Development Update (07/08/2023)
Added 2023-08-06 22:43:54 +0000 UTCHi!
Here's a quick development update and recap of the game plan related to this month.
Week 31 (1-6th): Shipyard (Area 05)
Week 32 (7-13th): Highway (Area 05)
Week 33 (14-20th): AI Updates 2/2 + Devlog #8
Week 34 (21-27th): Minefield (Crossing Point)
Week 35 (28-31th): Radar (Vostok) + Lore #1
Week 31 is now wrapped and I got the Shipyard demo version ~90% ready. There's still few assets missing but nothing major that would prevent it to be included in the Public Demo 2, so I consider this past week success in that part.
Here's one quick screenshot while testing some colliders:
I think one of the main timesinks with these maps is futureproofing them for the long run which includes huge amount of "invisible work" that is not visible to the player.
I could make these maps in a much faster rate but I know that brute forcing them would lead to bunch of backtracking and problems in the future, so I have chosen this route where I try to implement things in a way that is clean and easy to further develop after the Public Demo 2.
This topic is hard to explain but gamedev involves so much little details and if you're just swinging it, there would be cumulating problems in the long run, so sometimes it's better to proceed thoughtfully even though it's much more slower that way.
Next week it's all about the Highway map and that map should be much easier than Shipyard because that demo version map don't include any complex topics like water or multi-floor buildings.
I do have to start preparing the next devlog this upcoming week though, so it will take some time away from map building process but I think I can manage that, since it's just a time management topic.
- Antti (Developer)
Comments
Well, I kind of tried some gravity-based tricks but that implementation was far from perfect so I decided left this topic to the next month and wait until I have all the important features ready first.
Road to Vostok
2023-08-08 18:48:17 +0000 UTCYep, multi-floor building are tricky for AI pathfinding (especially stairs) and then when there's tons of windows those are also time consuming for some audio related things like separating outdoor/indoor ambients.
Road to Vostok
2023-08-07 10:25:06 +0000 UTCI think we all agree that it is better to plan everything future-proof. Even if all these things are not visible to us now, small details would surely be noticed while playing demo 2 and leave a not so good impression. Take as much time as you want to make your work easier, we have enough developers who rush everything to meet impossible deadlines and promises, and most of the time it ends catastrophically. Thanks for your hard work. Don't forget to take a day off every now and then. :) Multi-floor Buildings are more complex because of the AI?
SavRoyale
2023-08-07 06:42:57 +0000 UTChow did you solve the swimming issue. Did you just make an invisible wall or did you implement swimming. Great job by the way the map looks awesome.
Jakob Arnold
2023-08-07 02:56:08 +0000 UTC
