Welcome to Issue #34 of The PixelCount Post, a periodically released update from Kynseed's team. In today's issue: Charlie does world building, Neal goes running with swords, Matthijs is off drumming, and Matt makes feature highlight videos. Plus, Punch's puns!
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Well after last week's bump on the head (login problems and forgetfulness), I have finally got around to writing an update. I have been getting on with various design docs like the food and stamina system, combat and monster stuff, plus tidying up some older docs such as the world map.
Speaking of which, work has begun on the regions outside The Vale. The editor map now shows 3 havens and 3 hubs with 1 combat zone. That's pretty much half the world, although roughing out is only going to be done on the first hub and the Summerdown region initially. My favourite part of world building is actually naming places (and people). Used to love doing that on Fable. *sigh*
Sadly, this week has been hampered by the appalling heat. Being a pasty northerner, anything above 20 degrees melts me like an ice lolly up a dragons bum. I have no idea how that got up there. Perhaps he fell off a ladder onto it.
I feel the cogs are starting to fully turn again now and that the energy is returning to the team after the E3 lull. I have been getting in to Shadow of War, which was a tenner in Tesco on PS4, and am really enjoying it. It is definitely inspiring some ideas. So onwards and upwards!
Combat developed a bit further this week. There's a lot of bits still to pick away at. I mostly concentrated on the presentation stuff first so still have work to do to make it all editable ingame/editor. While setting up some 'run with swords' animations I did realise the setup for animations is a little clumsy right now. There's a lot of animations that have representations in 4 directions and each of them is set up independently. I could look at pushing them together into a bundle so that they can have some common properties and dial back a little on the manual setup that they require. On the other hand though, after doing that work (which I'd reckon to take at least a few hours), the difference noticeable ingame will ideally be none. It'll just be a little faster for setup and editing.
It's one of a few dilemmas I have when coding to expand or repeat actions previously taken. Which I guess comes down to: is it worth the effort? In this case, 'not worth the effort' is winning currently but perhaps I'll change my tune on the next new set that needs adding!
Other progress was made this week in getting up to date on art assets. There's still a fair few left but the basic pieces for the next set of levels has been imported, which will start our push out into new areas of the game (though it'll be a while before any of these is playable in the build). I've also started work on the player's ability to sell via a stall which should feature in the next build.
We've also been planning out the next few months work. There's a tricky balance at the moment in terms of what we can do to improve the current build vs pave the way to future releases (including eventually the full release build!) and it's been good to get it on paper and see the exciting stuff coming.
I'm not actually here. As I talked about last week, I'm abroad this week. Well, technically I'm writing this from the past when I'm still at home, just to make things more confusing.
Just before leaving I had some discussions on sword fighting sound effects that I'll be working on some more when I get back. For now I'm in Poland, doing some drumming! I'll predicatively say that Poland is amazing, but I look forward to seeing y'all again! You're such an awesome community that I can't but preemptively miss you. See you again soon!
My article this week will be short and sweet, like a tiny dog. The main reason for this is that I've found myself surprisingly swamped with a ton of tasks, but all of them ones I'm finding fun to work on.
One such example is that I'm making feature highlight videos. This involves playing the game and focusing specifically on a feature while capturing footage. The idea is to play the feature to its fullest conclusion - basically, go through everything that you can do for a feature in the current build. I then edit this together into a summarized 'highlight' video which will serve as a condensed video to show off the full gameplay journey of that feature.
However, these videos will be a bit different in that they're not being made to share publicly. They're for us to moll over and take notes on. The reason for this is that there's a surprising amount of little things you don't notice when actively playing the game, but when watching video of the game you suddenly find yourself noticing all sorts of little areas that need fixing.
That's just one of the things I'm working on this week. That said, I'm sure you're all due for one of my signature ramble-heavy articles sometime soon, so I'll endeavor to regale you with development tales in next week's issue.
This week, our friendly neighbourhood Fool, Punch, shares some of his best quips with us. So strap on your codpiece, grab your balls, and get ready to juggle your funny bone with these creamy crackers...
ᅠᅠᅠThey say a good invisible man is hard to find.
ᅠᅠᅠAfter my sword practice against straw dummies I hit the hay.
ᅠᅠᅠI had a hobby-horse.
ᅠᅠᅠHe loved board games, sewing and collecting butterflies.
ᅠᅠᅠThe best quality gunpowder you can’t hold a candle to.
ᅠᅠᅠI was going to open the world’s smallest tavern.
ᅠᅠᅠWell that was my inn-tent.
ᅠᅠᅠMy wife had a face that launched a thousand ships.
ᅠᅠᅠIt is shaped like a bottle.
ᅠᅠᅠAt the new pet protection home there isn’t room to swing a cat.
ᅠᅠᅠWhy do princesses sleep well?
ᅠᅠᅠBecause they always have a good knight in bed.
ᅠᅠᅠWhat do you call a wandering herb trader?
ᅠᅠᅠA thyme traveller.
ᅠᅠᅠWhat is a banshees favourite dessert?
ᅠᅠᅠIce cream.
