map Archives - Page 3 of 6

Putting Lahaina on the Map

The team’s push to make crafting and player inventory improvements continues. We made some improvements to the drag and drop on the crafting screen, and found a bug that was displacing items. Jared is fixing it now. We also have splitting and stacking working well for players who have trouble leaving anything behind that they can fit in their bag.

We’re updating item info on your inventory screen so you can quickly delineate differences in similar looking items. We added some tweaks to icons to make they stand out better, and talked about making them more stylized in the future. Jesse made some layout improvements to mobile, and squashed a few lingering resizing issues.

The web team added some dialog boxes to a few different areas to help players navigate the page. While help tips can be useful the first couple times you navigate a site, we understand how annoying they can be, so we’re adding a setting to disable them too. Jesse has been working on navigation improvements, and we looked at the latest layouts. We discussed some new menu options, and ways to make user flow and experience better.

We’re still working on the bug that has interfered with our Veil News Network (VNN) drone. While that issue is being fixed, we’re moving ahead with a few ui improvements to the HUD. Designed to travel around the play area highlighting points of interest, and capturing action live as it happens, the drone can provide some useful information to players. We want to make sure that information is a clear, and concise as possible.

We continue our performance improvements to our landmark buildings. The Thorcon Power Plant is huge, and a great place to explore, but not if your frame rate is cut in half. The team is adding audio support to these buildings, and we have some new sounds for weapons and players too. It’s not as easy to run through the underbrush without making a sound now, and racking a round into your weapon makes a telltale noise too.

We’ve been testing out our loot drop scenarios to make sure the bugs are all worked out, and so far so good. We have a variety of fun challenges to offer players a chance to pick up some valuable loot until we include some quests. We added some visual cues to help players better see where they have to go to get their rewards, or deliver items to access secret caches.

Lastly, one of the biggest projects for the last couple sprints has been the stripping down, and rebuilding of the old map. We took away everything, and built the game area from the ground up with topographical data of the Lahaina area, all the current roads, and existing structures as a base. We’ve replaced all the foliage for better performance, and to get rid of non-native plants to make it look more authentic. With much of that work now done in staging, we’ve been able to finally push the new map to production.

While we continue to fill it in section by section, we discussed adding a few new areas to explore. We looked at concept drawings for cliff communities, abandoned bunkers, sunken waterfronts, forgotten mines, and other areas perfect for ambushes, and finding loot. The team talked about other places, and buildings we’d like to see down the road, while we make passes adding in plants, buildings, and paths. Below you can see some of the new foliage from a birds eye view, and the mountains from a clearing in the jungle.

July 27, 2018

Lahaina Loot Boxes

The team did a lot of inventory and crafting work over the weekend, to make sure the arts and crafts scene in post-fracture Lahaina remains vibrant. They added some ui improvements, made some adjustments to the drag and drop between the inventory and crafting screen, and worked through stacking and splitting issues. We added a double press item deletion safeguard to make sure players don’t accidentally destroy an item when they are in a clicking frenzy. The team also expanded the official recipe list with a few new useful creations that will come in handy when exploring the wilds. We took some time to discuss mystery/experimental recipes as well, and how best to encourage players to experiment, and discover how to make things not written down

After finding and fixing a whole new round of weapon attachment bugs, we finally have the situation in hand. Scopes, stabilizers, suppressors, mounts, magazines, sights, and bayonets are all working as they should now. We still need the art team to make a final pass, ensuring that everything looks good, but the mechanics are working well.

With all the add-ons working for weapons, we took some time to make sure there was something worthy to shoot at, and made good progress with creatures and AI. Our creature AI got an upgrade, and we have the first pass at wave/group tactics done. The horrors of the jungle avoid grouping up in tight areas like halls and doorways, they move at angles instead of straight lines, and they make use of cover as the run through the jungle. We discussed making stronger versions of our Trophy Hunters and looked at a number of potential improvements like: ranged attacks, poison, healing, and buffing as well as just making unsually tough or fast individuals.

We continued work on group play, finishing up the ability to heal others in your group. We need to add a little ui polish, and a round of testing, but we’ve worked out all the previous bugs, and have the system up and running. Now your best shooters can stay shooting as you patch them up, and players too hurt to move can get back on their feet in a hurry.

We’ve made some improvements to looting too. The time it takes you to empty a container in now based on its size, (bigger containers take longer to pillage.) We are finishing up the visual effects and map alerts for our loot drops to make sure it’s easy to find where gear and goods have appeared on the map. We want you to spend your time gripped in a life or death struggle for those weapons and resources, not fighting to find them.

Terry is completing documentation for the Git rollover, and finishing setting up the East Coast mirror. We scratched a few longstanding bugs off the list, and started work on drone camera documentation. We looked at some of the improvements and fixes included in UE 4.20 and discussed an upgrade strategy that would give us the most benefit, without chasing down a tsunami of compatibility issues.

Finally, our map rebuild and restoration took a few more steps forward. After a few setbacks last week kept us from pushing the new map to production, we plan on doing it by Friday. All the world map code support is finished, and we continue to fill in the play area section by section. Below you can see the framework of some ruins along the beach, just waiting for an apocalyptic makeover.

Check back later in the week for more updates.

July 25, 2018

Building Houses and the Roads Most Traveled

As the end of the week approaches, the team continues to focus on group play features. We’re making a few ui improvements to the inventory to better highlight what items you have equipped, or loaded in your quick bar. We’re making it easier for you to find online friends or House members who might be interested in running through the jungle with you. However, we know that not every match, or group is made in heaven, so we’re adding a way to kick members out of your team. In addition, we’re adding blocking tools so you won’t have to deal with them, or anyone else who is bothering you, again.

The team is pulling in some new audio elements to various parts of the map. We’re working on areas by the water to make sure the beach sounds great, and different from what you hear once you’ve crossed the tree line. A few of the game’s unique buildings have been placed on the map, namely the Thorcon Power Plant, Communications Tower, and the Lahaina Armory. We’re making sure each one of these structures has its own sound, so you can tell what building you’re in just by listening to your speakers.

Much of last sprint was dedicated to stripping down the map and rebuilding it. With that work mostly done, a large part of sprint 25 is dedicated to populating the map, and finishing the roads and trails. Below you can see a section of the map where the ruins of a neighborhood will soon go.

We’re using the automated building system we created to procedurally build the houses and structures that survived the global catastrophe, and fill out the map. The system allows us a wide range of customization so players won’t have to look at slightly different versions of the same 2 or 3 houses all over. Having already imported all the existing roads in Lahaina, we’re using a similar procedural path tool to make sure that any new trails are connected to the existing network, and don’t needlessly twist and turn. We still have to rough up the roads, and buildings to show the damage the fracture did to everything, but below is a shot of how good everything is looking already.

As you can see from above, we’ve made some improvements to weather and lighting. The rain and fog is getting some more attention, and we continue to work on our night time lighting, tweaking the brightness of stars, and making sure buildings don’t excessively illuminate the surrounding areas. We talked a bit more about giving certain creatures in a group different abilities and tactics, like being able to use missile weapons, or other ranged attacks, and we continue to improve their AI to make them more dangerous.

Everyone is finally moved over to Git, much to Terry’s joy, and we fixed a longstanding spawning bug. The web team made some layout changes, and did a little ui work to improve user flow. Lastly, the art team is busy making a 3D model of our repair/refurbish machine. Used to clean and repair clothing and armor, the machine saves players from the dangers of torn body armor, and the embarrassment of being killed while wearing dirty unmentionables.

That’s everything for now. We’ll be back next week with more updates and screenshots

July 19, 2018

Group Play and Gear

The team kicked the week off focusing on group play, specifically healing other party members. We ran into a few bugs right away. While we finally have medkits in the game, we discovered that their medical efficacy was the same as a kiss on a boo-boo (or less, really). We’re tracking down the issue, and hope to have it straightened out soon. Until then, you’ll just have to keep telling your teammates to “rub a little dirt on it,” when they’re injured.

We found that bandages where only healing one injury at a time, even if multiple injuries were on the same body part. For example: If a player had multiple bleeding arrow wounds in their arm, a bandage would only stop one wound from bleeding. We’re fixing that, so a bandage will address all injuries on a specific part of the body once applied.

We’re testing our loot drops to work out any remaining bugs, and make sure players have plenty to do once they’re done rampaging through the jungle for the day. The team has almost all the kinks worked out of the item delivery scenario, and had fun playing a version of apocalyptic rugby, tossing a small totem around while trying to get to the objective point. During this time, we discovered that you could stick your head through a tree to see what was on the other side. We’re big fans of hiding behind things, particularly trees, so we’re working on a fix.

We added a pinging alert on player minimaps, letting them know that some grabbable gear has been dropped in the world, and its general location. Looting time based on the size of a container is almost done, so a big box will take longer to pick through than a small bag. Now, someone who runs through your camp won’t be able to grab everything your group worked hard for, before you get a chance to show them the error of their ways.

Crafting improvements continue, with some new ui elements, and dialogue boxes added to help streamline the process of building items, and answer basic questions like “I don’t arrive till late…how long will it go?” A lot of work has been completed on our monster AI. The horrors of the jungle now have senses to better see and hear players, as well as teeth and battle tactics to better eat them with. We just need to finish up by adding things like minimum fleeing distances, periodic damage checks, and group attack spacing, to make the creatures smarter and more dangerous.

We ran into a few problems moving everyone over to Git, but Terry and crew have the issues in hand, and we’re almost done with the transition. The new map is being pushed to production and the art team is busy filling it in. We’re starting on the Southern coast, and are working our way up, adding buildings and unique areas to the old network of roads, and foliage base already included in the map. We talked about changing a few of the geographical features of Lahaina to better highlight how the fracture changed not just society, but the Earth itself. The team discussed a few different possibilities, and we looked at some concept art of some exclusive post fracture cliff dwellings. Below you can see one the rare clearings in the jungle before it gets filled in with a structure of some sort.

We’ll be back later in the week with more updates.

July 17, 2018

Creature Calls and Putting It All Together

As the week comes to an end, the team is hard at work making improvements to the crafting system. We discussed adding a few new recipes to the list of craftable items, and talked about different ways players could discover new recipes. We’re working on the drag and drop system to shake out all the bugs, and introducing sorting options to make the player inventory screen more manageable for those who believe in leaving no trinket, or piece of garbage behind. In addition, Nelson is making it easier for players to see what items in their inventory are equipped.

We briefly talked about game merchandise, and a few different Hawaiian-esque products. Jesse showed off the work he’s completed on the Paddle Creek Games bumper trailer, and it’s coming along really well. We talked about making a few audio changes, and possible animation tweaks. The web team fixed some bugs, and made some layout improvements too. The group discussed the problems we’ve been having with the Veil News Network (VNN) live stream on the front page. We’ve made sure that a prerecorded video of the game area plays when the live feed is down.

With a landscape as beautiful as Lahaina’s, we want lighting, and a weather system that is equally striking. Few things can be as scary as hunting something, or being hunted by something, in the fog. The team is working out some of the issues we’ve had with the rain and mist, to make it feel more realistic, and make it a potential factor in gameplay. We want the nights to feel dark and ominous, with players never sure what might be lurking in the brush just ahead, but we don’t want it so dark that you can’t move around without running into trees, or falling into a ravine. To that end, we’re adjusting light sources, and making sure the stars are bright enough to allow players to operate at night.

All of our loot drops are ready, and they’re being tested in the game to work out any remaining problems. Soon, players will be able to harness their urge to shoot, ambush, maim, and kill for certain rewards, not just a general love of mayhem. We’ve added more audio to our monsters so they sound as gruesome as they look, and discussed giving certain individuals in a group extra abilities, like using ranged attacks to keep players on their toes.

With the Wash Bench design complete, the team is working on a 3D model so players will be able to repair/clean clothing, and maybe even change the color of something down the road. Sorry, tie-dye lovers, we don’t have any plans, as of yet, that would allow you to set up shop. The Thorcon Power Plant and the Lahaina Armory are being placed on the map, and the team is working on incorporating some basic gameplay elements around them. They’re also adding placeholder lockout tiles around the border of the map to let players know that they’ve gone as far as they can go in one direction. We plan on eventually using natural boundaries like the ocean, lava fields, and cliffs as well as impenetrable ruins, poison clouds, and radioactive fog to mark the boundaries.

Since we stripped down the map, and were rebuilding much of it during the last sprint, we talked about areas of exploration that we could add to the mountains, and more remote locations. The group discussed, quarries, canyons, mines, and other places to loot and pillage. We also briefly discussed clearing land, and possible base construction at some point in the future.

Finally, we’ve finished adding the improved plants and road remnants to the map, and we’re ready to push the whole thing from staging to production. The new environmental work, and foliage looks absolutely incredible as you can see from these screenshots below.

We’ll be back with more next week.

July 13, 2018

Maps and Mechanics

This week marks the beginning of sprint 25, and the team is busy filling in the new map, as well as finishing up some features, and hunting down bugs found in the previous sprint. After stripping down the previous map, and rebuilding it literally from the ground up with topographical data of Maui, we’ve started to place some of the game’s unique buildings. The Thorcon Power Plant, and the Lahaina Armory will be added to the landscape this week, and if all goes well, we plan on moving staging and production to the new map. We’ve fixed some of our weather problems. Rain, fog, and storms look better, and we’re working on the lighting, ensuring that the game looks good morning, noon, and night. Below you can see the VNN drone’s eye view of the Communication Tower as the sun goes down.

The team wrapped up a lot of work on the group play system too. The healing others mechanic is getting some attention. We’re adding medkits, and the ability to target specific limbs, so you can fix a friend’s injured leg and get out of trouble when your about to be overrun. Much of the party ui is being finished this week too. We’re adding a blocking feature to safeguard you from annoying players, and a way to remove players from your friends list in case you decide they no longer have the kind of qualities you look for in a survival buddy.

The first round of weapon attachments are in, and we fixed all the bugs we ran into with oversized scopes and suppressors. Weapons now have a limited set of specific attachments for their type, bad news for fans of bipod compound bows and laser sighted machetes. The next round of weapon attachments including extended mags, and stability grips, are being worked on now. The group is finishing up the last few bugs in our loot drop scenarios, but need to test them in the game to make sure they are fully functional. We talked a bit about loot distribution across the map, and adjusting loot and looting times based on container size.

Monster AI moved a few steps forward. We continue to work on the first iteration of wave/group combat, so the horrors of the jungle don’t bunch up, or queue in a doorway when the whole group attacks at the same time. We added better senses to our monsters this week, so they can not only attack on sight, but zero in on anyone stomping through the underbrush too. We talked about adjusting senses up and down to make theoretical cave dwellers with limited sight, but phenomenal hearing and sense of smell, as well as other combinations.

We’re almost done moving everyone over to Git, and discussed at length the pros and cons of moving over to UE 4.20. We’re fixing some issues that leave players in limbo when spawning in, and the Veil News Network (VNN) drone is getting some final touches to make it fully functional. Nelson is working on a few HUD tweaks to improve look and functionality.

Lastly, we’re adding a few new animations, and making some icon improvements to better highlight equipped items. The art team is working on completing a final Wash Bench design, so players can fix clothing, and change the color/look of certain items. Last sprint’s audio work is wrapping up, with weapon updates and some new character audio being added. We’re giving our monsters a voice too, so we can finally ask the age old question, “if a trophy hunter screams in the forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

That’s all for now. We’ll be back later in the week with more updates.

July 10, 2018

Filling In the Map

As we close out sprint 24 , the group is busy hunting down bugs, and adding finishing touches. We’ve been having some trouble with the Veil News Network’s (VNN) live broadcast on the front page crashing. We’ve identified the issue, and the team is putting in a fix that should keep the drone’s feed playing as it makes its way around the game map, highlighting key areas and capturing gameplay in real time. We’ve set a prerecorded fallback video in place as well, to ensure that the feed always displays a tour of post-fracture Lahaina, not static.

The web team fixed a few layout issues, and made some improvements to player and House cards. We worked on some icon improvements to make things look more consistent across the page, and made some animation improvements as well. Jesse completed the Paddle Creek Games bumper trailer, and it looks fantastic! He uploaded a version with audio last night, and the whole thing is a few iterations away from being ready to go.

The tech team is wrapping up the last of the weapon attachment bugs we discovered a few weeks ago. After fixing a really bad Aiming Down Sight (ADS) jiggle, we opened up a Pandora’s box of weapon add-on issues: bad sights, crooked scopes, and wrongly-sized attachments. We’ve worked through most of the problems, and just need to test the fixes in the game to work out the kinks.

Our 3rd loot drop scenario is finished, and ready for testing too. Players will have to take an item safely from one location to another, while being hounded by enemies, in order to claim valuable cash and prizes. If you think that sounds suspiciously like a quest, you’re right. We briefly discussed building on this to start a quest system in the very near future. Mindlessly rampaging through what’s left of Lahaina can be a very rewarding experience. However, there comes a time in everyone’s life, even a bloodthirsty gamer, when you long for some direction and purpose. Quests can help fulfill that need, even if it’s just bringing a bag of shark teeth, and some coffee to the armory in the morning without getting killed along the way.

Our monsters got a little smarter this week, as the team’s AI work continues. We are fixing a few of their battle tactics, and have added a bunch of new animations to make them, and their reactions look more realistic. We made some improvements to group play as well, including the ability to heal others in your party, and finding friends to fill out the ranks, or replace underperforming party members.

We made some crafting refinements, and are working out some drag and drop, and stacking issues. The HUD got a few ui tweaks, and layout updates to make it more helpful, and easier to use. We’ve fixed some lingering problems with the rain, and are working on the fog to make look better now.

Lastly, one of our biggest projects recently has been redoing the game map. We’ve stripped the whole thing, and started to rebuild the play area using topography data to make it look and feel as real as possible. We’ve finished importing the roads around Lahaina, and have replaced the foliage with more native plants, improving both performance and look. This week we’re clearing out the areas where our buildings and ruins will go, and started work on adding the effects of a global catastrophe to the roads and paths in the game area. If all goes as planned, we’ll start adding buildings next week, and filling out the map with key areas, and places to explore. Below you can see a bird’s eye view of the play area as it stands now.

July 6, 2018

Cartography Work and Making Waves

The team continues to push forward with our map improvements. We’ve stripped everything out, and started from the beginning, using higher resolution open source topography data, to make a higher fidelity copy of the Lahaina area. All the roads and some of the landmarks have been imported, and the art team is busy transforming them into their post-apocalyptic versions.

As the week comes to an end, our foliage pass advances with more native plants replacing some of our older undergrowth. This should not only increase performance, but add to the realistic look we’re shooting for. We discussed a few possibilities in regards to the borders of the play area, and whether or not we want some sort of physical barrier: lava, rock slide, poisonous fog, or something else to let players know they’ve reached the end of the world.

In addition to plants, valleys, hills, and roads, we’ve placed the communication tower on the map, and are using its position as a common starting point to help sync with the website game map we are working on. While we’ve finished a good deal of detail work, and a materials pass to boost performance on the tower, some of our other unique structures still need some finish work. The art team is focusing on the Thorcon Power Plant, and the Municipal Veil Station currently, adding a little polish to both, and incorporating some audio work specific to each building. We continue refining designs for the Armory, providing Lahaina’s survivors with everything they need to shoot, slice, and smash under one roof, and crafting machines/benches so you can fix broken gear, or affix additions to your favorite implement of destruction.

Speaking of crafting, we are making some ui improvements, and talked through various stacking, and drag and drop options to help players who are carrying around a small stores worth of raw materials, and parts. Jesse is working on some image improvements, adding some animations, and doing an overall styling pass to make sure things are consistent, and working smoothly.

We’ve been doing a lot of AI work too. The birds and animals are all acting appropriately, and are no longer flying into rocks, rolling over for belly rubs, or charging into the sea at the first sign of humans. Our monsters are making good progress as well. They veer out of the way of weapons fire now during a charge, and we’re working on having them make coordinated wave attacks. We’re not expecting impeccable battle choreography right away, but having them spread out while on the move, and not queue up at a door or window when they’ve found a player inside a building, will be a good start.

We made some progress on our third loot drop scenario, in which a player must deliver an object from one location to another while being stalked and attacked. If successful, they not only get to experience the pride of a job well done, but a pile of loot as well. The team discussed adding a mechanic that would make the amount of loot in a container be a reflection of its size, avoiding having 20 pounds of stuff jammed into a 10 pound bag, or a shipping crate empty of anything but a toothbrush.

The team has made good progress on the water this week. Being on an island, the ocean is just as much a piece of the scenery as the jungle, and the sky. We’re making shader changes to the ocean, and tweaking a few things to make it look as good as the rest of the island. As with the map borders on land, we discussed what we’d use to keep players from going too far out to sea. We want the water to be an important part of the game eventually, but we’re not looking to let someone set a new record for swimming the Auau Channel, all the way to Lanai. That’s a different game, and the whales use that stretch of water to breed and give birth anyway, so you should probably stay out of it. Below you can see a shot of just how nice the rolling waves look from the perspective of a swimmer.

I’ll be back next week with the latest news and updates

June 29, 2018

Throwing Things and Headshots

The team started the week by fixing a number of weapon attachment bugs. Previously, a player trying to use the sights on a weapon felt like they were in a truck speeding down a dirt road. We addressed the ADS (aiming down sights) jiggle, so iron sight fans can take a steady aim. However, that exposed a number of other attachment issues. We’re fixing the overlapping scopes, improperly sized suppressors, and other broken add-on problems as they arise.

Guns weren’t the only weapons that got some attention. Last sprint we added a throwing mechanic for weapons, and expanded what items could be thrown to include the resource harvesting tools. We’ve added a number of animations including ones for your axe, and pick. A few of us spent time this weekend: throwing axes into creatures, pulling them out of their bodies as we ran past, and hurling them again at any remaining monsters who gave chase. It may not be the best way to stay alive, but it is a lot of fun! All that throwing weapons into heads led to a conversation about adding a staggering effect when something survives taking a flying axe to the face.

We continue to iterate on the HUD, fix bugs, and add minor tweaks to make it as useful as possible to players. The team made some improvements to the Friends and Party systems to make it easier to find your friends, and keep tabs on the people who have agreed to help you survive the horrors of the jungle. We made some more improvements to the healing system, so it’s easier to keep your friends alive when things go bad for your group too.

The web team is spending some time improving user flow, and ui. We’re adding some hover animations to help users navigate through the page, and tweaking a few layouts. Jesse demoed the latest iteration of a company intro trailer, and it looks fantastic. We gave our feedback, and started talking about what audio elements we want to include.

One of the major points of focus this sprint has been on map improvements. We’ve rebuilt the entire game map for both development and performance improvements. Last week we brought in all the topography data available about the Lahaina area, making accurate shorelines, valleys, and mountains. This week we finished importing a layer that contains all of the roads, so the art team can build a makeshift network of crumbling highways, and overgrown residential streets based on the actual roads of Western Maui.

While rebuilding the play area, and adding foliage, we ran into a few (software) bugs. For some reason certain plants will no longer produce fruit, and none of the trees can be harvested for wood. We have some people fixing those problems now before the lumber shortage tanks the already fragile post-fracture economy, or some interprizing furniture maker becomes the island’s first end table billionaire.

While Terry tackled some package editor issues, the team made some improvements to creature AI. Our monsters don’t run in perfectly straight lines anymore, helping to shield them from sustained bursts of automatic fire. We plan on adding some additional defensive movements and tactics soon, but it’s a start. In addition, we’ve added some new animations giving the terrors new interactions with players as they try to tear your throat out, and a host of new reactions when they notice prey in their area.

Lastly, we’ve done some additional illumination work, and are focusing on water improvements too. The ocean has never looked better in the game, and we’re trying to find the right balance of light at night, to let players to sneak through the foliage, and still allow the stars to subtly illuminate the jungle. Here are a couple shots of beach areas after the sun goes down.

We’ll be back later with more updates.

June 27, 2018

Measuring Mountains and Securing Trade

The web team is working on a few tweaks and improvements to the notification system. We discussed ways to streamline and limit messages to avoid being bombarded with notifications, but still stay up-to-date with things like friends joining the game, and House members being online. Jesse is making a number of layout improvements including subtle hover animations to player cards, and various other areas that could use some sprucing up. We also looked at a complete list of craftable items, talked about recipes, and discussed what we’d like to add down the road.

While Terry was busy doing some minor server maintenance and fixing a few bugs, the art team was finishing up their work replacing the foliage across the map. We’ve stripped out much of the old forest, and are replacing it with a jungle that has more native Hawaiian plants, and is much less demanding on your GPU. With all the old forest gone, the team is working through the map, dropping in plants and animals across Lahaina.

Our attention then turned to player interactions and we discussed what we’d like to see in a player-to-player trading system. Very few things in life can feel as uncertain as waiting for “StealMaster6” to leave the crafting reagent you need on a rock, after he’s picked up the pile of money you threw on the ground for it. We want a simple, and secure trading system to avoid such scenarios. We then discussed various achievement awards. We came up with a few examples of obscure ones that would quickly identify the most hardcore players, and talked about the pros and cons of daily or login rewards.

We worked some more on expanding the attachments available for weapons, crossbows and compound bows in particular, and continued to work through a lengthy bug list to make sure your rifle add-ons work correctly. Armor has been working in the game for some time now, but your armor’s “health” isn’t displayed anywhere in the HUD. We decided to add an indicator there, so you don’t have to flip to your inventory screen to find out if your vest is in tatters before you start taking fire or fangs.

Jesse has been working on Paddle Creek Games animations, and trailer intros with great success. He demoed a few options, and we chose our favorite. He’s adding the finishing touches now, but it is looking terrific already. It wasn’t just the company logo however that got some animation attention. Our Trophy Hunter mutants got some new moves too. We’ve added a number of animations that make them look more realistic, and much more terrifying as they run around with their bags of heads and other trophies.

Our major map overhaul is just about complete. We’ve updated our height map of Maui, and have finished importing all the existing roads. The game map now has a solid backbone that is built on the actual topography, and infrastructure of Lahaina. We have a clear starting point now, so we can continue work building a game map for the website. The team is busy filling in the play area with our structures, special areas, and foliage, as well as adding years of overgrowth, and the effects of a global catastrophe to the two main highways that run through Lahaina. Below is a satellite view of the entire game area.

As usual, we’ll be back next week with more news and updates.

June 21, 2018

Tag: map