Hey, hey people. Today I’d like to give you all an update on the state of development. Where we are, how things are going, and my expectations for the near to long term future of the project.
Despite the many setbacks I’ve had to face this year, in the last several months’ character creation has come very far. So much so that I’m beginning to run out of core features to develop in that area. You may have noticed the slowdown as most of my focus is now towards the sandbox and wider game. Now I don’t want updates to just stop. The sandbox has really begun to take form, so in the interest of improving the cadence of public releases, and getting more feedback from you all, I will be I will be expediting startup of the public sandbox release cycle.
The first public sandbox build is expected to occur once I’ve added more items, once some boons and banes get implemented, and once combat is a little more polished. I will also be bringing back the startup intro, so stay tuned for that. I don’t have an exact date just yet. My rough estimate is within the next two to three months. I’ll give an exact date closer to the expected time.
Now, onto the main log. Let’s take a stroll down memory lane, and look at everything that’s changed these last couple months.
What’s New Under The Sun?
A couple months back I was working on unifiying the world aesthetic alongside the player stylization. I think our player upgrade turned out quite nicely. But what for our map?
I kept the same general layout, but as you can see, the map underwent a full rework with upper and lower areas now being made completely accessible. During the unification process a new shader pipeline was developed. I settled on a system which allows us to have fully cel shaded characters and partially cel shaded environments, both of which can be tuned independently. Cel shading the entire environment can destroy the look of certain terrain (like grass). The hybrid model works surprisingly well and gives me the artistic freedom to fiddle around with what should and shouldn’t be lit a particular way on the fly. While there aren’t many examples in game just yet the new shader also gives better results with metals and less standard materials.
Next on the map development to-do list are devious dungeons. For dungeon development, the end goal is to have sprawling underground dungeons which present the player with loot to find, traps to fall into, puzzles to solve, and enemies to defeat. As Arkavite is a land of adventure this element will become the core of a major gameplay loop.
But before getting too into the weeds more progress should be made on survival and combat systems first, so that these dungeons-to-be are populated with things to do.
Enhanced Player Movement
I’ve made a number of changes to enhance the experience of moving around the world. Firstly, I’ve added additive lean to our player animations. This allows the player to appear as though they are leaning into sharp turns. It’s a fairly standard technique used to make animations look and feel organic.
Next, sprint acceleration. The current running speed is nice, but couldn’t we be moving a little faster? Enter, sprint acceleration. The longer you sprint without bumping into anything, the faster you go! Of course, there is still an upper speed limit, so no accelerating to infinity I’m afraid. Those who have tried it so far have only said positive things, so I will continue to make enhancements like this which work to make good movement feel rewarding to players.
Enhanced Player Camera
I’ve introduced a new dynamic camera system. For general player movement, you will find camera motion is dampened. This works well for controllers, however it may be a little much for mouse and keyboard. (I will be adding player settings for managing camera dampening/sensitivity, so don’t worry too much if you hate this kind of thing).
The camera dampening is only one part of a greater dynamic camera system. What we can do now is seamlessly transition the player camera between various states. For example, we can transition from a third-person perspective, to a side scroller perspective and back seamlessly. More camera freedom means more creative options. I’d like to see this system be tested alongside combat and dungeons. It would be interesting to have dungeons be explored from a top-down perspective, or have different sections which pull the player into a different view. In some map sections, this really could be used as a tool to create some pretty thematic shots.
Finally, you can now zoom in and out on the player using the mouse scroll wheel. This will allow you to see your character up close or zoom out to see what’s around you.
Inventory & HUD
The player HUD is now functional. HP hearts and the MP bar will now fill up. HP will also deplete if you decide to play around with the poison items. I’ve also brought back the flashy reveal sequence. (video down below). It could use a lil more glow. As for mechanical changes, each Heart is now worth 3 HP. This just makes hit points easier to read at a glance (and makes me less likely to get sued into oblivion by Nin***do).
The inventory equip icons have all been updated. Any equips which were previously missing an icon now have one. Furthermore, these new icons are all based on renders captured within the game itself, such that the appearance of anything you equip in the inventory will be one to one with what you see on your person. Other items (consumables, non-equips, etc.) will be switched over to renders once they have in-game models. My hope is that this will create better consistency in style.
Slime Time, Till I Die Time~
Slimes are back, and since I’ve resolved our navigation issues for large scale maps, they’re everywhere. They will also begin to chase you if they spot you. I’ve reworked the enemy AI to run on a general purpose framework such that the behaviours of one NPC can be applied to any. Now our slime enemy is functional, building behaviours for our next enemy shouldn’t be as arduous. The next planned monster type are golems. I will start off with cute stubby golems that hit you and throw rocks at you, and go from there.
As for what special behaviours our current slimes have, I’ve made it so that they can platform. This is more of a preliminary test to ensure we can have enemies or followers which can go wherever the player can on foot (or, in this case, on slime).
As of the last experimental build, slimes have been made lethal. I gave them the ability to attack, improved their roam and chase AI, reduced their all around speed, and increased the size of their hit box (as they were far too difficult to hit in previous updates).
In order to better combat the slimy menace, the draw weapon animation has been updated to be faster and look cleaner. You can now interrupt the draw animation to attack immediately. But that’s not all! Now you may draw and stow your blade while in motion. This will allow you to respond faster to threats. And to top things off, I’ve also added a new enemy targeting system to help track enemies while they are in motion. Needless to say, combat is really taking off.
To conclude this little talk on combat, If the player receives too much damage, they will die and be presented with the newly added, but perhaps familiar, game over screen.
Language Options & Translation?
Some of you have been wondering when I’ll be adding the translation system. For context, this is a system which will allow players in the community to create translation data-packs (aka mods), which would then allow a wider audience to play the game in their native tongue.
Development of the translation system is currently slated to occur before or directly after public release of the sandbox alpha. As I stated at the start of this log, the first public sandbox alpha build is expected to occur once I’ve added more items, progressed with blessing/curse implementation, and once combat is polished. These are really my highest priority objectives right now, to get the sandbox alpha out as soon as possible. After that’s all dealt with, translation will be the next big thing.
What’s Cookin Good Lookin?
Last week we had a pretty hefty character creator update where I added a laundry list of new choices, a new religion section, upgraded sliders (which broke, but I promptly fixed lol), the missing peenor slider, some new high quality choice art, new eye decal options, and more.
As of this moment, I’m working to add several new items to the sandbox, (some TF themed and some not), and beginning implementation of our blessing / curse traits. I’m also gunning to get basic gun mechanics working by next weekend, after which, magic can finally begin entering the fray.
Upcoming character creator features will include character voice options (for on-hit and other player SFX), apparel updates, and general clean-ups (including but not limited to completion of art).
Conclusion
As always, there is a lot to be done, but we are making good and steady progress. Every day, the game looks more like a game, and I’m pleased something that can be called gameplay is at the forefront of development. If you want to see this game reach greater heights, please consider giving me a follow, or subscribing over on SubscribeStar. I also have an Itch.io if you’d like to follow the project there~
Do let me know if you love or hate the direction we are headed in. Thank you all so much for following along! Take care, and I’ll catch you in the next one~