Welcome to newsletter # 18!
It has been several weeks and I’ve been very busy. Tax season is upon us so I had to spend a week getting all my tax and business info together. I also took a week off (the last one I’ll have until the game releases). There was a good deal of deign work that needed to be done to merge all the ideas that have been tested into a cohesive design. The design work took another week but was a necessary step. I also got some stuff implemented in game as well which I outline below!
Last few weeks (Coding, art, and more):
After creating the terminal assets and setting up systems to attach terminals to walls the next step was to get the interaction system working. I created a system that would allow the player to push the F key (remappable) to interact with objects in range
This system would also put a ring around objects that could be interacted with so you would see them before you reached the interaction range. If there were multiple objects I also set it up so there would be a dot over the ones you could reach from your current location
I had already setup the mini map to have the upper floors showing as a lighter color but I didn’t have any indicator for when there was a tunnel under the floor. To resolve this I made extra mini map parts that could be assigned to the upper floors and attached so the player can see if there is a tunnel below them
While working on the design I realized that I would have to make the outer walls of each room the same thickness as the inner walls to ensure the internal buildings and parts that where added lined up correctly. This meant I had to redo all my test assets but will make the procedural code much easier to implement so it was worth the time
I also took some time to manually create a test level so I would have pieces for the procedural tests and to help me visualize how some of the procedural code would have to work. This isn’t how its going to look in the end but it really helps to see a gray boxed version of my level and give me a set of parts I can make better visuals for later
With each room being slightly bigger I had to space them farther apart which left a gap between the fog of war tiles inside the level. To account for this I decided to put in grid lines which would make the map look more interesting and help to help visualize the level. The box I made around the level is slightly bigger then needed so you don’t know when you’ve hit the edge or if there are secret rooms beyond the walls. It took a bit of time to get the grid lines working but I like the end result
I’ve started this week adjusting the mini map upper floor visuals to use dynamic meshes so I can cut out pieces of them and replace them with other parts as I procedurally generate the other parts of the room. If all goes well I should have most of the room parts being generated by the end of the week. I’m super excited to see it all come together!
Push to store page release continues:
I’ve been focused on getting the levels generating correctly as that is a big part of the game. I also have a lot of the hacking game worked out and will be switching to the Hacking UI after I’m done with level generation. My plan is to still try and get the store page up next month but we’ll see if I run into any other snags that slow me down. The demo will be the next goal after the store release and I’m feeling pretty good about that timeline
That is all for this update!
Tony D
Cronoforge Studios Inc