Weekly Changelog: v0.116
It's been another very good week for Sinking Eternity! The whole Early Access game world is now built, and I am currently working on making each biome as unique and beautiful as possible.
Better shadows/lighting in-game:
I worked a lot on upgrading the underwater shadows/lighting this week, and I really like the result.
It really upgrades the visuals and makes things more natural.
I also uploaded a new version of the demo, with these upgrades:
-Added more level design in the distance past the demo walls, especially when going towards the robotic signal.
-Did some more basic level design upgrades to the shallow waters
-Improved the campfire model
-Improved the crafting station model
-Improved the basic bed model
-Modified the Basic Bed quest so it requires padding from the cryopod instead of filament, to make the quest more unique
-The game now cancels building placement if the player goes underwater when it's a land-only building
-Added pretty cool lightning/thunder to the future era
-Improved the rain in the future era to make it more chaotic
-Reduced the analysis glow strength of the Moldarax in the Future Era
-Made sure the first chest piece (Cryosuit) gets wet and soaked if the player goes under rain, as it's the only suit in-game that is not water resistant
-Updated the in-game FAQ with the new core feature of "Repairing the Future"
-Removed the roadmap from the FAQ, as things change too fast to be able to have a stable 3-6 months roadmap for now
-Improved the skill gain text from new area discoveries popup to make it more visible
-Added a headlamp in-game for darker areas. It's not possible to acquire the headlamp in the demo area, but I still added the "Light" key in the key mapping menu and a popup when the key is pressed explaining that the player doesn't have the headlamp yet.
-Added better spawn behavior to the school of fish and ambient solo fish
-Added more fish schools
-Stopped fish schools from moving when the player opens menus
-Made sure fish don't spawn too close to the surface of the water
-Prevented the Umbrox (larger fish in the starting area) X and Z angles from rotating, as it was causing some issues when it bumped into the player
-Added more mass to some larger fish to prevent them from being pushed around too much
-Improved the ambient volumetric fog code so it doesn't spawn in/out of the regions where the player currently is
-Bug fix: The player was able to swim without slowing down on the water surface when encumbered. This is now fixed, and the player will now properly sink like a rock if encumbered :)
-Bug fix: The swim acceleration sound was playing in some menus while using a gamepad. This is now fixed.
-Bug fix: Made sure the Umbrox doesn't swim up too much, as it sometimes tried to get out of the water
-Bug fix: Fixed how games are saved and loaded in the future era