Greetings everyone!
We've been hard at work getting Mansion At Midnight ready for its launch this October into Early Access here on Steam. Our first hurdle was learning how to use and implement Unity's Mirror asset into the game and allow peer-to-peer multiplayer (via IP address to start)
I'll admit there was definitely a learning curve. Once Don started to get the hang of how Mirror identified and arranged its systems, he began fitting the existing game objects with "online versions" something that at first Mirror was a bit confused by. Most games nowadays are only online or only offline. Seeing as MAM is *both* there was not a lot of information on how to organize game functions. Which of course meant Don adapted, and figured it out with trial and error, and sorting his own game functions, both online and offline, in a way that made Mirror happy.
The long and the short of it is, this process took lots of time but through hard work and dedication, Don was able to achieve the multiplayer gameplay we were looking for.
This video below shows some gameplay footage of multiple players moving on screen, switching items, and picking up items a huge step in the right direction for development.
Now that we have taken the time to adjust our feet and begin putting our best foot forward - here are a few of the next steps we'll be taking to complete the multiplayer mode of MAM.
- Player death and respawn
- Player shout location ping
- Player damaging enemies
- Update player models and animations
- Update and add enemy models and variants
- Create the Haunt Manager
- Monster abilities and transformations
- 2nd pass on all particle effects and audio
- Objective UI
- Testing and debugging
There are also various additional tweaks and adjustments not listed, but hopefully you are starting to get an idea and a roadmap for the game. We hope you all enjoy these weekly updates and are looking forward to being a part of the development process!
Don't forget you can share and talk all things Mansion At Midnight on our Discord, and I may post my model sculpt WIPs there as well in the future!
Thanks for reading!
- Meg (and Don) Game Grotto Development Team