Working on Systems - Dev Update #2

Hi again! Been a couple weeks, so just wanted to let you all what we've been working on. I (John) hadn't taken any time off from the EA release so ended up taking one of the last two weeks to do at least some work things that AREN'T directly related to coding. So much of the work the others have been chewing on isn't in the codebase yet. BUT, I've got some neat things to share nonetheless!

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]
As you may remember, we now have a public testing branch that I'm uploading unfinished content to. Last update, I pushed up a version that included a barebones version of the inventory and spider enemies. As you might imagine given the nature of the game, this has given a wealth of new bugs and unintended exploits. I've been working to address the most major ones, and although the list is shrinking, there's still a lot of work to do!



[h2]UI Work[/h2]

Evan has spent some good time mocking up and implementing some of the new pieces of UI we'll need for the systems we talked about last update. Notably, we're getting really close to having a working UI for missions, which I feel will be a really fun update to play around with when it's ready. Another huge piece of work is getting inventory icons made for each. . . and. . . every prop in the whole game. We are very committed to trying to make our systems as much of a playground as possible, and since you are able to shrink most objects in the game. . . that also means most objects can turn into items that are small enough to fit in your inventory and need visual data associated with it. Helpful Cody has been hard at work getting render captures for every mesh in the game, and Evan wrote an Adobe script to run image processing automatically on each capture. If you're interested in how that looks, here's a tiny unlisted YT video showing what the script does:

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https://youtu.be/msGSKbBzB3o
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[h2]New Characters[/h2]

SHHHHHHH don't want to talk about this one yet. Maybe next update!

[h2]Loading Between Scenes[/h2]

This turned into a whole nightmare for me. We want the dungeon areas to exist in different scenes for a large variety of reasons. As it turns out, Unreal is a lot less flexible than Unity when it comes to keeping object states between load and, once again, GIVEN THE NATURE OF THE GAME, the player can be in a LOT of different states, as well as can be wearing or holding items that can ALSO be in a lot of different states. After a couple days of research and playing around, it turns out the simplest option ended up being the best - tracking all possible modifications that can happen to a player or an object, remaking them when the scene loads, and reapplying the modifications. This will take up more time in the future as more possible ways objects can be sized, distorted, have states changed, etc. are added to the game, but trust me - doing anything else simply would not be enough.

If you're interested in seeing the progress of loading between scenes, I've uploaded a NEW build to the public testing branch that, instead of taking you to the early access screen when finishing the castle area, loads you into a new spider AI testing(ish) area. It's almost like a little tiny mini bite-sized dungeon!

[h2]That's All For Today![/h2]
I need to go to the gym, so I'll save the rest of the updates for a future post. If you want more consistent looks at what's being worked on, make sure to join my Discord or follow on any of the socials linked below. SPY GUY OUT!