Hello and welcome to this installation of Dysplaced Dev Diary. Today, we are going to examine some of the new destruction possibilities available in the game and some other fun stuff we have been cooking up since the last one. But before all that, we will discuss the Early Access release schedule.
Initially, we aimed to release the EA version on Steam at the end of 2024, but that was always an optimistic target. After reviewing our progress, we've adjusted the target to 2025. While we can’t give a hard promise, the first half of the following year looks favorable as a target. We will keep you posted. Thank you for your patience and support!
Destruction
As fans of Dysmantle know, destroying things is fun, and destroying buildings is even more fun! With the advent of multi-storied buildings and roofs, it became apparent that the old destruction system wasn’t up to snuff and had to be developed further. Earlier, we used a simple “parent-child” system for situations where, for example, you had stuff like plates on a table. This ensured that the plates would be destroyed when you destroyed the table. While the system is still in use today for simple interactions, it is not well suited for structural calculations of a two-story building. We did some tests early on to check for viability, and it took me something like 20 minutes to do the parenting for a small house. It's not the best use of my time, to be honest.
The new system automatically checks for walls, structural supports, and roofs above floor bases. So when you start destroying walls under it, the roof or upper floors will be destroyed piece by piece. Some of these floor bases will be intangible and invisible, working as helper objects to extend the behavior to structures without precise floor levels, such as walls with walkways and other smaller structures.
Do note that in the GIF I have removed the transparency from the roof you would have when inside the houses to better visualize what happens to the structure. I also wield a dev axe that destroys everything in one hit to save your valuable time. Visuals aren't also final so if some particle effects seem weird, that is why.
There are some limitations to destructability, however. When demolishing a multi-story building, you must start from the top floor and work your way down. This includes smashing any furniture left on the upper floors as well. In short, this approach worked the best and had the fewest possible issues downstream.
In this GIF I turned the roof hiding on. It will likely have a slight fade-out time in the final version.
Also, not everything will be destructible in the world. As we did previously, some walkways and pathways necessary for the player to traverse the game world will remain invulnerable. Most likely, houses inhabited by NPC characters will also remain indestructible. You are a hero, supposed to help these people, after all.
Daylight
It is exceedingly complex to find a good word for light that starts with “D.” Anyhow, I wanted to talk about improvements to our lighting in the engine and all the shots are from night time. Sorry. Previously, we had a hard limit on how many lighting objects could be in a single chunk (the map consists of square-shaped chunks; not all chunks are loaded simultaneously, only those nearest to the player). Typically, our lighting setup had one directional light, simulating sunlight and perhaps some glowing objects every now and then. Now, we can use more lighting objects per chunk, with the only limit being performance. This allows for more varied ambient lighting and enables us to use lighting to create a certain mood for any given place. Some objects of interest will have slight lighting objects to draw your eye, while some areas of nature will have complementary lights. It is all stimulating and, above all, looks fantastic.
We also know that some of our fans use older hardware, so we have categorized lighting objects into essential and non-essential. This means that only strictly necessary lights can be shown if need be for the health of your computer or device.
Distance
A common complaint with Dysmantle was the lack of view distance, which made some players feel claustrophobic. We have been tweaking our engine and are experimenting with farther distances. While this example won’t likely be the end result, it should give some idea of what it should look like. Performance issues must be considered, so unfortunately, for some devices, the camera will inevitably end up closer to ground
Drumsticks
Last but not least, we added chickens. It always bugged me that although the player found a lot of eggs in Dysmantle, there weren’t any egg-laying animals around besides vultures. You will most likely run into a chicken in villages where they reside by a coop and produce eggs at intervals. Of course, there will be wild chicken as well. White meat can be acquired by slaying chickens, which will allow for meat-based meals other than those made from red meat.
That is that, until next time. I will leave you with some more night time beauty shots.
-Haz
