Week 17 of development for Cosmic Construct is now over. It hasn't been a very good week for me. Hopefully next week will be better.
Each week in these devlogs I cover the development goals set during the previous devlog post. As usual, you should wishlist Cosmic Construct on steam if you haven't already. I also post more regular updates on blueksy.
This week I had an medical issue come up which required me to go to the emergency room. I've been dealing with the pain and stress related to that, and it kind of derailed my whole week. Thankfully, after having a CT done, I now have an appointment with a gastroenterologist and hepatologist. The pain is being managed.
Despite this going on, there was much going on with Cosmic Construct that gets to go into the unplanned category.
Lets go over the planned work first.
Build Mode Structure Icons for New Buildings
Over the last two months there were a bunch of new structures added to the game which all need build mode icons. I've neglected these, and have been placeholding them with a magenta square. It took longer than I would like to admit to get these finished but the build mode menu now looks as wonderful as the rest of the UI.
9 New Jobs and Job Icons for Pawns
I didn't do any of the artwork for the new jobs. In fact, I realized I might need to make 18 new job icons, and have to do something else before working on the AI to do that.
Art for the Bank, Cartographer, Expeditioner, Greenhouse, Storehouse, and Surveyor structures.
I only got two of the 6 buildings drawn for a lack of trying, the Bank, and the Expeditioner. The Bank will be used by the player to hold and convert currencies without contributing to taking up storage space. The Expeditioner is an explorer which will obtain exotic items from nearby biomes.
This will also be adding 4 new materials to the game. Marble, Marble Slab, Granite, and Granite Slab.
Try to get 6-10 done and tested. (I keep saying this, but it's now a bottleneck to development.)
Any additional art that can get done.
Neither of these got touched as I didn't have extra time. Additionally, the 6-10 ranks are going to be replaced by a new objective system, based on feedback I keep getting about the game.
This week I did rather significant amount of unplanned work which ate into the development time I did set aside around the medical stuff.
/v/3
/v/3 is a game development showcase for indie devs put together from some people out of 4chan's /v/ideogame imageboard. It is a low-budget indie alternative to E3, and it's being done for fun /v/3 submissions open sometime next week, but I was invited to create assets for some of the community events early.
As part of the events, participants are asked to create a digital conference booth / kiosk. So I went ahead and got the art out of the way for that, instead of working on buildings.
Eventually, I need to set aside time to make a new trailer for /v/3, as the current steam trailer is too short to submit. Also, /v/3 requires new trailers to be made for the showcase.
Demo Day 61
Cosmic Construct also took part in /agdg/'s Demo Day 61, as I also submitted to DD60. This is a good opportunity to get feedback and testing done for the game. Most of the people who played Cosmic Construct during DD61 also did during the previous demo day. Managed to watch another stream from brimstonewalker, which gave some valuable feedback on QoL points that need to be worked on.
Options Bug
I uploaded a build to DD61 which contained a bug which caused the game not to run when running legacy options files. I has to rewrite how options file saving was handled entirely which took longer than I would have liked. People who played DD60 still had a legacy options file in localappdata. This would have effected the main game save file as well, if I didn't already change the filenames. I still have to fix this for save slot files.
Setting Up A Discord
I'm currently in the process of setting up a discord server exclusively for Cosmic Construct. This is not a terribly difficult thing to do. However, I want to make sure everything is good, and I have a moderation team in place before inviting a bunch of people in.
Objective System Rework
This is the big one. The objectives system currently in the game is bad. Its just not good. The idea of giving the player 10 specific tasks to complete to advance is unfun. It's linear, and causes the player to become an uncreative automaton. It needs to be opened up into a much larger "achievement point" driven system.
The game will still contain the same objectives, and tutorial objectives teaching about in game menus. The difference is that they will now all be accessible to the player from the beginning of the game. Many of the objectives will still be level restricted to prevent spoilers. The structures will also be level restricted, to prevent the player from being overwhelmed by the amount of structures in the build menu. Seeing new structures get added to the build menu is a good display of progression anyway.
The totem rank will now become a more esoteric feeling progression bar. Where the player can choose what they want to focus on to make easy achievement points.
Here is the work for the next week. It doesn't look like a lot, but the objectives system redesign is an enormous task. It might actually be the only thing that gets done. We will see.
- Redesign the objectives system (this is the priority task)
- Implement suggested quality of life features
- Finish structure art for the Cartographer, Greenhouse, Storehouse, and Surveyor (if I have time)
- Add the remaining pawn jobs to the pawn manager. (if I have time)
Thank you for being here during this tough week. Hopefully by the end of next week, Cosmic Construct will become its best self.