As I stated in one of the previous posts, in the past few months I've worked on a part of the game that includes several mini-games. To implement these mini-games I had to write a lot of code, but it was quite fun!
In one of these mini-games, you're asked to use a hoverboard (a hovering skateboard, like the one from Back to the Future), so I jumped at the opportunity to include it in normal gameplay.
In the previous iteration of Ternion (you can find it here, it was nothing more than a tech demo, but it's free, so you can download it if you want!) there was something exactly like this, but it was implemented quite poorly... it just increased the character's speed. It was planned for this version as well, but I didn't know when or how to make it available to the player. And I genuinely even kind of forgot about it... Umh...
So you can now use it anytime?
Well, yes and no. A lot of people commented that the areas you can explore are too big, so I initially considered making it purchasable on the first planet, so it would make exploring a bit less tedious. But then I reconsidered it, for these reasons:
Players who had already started the game could have "missed" the opportunity to buy one, so to overcome this problem I would have to add one to every planet in the game until at least Metra (the last planet you can explore right now).
I prefer players to spend their credits on abilities and items in the early game. Adding it from the beginning would give players a strong temptation to "waste" money on something that isn't as useful as everything else.
The only alternative would be making it free or giving it to players automatically from the beginning of the game, but I prefer having it as a purchasable item. I still remember how much I craved new vehicles in other games when I was younger, and the moment you finally obtained one was priceless. It was often quite useless, but I felt a lot of "power" in my hands! Sorry... I'll stop being romantic.
You will be able to purchase one in the city of Jeggar on planet Metra. Or... you need to complete one of the three challenges particularly well. But it's kind of hard, to be honest. I never managed to obtain it that way myself.
How does it work?
Whenever you're controlling your character, you can spawn it by pressing the Left Stick button or the R* key if you're using a keyboard. It will automatically disappear if a cutscene starts or you interact with an NPC, but you can spawn it again anytime.
I think the animation is quite nice, innit?
How much is left before the next update is released?
I'm cooking. Unfortunately, I appeared to be quite a bit too ambitious when I planned the events that happen on Metra, so it's taking a lot of time, but I still plan to release the update around the end of summer or early autumn (sorry, people from the Southern Hemisphere: I should've just said September/October), as I mentioned in one of the previous posts. If things take longer than originally planned, I'll make sure to post a few more updates to keep you informed about the progress of the development.
With that said... I think we're done for today. Thanks for reading! Cheers!
* R stands for "vehicular device", or if you want "aeroboard"