR GAMEPLAY
This month I will also be working on the release of a playable carnivore for the demo. I'm excited to work on passive eating for baby and juvenile carnivores. Opportunities to snag up bugs as you look for real meat that you may yet be too small or too slow to hunt, seems like a fine beginner way to learn how and where to hunt prey.
HUMAN GAMEPLAY
There is so much to do. Humans are a godsend. Every animal playthrough will be better due to their presence, and they are the main reason for TGC being at least 5x bigger than if it was just an animal survival game. Without people you just can't tell the whole story of what happens in the wild; as well as what the ramifications of human environmental impact in the world.
MAP & ENVIRONMENT
This month I will continue to fill out TGC's massive map with new named locations, and biomes. Recently I added Mt. Nefti and the surrounding jungle in the south east region, a new southern marsh in the south savannah region, and the first elephant graveyard for players to discover. The larger mountain ranges further south are under development, as well as The God Lands to the North East.
GRAPHICS & VISUAL FIDELITY
"Raw & cinematic" is the visual direction of TGC. I'm sticking close to my filmmaking roots, prioritizing natural light and minimal color grading. I want everything to look real and dirty. TGC should always feel like you're in a documentary or movie. I'm also optimistic about how the game will scale to mobile devices; I believe i'll have some previews to show soon.
Blood & Gore
Predators carrying and fighting over severed limbs. Guts spilling out of bloated rotting carcasses. These gruesome sights and more will convey the harsh reality of survival in the natural world. Currently the bodies do a decent job of rotting over time.
Dirt & Grunge
Dirt, Dust, & mud that can buildup on the fur/skin of animals/humans and that can be washed off at watering holes or during rain. Skin patches depending on overall health, and ticks and parasites that can be groomed away. These features play directly to the raw and realistic nature of TGC, and so these are a high priority in development.
LORE
More and more, elements from story mode are seeping into survival mode (kind of as Easter eggs). The animals are getting names soon, legendary characters will appear in special areas with boosted stats. Keeping the rest secret for now.
SOUND DESIGN & MUSIC
For a true immersive experience everything must have purpose. Every gust of wind. Every rustle in the bush. My goal is to tie everything that is observable into the survival experience. No fake or generated sounds. No spawns.
Our situationally driven music is all about timing, so I'm working on improving the timing/triggers of combat, starvation, migration, and birth-giving, and many more situations. Duara will help with this.
PERFORMANCE & OPTIMIZATION
The April bug unfortunately caused some lingering complications that I'm still fixing, so for some GPUs you may have gained a little, lost a little, or remained the same from the previous update. IF you lost performance, don't worry, It's my top focus, and doing that audit made me realized more ways I can optimize the game (coming asap). In the meantime, if you experience lag, try turning your shadows down to low, followed by view distance. Only touch render scale as a last resort.
DEV STREAMS
I'll be answering your questions about TGC during livestreams, subscribe below to be notified. TGC also multi streams to YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, and Twitter.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLF-4x7d3YRvF54TdOwpW0A
https://www.twitch.tv/thegreatcircle_game
https://www.facebook.com/thegreatcirclegame
https://twitter.com/thegreatcircle3
GAME MODES
Survival demo will soon include more unlocked playable characters. 1carnivore, 1herbivore, 1human is the plan
NVIDIA GEFORCE NOW
TGC will soon be available on Nvidia's GeForce Now cloud gaming service. So if you currently struggle with performance issues (lag) or want to play TGC on a device that is not yet fully supported (eg. Mac, Linux, Mobile) this service allows you to stream a game directly to the device you do have, or via chrome browser.
RELEASE OF EARLY ACCESS (Steam)
TBA
CONCLUSION
Thanks for reading! The process of developing TGC has been and continues to be a pure pleasure. Let me know if you have any questions!
TJ