ui Archives - Page 2 of 8 - Fractured Veil

Videos and Voices

To get the week started we had a lengthy conversation about game videos. We have some landscape and test footage, as well as a few bloopers, but we need to make quite a few more. We looked at what we already have in the folder, and talked about what aspects of the game we wanted to highlight. Putting on their editor hats, Jesse and company are working on a few more videos, and cutting them up to make GIFs. We’ve already shared the “Can Gun” video from a few weeks ago, with most people expressing interest in having it as a weapon option in the game, and wondering how many beans a second it could fire.

We briefly discussed which one of us had the most pleasing voice for doing voice overs, and came to a consensus rather quickly, avoiding a lengthy reality-talent-show-like process. In addition to the GIFs and videos, we talked about creating websites for the larger ingame companies like: Manimal, Duracave, and SSHAM, and what we’d like those sites to look like, and offer players.

We made a few play improvements recently too. We adjusted hitmarkers to make them easier to use, made some enhancements to points of interest visibility on the map, and have a brighter, more noticeable beam showing the location of loot drops in the game. We discussed the possibility of including a basic melee weapon, like a club or rock, in the player inventory when they spawn, so they always have something to defend themselves with. The led to a conversation about punching your way out of, or into trouble, in the game. Chris lamented the lack of a punching option, for when you’ve run out of ammo, and want to feel like flailing your arms around will help.

Jared is finishing up the last round of improvements to the email and notification system, as well as the settings options necessary to support them. We talked about setting up a RSS feed to add to the forums and our Discord channel. We continued work on building out an achievement system, both for the game and the web page. Jesse is currently working on layouts and designing badges while we compile a list of achievement worthy activities like: joining a house, inviting a friend, or filling out your profile.

Terry and crew continue our march towards the upgrade to UE 4.20.2, but the audio transition to Wwise is done, and we’re making the final push on our trueSKY update. We circled back to a few lingering play features that needed some attention like blocking player notifications from the annoying and needy, and various minor weapon fixes. We discussed ways to improve our iteration time, and solutions for NPC voices (see the conversation about pleasing tones and articulation in the second paragraph above.)

One of the team’s main tasks this sprint is improving performance in structures, and building out the game area around the Thorcon Power Plant, our temporary social hub.
That work continues this week, as we focus on adding details to our ruined neighborhoods while being mindful of being kind to your GPU. Here’s a look at a few houses and some roof detail work.

October 2, 2018

Upgrades, Updates, and Points of Interest

As the week comes to an end, the team remains focused on the upgrade to UE 4.20.2, and is making good progress. We’re also upgrading trueSky, to fix some lingering fog and cloud issues, and moving all of our audio over to the latest version of Wwise. With all these different updates and upgrades, Terry and crew have been busy putting out fires as they appear, and working on documentation. In the midst of this flurry of updates, upgrades, and documenting, we briefly discussed server stress testing down the road, once everything is stable.

While the web team worked on fixing a few bugs that popped up with the new front page navigation, we talked a bit about some marketing ideas and options. We discussed a number of possible contests and giveaways for players in the closed beta, and further along in the game’s development. We’re putting together some videos, making sure we capture the best of game play, as well as the stuff that didn’t go so well, which to be honest, can be a lot of fun to watch.

We’re collecting feedback on all areas of the website: the account creation process, purchasing items and packages, as well as joining a House, from people who haven’t seen the website before. We’re hoping the fresh eyes will be able to spot areas of improvement and anything that is too confusing, that we’ve overlooked. So far it’s really paid off, and we’ve started a list of refinements to make all areas easier to use and more intuitive.

We also made some improvements to our “Points of Interest” map to make it a better design tool. Containing all the places and structures mentioned in the game stories, and a few other surprises, the POI map serves as an aspirational guide for building out areas, and the placement of buildings. We’ve added a few new layers to represent areas the art team have already finished, the places that are playable in the game currently, and different “loot zones”.

Distributing items and gear across the map in a way that makes sense, our loot zones provide players a dependable area to look for certain items they need for crafting or completing a quest. For instance, a player looking for shark teeth should check beach areas, and someone in need of some food or refreshing Manimal will have the best luck searching one of the many ruined neighborhoods. We talked about some refinements we could make to the system as it currently stands, and how best to adjust it in the future.

We also spent some time discussing crafting. With only a few minor issues remaining, like working on the ui for splitting stacks of items in your inventory, our first pass at the crafting system is just about done. We talked about new recipes and creating a tiered model for resources with items like smelters, various types of machines, and lab equipment. We have quite a few decisions to make for the next iteration, but we’re off to a good start.

Lastly, performance improvements continue on the Municipal Veil Station. The future social hub of the game is a huge building that the art team is busy making material improvements to, for better performance. At the same time, we’re marking up the outside to show the toll time and the fracture have taken. Below you can see some prefracture and postfracture shots.

September 28, 2018

Front Page Fixes and AI Improvements

The web team started off the week by releasing a whole new navigation system on the front page. Everything a visitor needs can be found on our much cleaner left-side navigation now. The group did lots of refactoring work and are busy hunting down any new bugs that pop up. Jesse added some new loading animations between screens, and Jared is putting together a heat map, so we can see what areas people are visiting most, and how they’re getting there.

We’re updating our notification and alert system so you can keep up to date on everything your friends and House members do, and a setting to receive virtually no messages; just in case your loved ones are worried that you’re spending too much of your day tracking the goings-on of people you play games with. Jared is working out an achievement system for the website to help users find everything available to them, and explore the various social tie-ins. With Jared busy coming up with an idea for a Friendster achievement, Jesse is working on a few new pre-recorded videos to show on the front page when the drone is down. He’s also doing a little work on a Paddle Creek Games page, for those of you who are interested in learning more about us.

While the web team is focusing on making things better for real people, everyone else has been working on game AI and improving the mutants. They’ve completed designs on a couple new types of survivors warped by the fracture, and are working on their individual AI to make their fighting style and tactics different from the Trophy Hunters.

We found a bug that was making our creatures swarm downed characters and pound them into mush, even if other players were still up and shooting. We can see how it might get frustrating for them to kill someone, only to see that same person again a few minutes later, but we’d rather they don’t spend their time beating a dead horse or player. We’ve also fixed a pathing bug that would send groups of creatures on strangely long journeys upon sighting a player, and keep some from climbing stairs. As you can see from this shot of mutants on top of the Communications Tower, they have no trouble getting anywhere now.

We’re doing a deep dive into our road and village generating system to make sure both are working as smartly and smoothly as possible, while being mindful of possible performance issues. Our campfires now produce enough smoke that they are visible at a distance, and players will now leave dirt footprints in some areas making it easier to see if a place has had recent activity, and which direction those visitors might have gone.

We continue to make audio improvements across the board, from player and creature noises, to weapon sounds, and clangs and thuds when you drop an item from your inventory. With the first pass at our crafting system nearing completion, we talked about making it a bit more complex. We discussed potential new recipes, recycling improvements, and ways we can encourage players to experiment with recipes.

We made some refinements to the map’s loot regions, making sure that players learn they are more likely to find certain items in certain areas, and encouraging them to move about the entire game area. The team continues to work on performance improvements in the Veil Station, building out the areas around the Thorcon Power Plant, and improving the weather. Here’s a look at the tower and mountains with some darkening clouds rolling in.

September 26, 2018

The Distribution of Loot

The team is finishing out the week by focusing on a few ui improvements. Currently, it can be hard to see in the heat of battle what items you have selected or equipped from your inventory. The last thing we want is players mistakenly splashing mutants with a canteen, instead of filling them full of lead. We’re adding improvements to better outline the stuff you want to use. We’re also working on hitmarker improvements so you can line up your shots more accurately, either on the fly, or after a measured exhale.

While Terry and crew continue to manage the UE 4.20.2 and trueSKY upgrade, we made a few improvements to the map. We found some areas are too resource poor for our liking, especially when it comes to metal and minerals. The team is adding more rocks in these areas, allowing players the ability to smash stones until they give up the goods. We also talked at some length about points of interest visibility on the map. We’re making some improvements to better highlight places that are important for quests, might hold valuable loot, are fun to explore, or just act as landmarks and rallying points.

We’re just wrapping up final touches on the next round of mutants to chase players around Lahaina. These gruesome creatures will offer players new types of challenges to overcome, through different tactics and attacks than the Trophy Hunters do now. The group has been focusing on improving ranged AI this week too. We’re improving the tactics employed by ranged attackers like: taking cover between shots, focusing on certain targets, and funneling players into the teeth and claws of waiting melee fighters. After some discussion about what types of mutants would still retain enough of their minds to use complex weapons, we started working on gun tactics for specific creatures.

We’ve been moving all of our audio over to Wwise, and making some improvements as we go. Every area and building has its own specific noises, so those who’ve spent a lot of time exploring could theoretically tell where they were just by listening to the background noises. We’ve made some improvements to reloading sounds, because the noise a shotgun makes while being racked can be a great morale boost before combat, or a warning that something really bad is about to happen. We’ve made some other minor audio changes too, like slightly delaying the sounds of doors, and adjusting the volume of footsteps on different types of surfaces.

One of the biggest projects this week has been making improvements to the loot system. We’re creating all new loot tables based on “regions” on the map. While players have a chance to pick up any kind of loot anywhere, we want certain items to be rare in certain areas, and more plentiful in others. For instance, if you’re looking for shark teeth, you might find them anywhere, but beaches will be the best places to look. The mountains and dense jungle will turn up more harvesting tools and raw resources. Ruined neighborhoods hold more provisions than other areas, and downtown is the place to look for weapons and ammo. We’re also working on adding visual cues to help players see where a loot drop scenario is happening, and adding the same for quests.

Finally, we continue to work on improving performance issues with the Veil Station and our procedural building system. While we’re making progress on turning the station into the future social hub of the game, the team is also building out neighborhoods surrounding the Thorcon Power Plant. We’re still making performance and materials improvements to the automated building system, but as you can see from these shots below, the neighborhoods that we can build on the fly are looking pretty good.

September 20, 2018

Grungy Buildings and Ricocheting Bullets

While Terry kicked off the week poking the monster that is the UE 4.20.2 upgrade and updating trueSKY, the rest of the team was busy switching over audio to Wwise. We’ve made a number of audio improvements across the board. The amount of noise a player makes when doing various activities has been adjusted (there’s no quiet leaping from the top of a structure), and we’ve made improvements to some other environmental sounds too. You can now occasionally hear a bullet ricochet, (a strangely pleasing noise when firing a weapon), and we’ve added a little flying blood when you successfully cause damage with a shotgun.

We’ve been polishing the area where our first quest takes place, fixing bugs, and doing some general UX work. The shot below shows you what the neighborhood surrounding the Communication Tower looks like as you approach, looking for quest items.

A few of the bugs we fixed already this week include: Medkits will now heal poison effects. Sometimes a player would start to lean to one side like they had just maxed out their credit card on mai tai’s, at Beachcomber Bob’s Tiki Tavern. We made sure everyone now stands up straight. Occasionally a mutant would refuse to climb stairs, so we worked on their confidence, glutes, and quads to make sure they could run stadium stairs with the best of them. Lastly, we fixed a problem with crafting recipes turning up empty.

While we were working on the crafting bugs, we also put in some UX time and addressed a number of layout issues on the crafting screen. We nabbed a lingering bug with the player inventory grid, added some improvements to the queue, made rollover info for items more clear, made some navigation improvements, and added subtle changes to the color scheme to help differentiate items actively being worked on, and those waiting for repair.

The web team made some changes to the front page, including upgrades to the slides, colors, and navigation layout. We talked about incorporating a badge/achievement system to encourage players to explore the page, and all the various social tie-ins available to them. Jared started work expanding our notification system so players can get alerts every time something new happens in their House, or to one of their friends. He’s also making sure there is a setting for those of you who don’t want to get notified of anything those people are doing, so long as they’re helping you shoot things in the jungle, and bandaging hurt limbs. We discussed the need to give the VNN drone the updated geographic information of the new map, so it will stop traveling through the Earth while making its path around the island.

Our SEO work is starting to pay off and we talked at some length about user flow improvements. We’ve addressed some of the confusion our packages page had inadvertently caused. After some initial feedback, we learned that some wrongly thought they’d have to pay a monthly subscription to play the game, instead of a one-time fee. We’ve addressed the problem, and updated the page to make it clear that a player doesn’t have to pay every month to play the game. We discussed offering some sort of game bundle which would allow a player to buy multiple copies of the game for their friends at a discount. We looked at a number of examples other games were using, and are deciding what we think would work best for us.

Being the temporary social hub in the game, the Thorcon Power Plant is getting some minor touch-ups, and we’re building out the surrounding areas to make sure there is plenty to loot, explore, and fight. However, we plan on moving the main meeting point to the Veil Station in the near future. The art team is hard at work making all the performance and texture improvements necessary to make that happen. The shots below highlight the building’s exterior transformation from normal wear and tear, to what 60+ years and The Great Fracture has done to it.

That’s everything for now. I’ll be back with more updates at the end of the week.

September 18, 2018

Time To Go On A Quest

This week the team started off by circling back to refine and build out a number of player and social features. We’re looking into ways to highlight our affiliate program, and improve its usability. We looked at how a few other games use theirs, and discussed at some length what would work best for us. This led to a conversation about gifting Kula, our premium currency, to other players, and using it to buy packages or merchandise to give to your friends or fellow House members.

We looked at the House sign up and creation process. Remember, if you want to go fast in Lahaina, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. We started a list of House improvements, and other issues we found too confusing in other social aspects of the game. We talked a bit about bundling game packages to make it easier for people to buy copies of the game for their friends, as well as clearer notifications to tell when your friends are online, or playing the game.

Jared cleared out a few bugs on the web page, and dug into some form validation work. After finding a bug with how the forums work last week, we decided to take them out of iframes, and figure out a better way to incorporate them on the page. Jesse finished the design for the ingame shipping/logistics company Alohagistics. Instead of the boring old crates, and boxes found around the map, players will now find a good mix of packages from 2050’s cheapest shipping solution. Alohagistics – Get There Eventually.

We continue to push ahead with crafting improvements. Jesse has finished the last of the wireframes and we just need to hook them up. He’s still doing some rollover work on inventory items, and addressing a few minor bugs. With a little ui polish, we hope to have the first iteration of the system working by next week. We also took a look at our old keybindings, and made a few minor changes to make certain actions in the game more intuitive, while keeping things like shooting, running, jumping, and crouching in the usual places.

After a lot of hard work on our quest demo this sprint, it’s completed and moved from staging to production. Certain Trophy Hunters now throw things at players more macabre than pineapples, and we fixed a bug that would crash the game when a player would throw a weapon. We’ve worked out the bugs with the zipline, so you can now enjoy a panoramic trip from the top of the Communication Tower, and actually stop at the bottom. We’ve: fixed some audio issues, finalized the quest dialog, populated the areas around the tower with loot and quest items, and worked out the lighting as you can see from what’s left of this tiny park near the tower.

We’ve completed models for the next group of mutants to chase and murder players, as well as fixed many of our weather issues (before we upgrade trueSky next sprint), and made a lot of performance improvements. However, with all the work we put into the quest demo, we didn’t quite finish a few goals. We’re carrying over a few things into the next sprint including finally biting the bullet and updating to UE 4.20.2. We’ll have more on that later this week.

September 11, 2018

Casting an Appropriate Level of Light On things

The team started off the week with some work on smoothing out the flight plan of the Veil News Network (VNN) drone. The game’s eye in the sky broadcasts a live feed of what’s going on in the game, highlighting different areas of the map, and capturing player activity. We’re also working on an “Art Bible”, that documents the look, feel, and methods we’ve used in the game, to help keep things consistent for any new faces in the future.

We’ve finished some AI improvements for ranged attacks and reloading. We found that occasionally a ranged attacker would lose confidence in their ability to hit a target at a distance and move too close. We also ran into trouble with NPCs emptying their guns and then taking time to ponder what life choices led them to be in the middle of a firefight, delaying their reloading time. We want mindless killing machines who know enough to stay out of machete reach hunting down our players, so we’re retraining our antagonists to make them appropriately deadly.

While Terry was busy doing documentation on existing servers, and updating tech documents, we revisited the old keybindings sheet and decided to make a few improvements. All the normal shoot, jump, and movement keys are right where you would expect to find them, but we mapped out a few of the other less used movement/action key in a way that is intuitive for players and easy to hit when you’re being torn apart by enemies. Of course, players can always change things in their settings if they have a set-up they prefer.

The web team was busy making some layout improvements and squashing a few bugs. Jesse reworked the game packages page to make it look better. We worked on some context menus, added a few new animations, and looked at some background/wallpaper video options to give certain sections a unique look and feel.

We’re taking a deep dive into some SEO issues we discovered, and are making some changes to improve things. We discussed a few tweaks that we plan on making to the friends system to help you find play buddies, and follow people streaming the game. We went over a number of forum improvements that we plan to roll out in the near future, and talked about updating our YouTube channel more often with different aspects of game-play.

The art team remains focused on building out the areas around the Communication Tower to support our upcoming quest/tutorial. Players will start out safe and secure in our sewer respawn area where they will learn the basics of game play: aiming/shooting/fighting, crafting, looting, harvesting resources, and moving around. They will then embark on a quest involving the tower and the surrounding area using all the skills they just learned. We’re fixing a number of little bugs and adding roads, loot, buildings, and enemies in the corridor leading up to the tower.

With so many systems and creatures ready, we’ve been putting in a lot of play time, and of course found a few bugs. We’re working on ziplines, making it easier to strap yourself in, fly across a large section of Lahaina, and hopefully stop. We’ve been having trouble with the stopping part, and that’s a pretty important part. We’ve discovered tiny puffs of poisonous clouds where they shouldn’t be, and we’ve mostly worked out our remaining weather and wind issue.

Lastly, we’ve made a lot of improvements to the game’s lighting. This shot below shows off the progress we’ve made. The large spotlight clearly illuminates an area but doesn’t wash out the dimmer bulb in the background or the stars in the sky. It’s not perfect yet, but it’s getting there.

We’ll be back later in the week with the latest news.

August 28, 2018

Ziplines, Buildings, and Bears

The team made some good progress on streamlining crafting and improving ui this week. We added some improvements to how drag and drop works, highlighting items selected, and fixing a bug that offset where your gear got dropped in your inventory. We cleaned up some of the navigation on the crafting page to make things a little less cluttered, and made some upgrades to how scrolling works. A bug that would occasionally break scrolling was fixed, and we are adding a few context menus to help you sort through your gear and compare items.

We plan on working on a queue layout the rest of the week. This will allow players to see what they are working on, and help people playing at work determine if their gun mods will be done before their next meeting. We added some animations, and looked at background options to make the whole crafting experience look more authentic.

Terry continued his work on builds, and the East Coast mirror is up and running with a couple of us using it. Git onboarding continues with only a handful of contractors left who need to move over. We made a number of audio improvements, and discussed what still needs to be done, including a Wwise update. Chris had some concerns about our patcher, so we discussed its size and various ways we could handle it differently down the road.

A number of bugs were fixed this week in the game. The rain now actually makes a player’s clothes wet, and is visible no matter what your body position. We weren’t really feeling the 2D dry rain on the island. We also discovered a bug that sometimes makes party members flicker in and out of existence. While most of us are big fans of bouncing between worlds, it’s really hard to fix someone’s arm when their physical body is manifesting across the multiverse. At least with a traditional splint anyway.

Our new and improved campfire is almost done, with only some ui work left to do. Players will now need to feed wood to the fire if they want to: keep it burning, dry their clothes, grab a bite to eat, warm up, and talk about their day. We discussed the proper rate of burn to strike that perfect balance between having an ever-burning log, and allowing players time to do something other than harvest wood.

We grunged up many structures, and roughed up a lot of ruined roads, but we still have a lot to go. We talked about some procedural building upgrades that should save us some time, and still provide different types of damage and weathering so all of our ruins don’t look like carbon copies.

The group continues to add the final touches to the underground spawn area. We made some lighting and texture improvements to make it look appropriately dark and slimy, but still comfortable. We added some new audio so you can hear just how bad the electrical connections to the jury-rigged Nuuskin pods are. The team briefly discussed the starting equipment available to players in this area, and possible tweaks to your beginning gear.

We began work on our first quest scenario for the game. While we’re still working out the specifics, it is going to take place in the area around the Communication Tower. We looked at some existing real-world features on that part of Maui, and talked about what we wanted to include, and what we’d like to add. We circled back to our zipline discussion from last week, and looked at our first semi-working zipline demo. There are a few bugs to work out yet, as San kept going straight into the ocean his first time down. He probably would have made it all the way to what was left of Japan had he not drowned first. Even with the bugs, fast traveling from the top of the comm tower is a lot of fun.

Lastly, we continue environmental work to make the jungle and beach areas look as realistic as possible. Here you can see one of the escaped bears taking a little nap on the beach. Unless you’ve come loaded for him, it’s probably best to keep your distance.

August 21, 2018

New Buildings and Dangers

We made a few audio improvements to compliment all of our recent map work this week. A number of weapons now have improved clicks, twangs, and booms. We’ve added some new character sounds such as crisper footfalls, and rustling while moving through the foliage. We have placeholder voices for NPCs and our monsters as well, although they need a bit of work yet. The trophy hunter’s battle cries sound like they’re trying to decide if attacking is worth the effort, and the NPC voices are reminiscent of something you’d hear listening to an audiobook on the way to work, but we plan on upgrading both soon.

Crafting improvements continue, with a number of ui upgrades. We made a number of drag and drop improvements, and squashed a bug that was offsetting where an item ended up in your inventory. Double clicking an item now brings up its detail page so all of its info is easily accessible. We added time estimates so you know how long your new weapon or part is going to take to build, and made a number of navigation enhancements too.

We’re still working on debugging our live Veil News Network (VNN) drone feed. However, you can still watch a previously recorded stream on the front page until it’s back in the air. We’re working on drone documentation as well, and hope to have the live camera making its rounds across the island again soon.

The latest “refurbish machine” concept drawings were presented in various configurations, states of disrepair, and colors. Designed to allow players to change colors and fix torn clothing and armor, the machine should be ready to go in the near future. We talked briefly about other types of finishing, polishing, and engraving we might include down the road.

Our monsters not only got new voices this week, they got two new types as well. We have individuals with ranged attacks to deal with snipers, and players trying to kite melee fighters into a killzone. We also have individuals who can feed on downed party members, and grow considerably tougher. This makes it important for players to stay together, and keep everyone healed up. We watched a short demo movie of both new types in action, and talked a bit about future iterations.

Jesse made a number of layout improvements to help players navigate across the webpage, and we worked on trails between points of interest in the game. We’re using an automated trail building system to integrate the already existing Lahaina roads, with the network of paths we need to keep players moving around the map. We’re aging and breaking the roads as we move section by section, populating the map.

With all the road work being done, the team continues to add buildings, and structures to explore. We fixed the bugs we ran into last week with the Thorcon Power Plant and it’s back in place. Here you can see it in the midday sun.

The Lahaina Armory found a spot on the map too. We still need to add some weathering and some ground cover, but the wooden building will be open to the public soon, offering a good selection of weapons and ammo. Below you can see the front of the building.

That’s all for this week. We’ll be back with more updates later.

August 2, 2018

Playing With Friends and Building Neighborhoods

We kicked the week off with a number of group play improvements and features. We’ve worked out the last of the bugs interfering with the ability to heal others. Splints can be quickly applied to party members to get them up and running again when you’re in a hurry, and bandages now affect all injuries in a certain area. You can even force feed and unconscious friend to bring them back from the brink, stave off starvation, or role play an unsettling foie gras obsession. We also did some work to make it easier to find friends to join your group, and should have a player blocking feature in place soon, so you can ignore that player who keeps asking to feed you.

Our creatures got upgraded too. We continue to work on their AI, to make them cunning and dangerous opponents. We’ve completed the first pass at group attacks. The Trophy Hunters now have good basic group attack strategies: running at angles, utilizing cover, and avoiding bunching. We added a few different types of specialized individuals in large groups. Players can expect stronger/faster leader types with special attacks, and monsters with ranged attacks now.

We added some new audio for NPCs and creatures, but the monster audio is a little lackluster. We talked about making their growls more bone chilling, and less sleepy, as well as other options. The team started a list of audio improvements, and is prioritizing it now. We adjusted our loot drop scenarios to make sure they are focused on areas with buildings or structures, to make the scramble for gear more fun as well.

We continue to make crafting improvements. The latest round of weapon attachments are in and ready, without the sizing troubles we ran into with the last group of scopes and suppressors. We made some drag and drop refinements, added some more item description info, and a few useful tooltips. We talked at some length about rewarding players who want to experiment with crafting recipes to make something unique. The team discussed the best way to encourage those who want to make substitutions to their recipes, or just throw a bunch of stuff together to see what happens.

The Git rollover nears completion, with most of the artists moved over now. Jesse continued to make layout improvements. We looked at a new batch of wireframes and navigation options. The web team discussed new prompts, and context menus to help players along, and improve user flow, while Jared ran down, and fixed a few lingering bugs.

Our map rebuild continues to march forward. One of the biggest points of focus over the the last couple of sprints, work on populating the game map ran into a few hiccups this week. The Thorcon Power Plant wasn’t playing well with the area around it, and was broken in a few places, so we pulled it to fix the problems. We also found a bug that was causing trees and creatures in some areas to float above the ground. While areas of reverse gravity could lead to some interesting 3D gun combat, it’s not what we’re looking to do. In addition, we noticed that right now the foliage doesn’t move in one consistent direction like it should when the wind is blowing. Rather, the plants move in different directions, and speeds. Leaves and limbs writhe independently around you like you’re stuck in the jungle after drinking spiked Kool-Aid. We’re working on fixing the foliage, and the wind before someone freaks out.

Despite the few bugs, we are making good progress overall. We’ve aged the roads around Lahaina to show how much can be reclaimed by the jungle after decades of neglect. In this shot, you can see from the air the faint outline of some of the roads that once ran near the beach.

We continue to add ruins and landmark buildings to the map section by section. Unlike the power plant, we had no problem with the Communications Tower or the Lahaina Armory, and are placing structures as we move along. Below you can see an area waiting for a few buildings that survived the fracture.

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

July 31, 2018

Tag: ui