Hello all! It's a day late, but it's time for this month's monthly update.
This month was pretty busy. I've got a lot done with the game, and still have much to do before release.
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Steam
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I've been working on behind the scenes stuff with Steam, such as the store page, internal stuff such as builds and services. I've got the page done for the most part.
I've been adding achievements and polishing trading cards/wallpapers. Those are done now, but I plan to add about 5 more achievements before release to total 16 achievements for Early Access launch.
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Graphical Improvements
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I've been polishing the look of the game, I spent quite a bit of money to get a really nice screen-space ambient occlusion effect to replace Unity's standard SSAO effect. Runs much nicer, and eliminates a few bugs with the standard one. Those fixes allow for VERY large render distances. I went from max of ~1800, to 30,000.
I've added new graphics options such as billboard distance (very laggy at max settings, may remove as it will not work. thanks unity, its as if rendering thousands of full-scale objects at once), I increased tree distance, so it looks nicer.
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User Interface
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Worked on the UI a bit over this month, changed some HUD text so it's easily visible, and changed the visor outline to be less obtrusive. Changed some main menu stuff around as well.
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Networking
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I optimized network code a little bit, so it is less intense on the clients joining, and the server host. I've also fixed a few network bugs, such as a huge desync issue, and a client join/disconnect/rejoin bug for multiplayer.
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Map Updates
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I've definitely spent a lot of time with the map in the past week or so. I've added a lot of buildings, details and more. I've polished the map in certain areas and optimized it in others.
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Content
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I've been adding some content too. Got a few new models for guns and such. I've implemented food, guns (made by /u/middlefingerboss ), and other things. I've been thinking about removing food, and replacing it with a health pack. I might remove the health part of the UI, move it above the hotbar, and make it into an actual red bar. Removing the thirst system. Tempted to take the hunger system, combine it with the thirst system to make a nutrition stat. You can increase nutrition with the health packs, and the water packs. This will then increase your health when your nutrition is high enough.
Closing Thoughts
Overall, this month was extremely productive. The game is extremely polished, but still has a few kinks which I intend to iron out.
Questions
Should I replace the thirst/hunger with nutrition and move the health UI aspect above the hotbar like I described?
I've set the price for the game to be $4.99, but I want the community to decide on the price.
Here
Answer this please, and I will decide on the price from there.
If some prices end up in a close finish, I will take the average of the prices and set that as the game price.
Thanks!
Mark