As we approach the end of the week the team completed some lighting work. We’ve put a lot of thought into nighttime lighting in the game. We want to make sure that buildings, trails, and other points of interest are noticeable at night, but we don’t want to shred the cover of darkness for players creeping around trying to go unnoticed. To that end, there are a number of lamps, lanterns, and tiki torches, in the game now. They offer just the right amount of light to keep you on the right path, and get an idea of what’s in an area, without making it impossible to hide in the shadows. With the exception of some of the torches flaring up like they’re loaded with jet fuel, we’re happy with the end product, and plan on making the torches a little less vigorous.
We looked at, and discussed a few more options for things surrounding the communications tower. The team has talked about a number of buildings and/or geographic features we could add around the zipline center of Lahaina. We went over some barrier and debris options that could be used to help defend the area until we decide if we want something more substantial there. The team is making another general pass over items and buildings to make them more stylized for the game, and Hawaii in general as well.
The web team continues work on the navigation revamp, and designs on a call to action/contest section. Jesse designed some new icons for use on our social media pages and made improvements to what we already had. We found a bug that would show the wrong navigation colors in some of the preset House themes. That should be fixed in the next few days. Jared is still working through the issues with the live drone feed on the front page. Until they are cleared up, you can always watch the drone’s-eye view of Lahaina on our YouTube page. We talked some more about how to improve the story page, and let visitors know what the game is about. It should be getting a major facelift in the near future.
We made a number of improvements to our mutants this week too. We’ve gussied up a few of the cannibals to highlight their bad skin, matted hair, and blood-stained lips. We fixed a bug that would cause them to sometimes react twice to being shot or sliced, making them suddenly start to twitch. We improved animations to make their upper body move towards the origin of a sound they detected. Previously they’d just lurch in strange looking ways towards a noise. We also taught them that discretion is the better part of valor, and installed a fleeing AI module that allows them to run away when grievously injured. Instead of fighting to the end if they’re getting slaughtered, the terrors of the jungle will be able to run away, and lurk again another day.
We made a lot of progress on the Throcon Power Plant too. We continue to build out the surrounding areas, but this week we specifically focused on the inside of the building. The interior got a fresh paint job, and we discussed the level of inhabitation and stuff we wanted inside. We looked at some concept drawings ranging from: keeping it rather barren with a few sleeping mats here and there, to something more akin to the inside of a big box store on Black Friday. We eventually decided on something near the middle, offering players someplace empty enough to explore a bit, but still indicative of a common meeting place and social hub. Below you can see a couple images of the new and improved reactor room, with players in one shot so you can get a feel of the size of the facility and reactor.
