It's been a while since I posted an update here, but I've made some good progress in the past year so I thought I'd share! Progress has been slow due to university and a lack of motivation, but the game is still coming along little by little.
Graphical Improvements
Since the Worldbuilder trailer last year, I have done major work on the game's visuals.
Tiles
I have redesigned terrain tiles to fade to black deeper in the terrain. I found this makes the visuals more readable and the tiles themselves appear to have more depth. This also opens it up to have silhouettes of decorations in the foreground.
Backgrounds
Not much has changed with the existing distant backgrounds, though I have added a new one for a new area - the Toxic Caverns. I have greatly improved support for background objects, including many quality of life features in the level editor to make them easier to work with. One major issue before was they would interfere with selecting foreground objects. I fixed this by adding 3 modes to the worldbuilder: Tilemap mode allows you to edit the tilemaps, Object mode lets you modify sandbox objects, and Background mode lets you modify background objects. You can no longer interact with objects in one mode from the other, allowing you to ignore the background when placing and moving interactive objects, and vice versa.
Clicking on an object now selects the frontmost object, and clicking multiple times without moving the mouse will cycle through overlapping objects. This makes interacting with the editor much more intuitive.
Lighting and Effects
The lighting has been updated to look much better. I have added basic normal maps to tiles, making them respond to the direction light shines on them. This adds depth and can break up the repetition in the tilemaps, and can respond nicely to moving light sources. I have also cranked up the brightness and range of all the light sources, which even on its own vastly improves the appearance of the game.
One of the coolest new graphical effects are the new essences. Those fuzzy glows that appear when something exists in the other dimension can now take on many shapes, and respond to the player's location. Tile and object essences now blend into each other, helping to bridge the gap between tiles and objects.
I also redesigned the Rupture portal effects. Again. This final iteration is my favorite by far, and will likely make it into the final game.
UI and Gameplay
I have overhauled the design of the interface, making it look metallic and increasing the contrast. It now has sounds when you interact with it, giving even more feedback while you use it and reducing the awkward silence of the Worldbuilder. Oh, and- it can now be navigated with a controller.
Controller Support
This brings me to my next point: Controller support! I have done a ton of work on controller support, and you can now navigate menus and perform all gameplay actions on a controller. The system supports all major controllers, including the Xbox, Switch Pro, Dual Shock, and other generic gamepads. While I have not tested it, combined with Linux build support the game *should* be able to run on a Steam Deck now. Adding support for these new input devices required me to create sprites for every button on each controller, as well as generic ones for other controllers. I also made icons for all North American keyboard keys, as well as extra mouse buttons. These input icons can all be integrated nicely into the text system, being swapped out on the fly depending on your input device. All inputs can be rebound, even on controller, allowing players to pick the most comfortable control scheme for them.
Other Changes
I have rewritten all the player scripts to be more maintainable. This means less bugs, and easier programming on my end. I spent a few weeks finalizing player movement and ability values, so I can really start to dig into the level design of the main game.
I started working on the dialogue system. It existed before, but was extremely basic and hard to work with. Now, dialogue will be made in the worldbuilder, allowing players to add stories to their worlds. More work is needed, but it's a solid start, and should help drive me towards implementing the story in the main game.
Of course, progress has been made on the main game, and the first two areas, Delta Facility and The Lost Mines are entirely blocked out, and have entrances to the surrounding areas. Still a ways to go on level design, but it's getting there bit by bit.
Augmentations
Saving the best for last, I have begun prototyping the augmentation system! I decided to simplify it drastically from my original idea, as that was too convoluted and clunky to implement in a way that was fun to interact with. The new system is inspired by Paper Mario's badges and Hollow Knight's charms, but with a twist: Augmentations can be overclocked.
Augmentations take the form of chips that can be found throughout the world. These chips can be slotted into a limited number of sockets, which can also be found in the world. Chips can do many things, from increasing dash speed to increasing energy regeneration to summoning a probe to fight for you.
Overclocking Cores are mini-chips found throughout the world, and can be slotted into regular chips. Overclocking takes the existing effect of a chip and improves it, but at a cost. For instance, you can dash even faster but it becomes harder to control. You can fall very fast but take fall damage. My personal favorite that I've come up with, you can hold double the energy, but being at max energy for too long makes the chip explode, damaging the player and becoming unusable until it is fixed. I intend to be very generous with the positive effects and very devious with the negative ones, to hopefully make building augmentation setups fun.
That's about it for this development update, thanks for reading this far! There has of course been more miscellaneous progress in the meantime, but most of it is much less exciting.
If you want to keep up with development, I post regular progress updates in the Ruptured discord server, linked here: https://discord.gg/YvW2qBfj5C
Until next time, have a good night!