With testing off to a good start this month we have refocused our efforts into fixing issues that have arisen, adding a new haunt and refining the user interface. Initial testing of the client server pattern has gone well, mainly the issues that have been reported are superficial but there have been some serious ones that have arisen too.
Pre-Alpha Testing
Our Patreon testers overall have tested our server client logic vigorously and the separation of logic between player instances on the server is working as intended and has presented no issues so far, that has been great news, and great relief. However there have been a few things that have disconnected players, the ones that we know about have been fixed, and are awaiting to be pushed to the live tests soon.
A notable issue that has arisen though is the render textures we use for the character creation photo viewer and the camera viewer have caused continuous DirectX errors on specific gfx cards causing severe FPS spikes. We are currently trying to track down a resolution to this, as it is known to happen with this version of Unity.
The rest of the issues presented so far are superficial, and we have and will be fixing those on a lower priority, system and network issues get priority. Our ghost system is still very early in development but has been providing some interesting moments already for our testers. Ghost generation in its current state is working, and providing ghosts of different ages and with different appearances, this needs expanding though and the ghost does interact with objects around the haunt successfully.
Pre-Alpha Testing
Our Patreon testers overall have tested our server client logic vigorously and the separation of logic between player instances on the server is working as intended and has presented no issues so far, that has been great news, and great relief. However there have been a few things that have disconnected players, the ones that we know about have been fixed, and are awaiting to be pushed to the live tests soon.
A notable issue that has arisen though is the render textures we use for the character creation photo viewer and the camera viewer have caused continuous DirectX errors on specific gfx cards causing severe FPS spikes. We are currently trying to track down a resolution to this, as it is known to happen with this version of Unity.
The rest of the issues presented so far are superficial, and we have and will be fixing those on a lower priority, system and network issues get priority. Our ghost system is still very early in development but has been providing some interesting moments already for our testers. Ghost generation in its current state is working, and providing ghosts of different ages and with different appearances, this needs expanding though and the ghost does interact with objects around the haunt successfully.
No 3. Sycamore Close
Amityville Inspired House
User Experience/Interface
We have been working on new transitional screens as well. Intro/splash, loading, error and main menu screens are now implemented and or updated and have a nicer feel to them. We hope these upgrades make our testers feel like they are playing a game, more than just vigorous and mundane testing of basic functionality. This also means we have started work on the computer and the smartphone. The smartphone now populates its contact list with your Steam friends list. At the moment the game does not check for ownership of the game or online status but it will do eventually.
Ghosts
We are still in the thick of it with getting the ghosts fully functional, we are fixing a lot of things as we go as proper testing of the ghosts functionality is hard to do without our testers feedback. Because of how our ghosts and game works, getting them to perform their functionality outside their own thought loop is challenging, so we have implemented a developer menu so to speak to call ghost events specifically and on demand.
In terms of visuals we are lacking, simply because it is not a priority over getting their functionality right first, although there have been a few moments when even our lead developer has jumped in his seat at the ghosts shenanigans within the haunt. As always it’s a slow process but we are excited that our ghosts are generating at different ages with different appearances and are able to process actions when we add them, this is huge for us since it means we are that much closer to the content crunch stage, where we focus on adding rather than building.
Next Steps
When this developer log goes public, we will have already released our first major update for our Patron testers to test and hopefully soon will have a lot more feedback to work on. A portion of the next steps will be ironing out some issues and bugs with our new user interface direction and working more on getting the ghosts doing what they should be doing. We will be carrying on with trying to fix some of the more elusive and severe bugs that have popped up during our initial testing launch as well.
Through December we will also be working on getting player voice recognition and ghost audio to a point where players can start talking to the ghost, this includes certain equipment items having their functionality implemented, mainly the Spirit Box and the Parabolic Microphone. We are using a new form of vocal recognition called Whisper, this new way of voice recognition can not only discern words being spoken in different accents and with background noise but it can also discern whether those words being said are a question or in an exclaimed fashion, we are very excited to see what we can do with this.
Once again we want to thank everyone for sticking with us so far, we love you all and your support drives us more and more each week to deliver something truly great within this genre.