16/05/24 Devlog - Breaking Stuff (Patreon)

Good evening everyone!

Sephra here to give you an update on what we've been up to; we'd planned this for a few days back but ended up getting fairly into what we were doing, and wanted to show you when it was in a good state to do so as a preview!

So with Tib working on the combat and the enemy AI, we've been coming up with things on the side to go with being able to hit things (and with being hit) and one of the more significant ones we thought we'd show off is this here:

patreon_Showoff.mp4

(hopefully that's showing up as a link, the video is uploaded as an attachment to the post)

Which for those of you not watching, is a snazzy video of Amber kicking down a doorway with extreme prejudice! There are also many puddles in the area, with some reflective surfaces that were a triumph to get working properly as I understand it, AND a new HUD too!

Yes the game will now have breakable doorways, either by you or the enemies, which when broken will fly apart into constituent chunks and clatter around in a very pleasing manner; all physics objects, which if anyone remembers my very early attempts at builds for the game you'll know I love making things kickable and having them bounce about for my own amusement, and I'm sure you can imagine the many, many cool things we can do with physical debris flying around the place!

Next the puddles; these are done using a shader, as Tib tells me, which was a fair old learning experience but the atmosphere is going to get a big boost from some dank, wet hallways (ahem) for enemies to stalk down; I'll be busy making the subway very wet in my spare moments, and by the time we get outside (a lizard can dream) the noir/cyberpunk rain is that much closer to being in full effect.

And finally the HUD! This started off as a spur of the moment thing after Tib pointed out we don't plan to use the big round bit in the old one and, admittedly it was one of the very first things I made for the game back when I was just practicing making sprites; now though I think we've got something much better thought out, relatively speaking, and it's animated too no less:

patreon_HUD_Showoff.mp4

Here's another video Tib made to show some of the features it's already got; damage taking and reaching max exertion will have some neat visual effects to accentuate it a bit without getting in the way, and I've been working at these variations on it too:

(You'll have to imagine the shards of glass bursting apart from the thing in physics-engine-based glory but you get the idea)

If you consume too many eggplants the meter will burst, unfortunately; it's not a very well designed gadget on the face of it but it does have hidden uses as well.

Whew, right well that's everything I can think of for now, been sat here for an hour or so writing so I think it's time for a coffee, shake things up a bit for me!

have a great day everyone, look forward to the chance to kick down some doors yourself soon!