I finished the "Interlude I" level, internally called "Train station". It will be a part of an extended demo that should come soon.
To have it working I had to add a few things. Some were strictly game and content related, like the ability to move objects via game script. Some were more technical. At one point I was hitting a massive framerate drop due to too many rendered objects that shouldn't even be rendered. While in most cases portals do well when it comes to culling objects, in large open spaces I needed something else.
And as such spaces are going to be hand-crafted I decided to go with the simplest approach - predefined occlusion culling. I just define where the camera has to be to have it work and then I decide where objects have to be to not be rendered. All are defined with planes. To make it as lightweight as possible.
The new level required a few custom things. The general idea is to have as many stuff different in each level as possible. The corridors will be sort of the same. They will look different but they are still going to be just corridors. The plan is to add devices there but it's left to be done later.
Back to these custom things. They are partially background stuff. Cranes, big fake doors, cargo boxes laying around. While I wanted to have the big doors added to the Outer Rim level, I thought that I may add cranes there too. And cargo boxes.
Last weekend I did a few short playtests to see how people completely new to the game would play. The biggest problems are still navigation and getting energy. And replacing main weapons.
The first I addressed with an additional room right before the first junction that is made in such a way, that when you enter it, you see two doors in distance. One has a flashing symbol. The other does not. The second door leads to a dead end. If this fails, I will have to add a description.
To deal with the second I added a script to the first energy dispenser room that gives a few clues. If the player still has no idea, a more direct tip is provided. And then another one.
For the replacing weapons issue, I have a plan of having a simple gun to be found before the first combat encounter, so the player may replace the gun when it's safe. But before I add that, I first want to check how other changes may affect this problem.
And that other changes are related to the level's length and enemy you encounter. Currently, the level is quite hard. Especially if you play the game for the first time. I decided to have fewer enemies and Scourers (pineapple bots) are to be encountered only in the grey section at the very end of the level. This way they sort of work as minibosses.
There are now also fewer Barkers (robodogs).
And the whole level is shorter. I don't want people to be bored or discouraged in the first playable section. So the level may get even shorter or easier.
What now? I finished fixing some bugs and I'll be working on the next level, the train ride. There should be four new enemy types. Two regular ones, one flying and one special that may be still encountered in specific places.
A word about the extended demo. For this to happen I want to add another level, balance things and add OpenXR support, Steam integration and sliding locomotion. I will be implementing these while working on the levels.