This week was dedicated to art assets, minor testing, and quest system. A lot of time was spent on finding references and getting the correct feel for the visuals. Models, texturing and animating followed, which was basically going on until today.
On the technical side of the game, Ondrej completely redid the quest system and is now wiring up the quests one by one. Each time a larger amount of features gets implemented, we'll update the preview branch so you can test them out.
ART ASSETS
When designing the weapons, we tried to combine new designs with old feeling to it. It was a lot of fun, especially with the hand mortar. It's inspired by old hand cannons and new reload systems on today's mortars.
Something similar was done with the Gatling gun, which in this form is usually seen mounted on top of a carriage. A lot might change once hands are added, as they will most likely visually block a large part of the weapon.
We also paid a lot of attention to the ammunition and tried to come up with different visual styles that fit the purpose each ammo type has.
WEAPONS IMPLEMENTATION
Another iteration of guns was done, but it's not the final one. The main goal was to have functional guns in the game to enhance the gameplay and make the destruction of enemy drillships easier.
There is still a lot of work to be done on animations and better visual of the models. Also, the hands are missing. We are very well aware of this and our plan is to hire a professional freelancer to redesign the guns based on today's industry standards. We'll keep you updated on that.
PREVIEW BRANCH
Preview branch was finally updated and anyone interested can check out the work-in-progress version of the upcoming update. There are still many unfinished things, bugs, and placeholders. So please give it a try only if you are interested in seeing what's new and if you want to report bugs/give us feedback.
We mentioned this in the previous Developer Update but will repeat it again as the branch was finally updated: to get access to preview branch and all the info about it please join our [url= https://discord.gg/volcanoids]Discord[/url] and join the testers in #role-assignment channel. You will get instant access to the changelog and other info about the build.
Few of the beginning quests are already implemented and we fixed the critical issues, so players that would like to test can do so right away.
NEXT STEPS
The quest system has been fully updated and we are now redoing all the quests that were in the game as well as making new ones since there is a lot of new stuff that needs to be covered. Those new weapons and ammo types will need new GUI icons so that's also planned.
And that's it for today! If you don't want to miss smaller updates and sneak peeks that we post throughout the week consider following our social media:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/volcanoids
Discord: https://discord.gg/volcanoids
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Volcanoids/
Enjoy the rest of your week!