Hi everyone,
We recently passed the one-year anniversary of AWAY getting funded on Kickstarter! 🎉
To mark the occasion, we would like to take a moment to highlight some of the progress that we've made on AWAY over the last year. Thanks for following along with our development - we can't wait to show you more!
Sneaking & Pursuit
We wanted to add an extra layer of depth and strategy to the Sugar Glider's hunts, so we implemented two new mechanics — pursuit and sneaking. Pursuit allows you to lock onto your prey and dart after it in a fast-paced chase, while sneaking requires you to move slowly and carefully across grassy terrain before pouncing on your unsuspecting target.
These two new skills allow you to choose how you approach your prey based on the environments and situation, and we think this flexibility will add a little more spice to your encounters with the Sugar Glider's prey...
New Camera System
Thanks to all the feedback we received over the past year, we completely redesigned the camera system in AWAY to make the transitions smoother between running, climbing, and gliding while capturing that stylized, documentary feeling.
For some background, there are three main types of cameras in AWAY:
- General camera: The camera will move differently when the Sugar Glider is walking as opposed to when he's climbing or gliding.
- Stylized camera: In some scenes the camera's position will move on the screen to get a more cinematic shot. For instance, you might see this in a dramatic top-down shot when the Sugar Glider fights a Scorpion.
- Targeting camera: When you aim at other animals or objects, the camera will slide toward that object to indicate that the Sugar Glider is now focused on it.
Instead of the increasingly complex spaghetti code that was behind our original camera system, we were able to streamline our new system into two parts. One part handles the Sugar Glider's basic movements (walking, jumping, climbing, gliding), and the other part covers the more intricate camera movements in the game, such as the stylized camera and targeting mechanics mentioned above.
The result is a much smoother camera that can quickly adapt to AWAY's wild world!
Playable Animals
Finally, we've begun implementing the other playable animals in AWAY! This involves designing new mechanics, animations, and side missions for creatures of all shapes and sizes. We're really excited about this, and we're hoping that each new animal and insect can bring a unique perspective to the world of AWAY.
Of course we've also been working on a million other things for AWAY, but these are some of our favourite improvements from the past year. Thanks again for all your support, and if there's any part of development you're curious about please let us know in the comments!
~ the AWAY dev team
P.S. We've got an exciting reveal coming very soon. Stay tuned for more info...