Getting Up Close and Personal With Your Colonists!
Allright Pioneers, please join us in the center square of our little space colony for another round of (more or less) important announcements! In this week's Weekly Apart update we want to further flesh out the colony sim aspect of Dawn Apart as we are currently working on a character viewer that tracks the wants and needs of the first humans to set foot on the planet Aurora!
But first we want to give a special shout out to YouTube and Twitch partner TotalXclipse for including Dawn Apart in his amazing "TOP Factory Games You NEED To Checkout In 2023" video - it's really an honor to be in the company of those other great automation games. Check out the compilation below, make sure to follow TotalXclipse and while you're at it leave a comment, like or follow on our social media channels as well!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h3]The Human Connection[/h3]
Since Dawn Apart will not merely be a factory but also a space colony sim, it is crucial that players establish real connections with individual pioneers. Early on we decided that the people colonizing Aurora would not be generic, faceless avatars but individuals with unique looks and personas that you will care for (or, depending on their actions, perhaps despise). Because the in-game characters are rather small - especially when contrasted with the huge machinery and factory building - and hard to relate to on that scale, we came up with a solution.
As hinted at in our previous post about designing the UI for Dawn Apart, we have dedicated the lower right corner of the screen to a character viewer that, with a click on each respective colonist on the map, gives you a more detailed profile of his or her look and personal stats. In part inspired by the first X-COM game this preview includes a voxel model of the character (that will ultimately be animated and reflect the activity the colonists is currently pursuing), their weapon/item loadout as well as an status update detailing sleeping, eating, health and bathroom habits over the last 12 in-game hours.
[h3]Up close and personal[/h3]
Keep in mind that this is still far from being the final version and a voxel/pixel artist will revamp it completely once all the systems have been set in place. The character in this case was, as a test, designed by the great @DanielWienerson who is known as the creator of Voxel Doom. Future iterations of characters will consist of modular parts such as hair, clothes, and other facial parts that are then randomized and rearranged.
Adding this 'Pioneer Detail View Controller' makes a huge impact in terms of further humanizing the colonists. Along with giving them means to express what is on their mind by displaying dialogue and thoughts and an intricate system of interconnected needs and wants (Rimworld is the obvious source of inspiration here), we hope to (literally) give our colony a human face.
Let us know what you think in the comments and see you next week! And don't forget to join our Discord server if you want to be among the first players to check out our demo!
But first we want to give a special shout out to YouTube and Twitch partner TotalXclipse for including Dawn Apart in his amazing "TOP Factory Games You NEED To Checkout In 2023" video - it's really an honor to be in the company of those other great automation games. Check out the compilation below, make sure to follow TotalXclipse and while you're at it leave a comment, like or follow on our social media channels as well!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h3]The Human Connection[/h3]
Since Dawn Apart will not merely be a factory but also a space colony sim, it is crucial that players establish real connections with individual pioneers. Early on we decided that the people colonizing Aurora would not be generic, faceless avatars but individuals with unique looks and personas that you will care for (or, depending on their actions, perhaps despise). Because the in-game characters are rather small - especially when contrasted with the huge machinery and factory building - and hard to relate to on that scale, we came up with a solution.
As hinted at in our previous post about designing the UI for Dawn Apart, we have dedicated the lower right corner of the screen to a character viewer that, with a click on each respective colonist on the map, gives you a more detailed profile of his or her look and personal stats. In part inspired by the first X-COM game this preview includes a voxel model of the character (that will ultimately be animated and reflect the activity the colonists is currently pursuing), their weapon/item loadout as well as an status update detailing sleeping, eating, health and bathroom habits over the last 12 in-game hours.
[h3]Up close and personal[/h3]
Keep in mind that this is still far from being the final version and a voxel/pixel artist will revamp it completely once all the systems have been set in place. The character in this case was, as a test, designed by the great @DanielWienerson who is known as the creator of Voxel Doom. Future iterations of characters will consist of modular parts such as hair, clothes, and other facial parts that are then randomized and rearranged.
Adding this 'Pioneer Detail View Controller' makes a huge impact in terms of further humanizing the colonists. Along with giving them means to express what is on their mind by displaying dialogue and thoughts and an intricate system of interconnected needs and wants (Rimworld is the obvious source of inspiration here), we hope to (literally) give our colony a human face.
Let us know what you think in the comments and see you next week! And don't forget to join our Discord server if you want to be among the first players to check out our demo!