[Devlog] April 2025 - Week 3
Hello, and welcome to the Cosmic Construct Devlog, the 23rd week of development has just ended. Every week we cover development goals set at the end of the previous weekly devlog. This week has been largely productive.
If you want to follow development more closely, you can join us at:
Now for this week's progress
---
Finish new structures. Storehouse and Vertical Farm at least. (more if I have time).
All of the new structures are in the game, plus an additional I managed to squeeze in there.
In the above we have the Brewery that I didn't show off last week, because I didn't have the steam animated. It will, again, be used to brew alcoholic beverages and solvents.
The Town Hall, which will have a governing operation, which is complicated to explain, but when I work on the job programming I'll expand on that.
Then we have the Warehouse, which is drawn in a way to attach to itself to expand a single building out horizontally to look like one large building. Once I have the decor for this rank in, then it will like more "rural town".
You can see how the storage structures fit together here. The unplanned structure is the one with the orange stripe; the Depot. It has a corrugated roof which I just realize I haven't shaded. As a bonus, the green grass in this screenshot is actually a mimic.
Finally, we have the vertical farm, which connects to it's neighbors in a similar way, forming large contiguous structures. This screenshot shows a bunch of Garlic and Onion, but when I have all of the plants done it will be procedural. The intent is to show random plants, much like the Market.
2 new crops. There are 8 left.
At the top we have Arugula and the bottom Black Beans. As with the rest of the plants there is a wild and domesticated version. I still need to make all of the dishes these plants turn into. The food diversity of the settlement will be part of the calculation for tourism attraction.
Preparations for trailer editing.
Nothing I can show here as it will spoil the trailer. Some shots will require all of the crops be done. The trailer has a hard deadline of May 2025 Week 2. The trailer will be public in June, along with a new demo build. That build will expand the demo content substantially, bringing the player up to a point just before they can upgrade cloaks.
Reworking of an existing feature, which I will explain next week. (priority task)
Alright so. This is a big one.
I am preparing for "combat features" which require a change to the way that the game implements engagements with targets. Before this change the player had to click on an enemy to target them. They would fully stop, and then fire at a creature walking away. This is easy to program behavior for the pawns. It's fine for "enemies" that don't fight back, but not for what I have planned.
The new combat movement is fully functional. The player fires while moving, and is able to "manually circle strafe" enemies. You can hold down the mouse and aim wherever you want with no checks for range. It's just better in every measurable way.
---
There was no unplanned content this week except for the Depot art. I decided not to separate it.
This upcoming week the following is planned.
- 6 more crops. Yep gonna just do the rest of them.
- Energy and food consumption for the player and pawns.
- HP DoT for certain environments, as well as "death". (I'll clarify that later.)
- (If I have time, I'll do some of the new building UI elements.)
I really want to get some programming done, I've been doing art for too long. Anyhow, that is all for this week.
If you want to follow development more closely, you can join us at:
- My bluesky account that posts daily progress updates for the game
- The Cosmic Construct community discord server.
- Wishlist Cosmic Construct on Steam. Every wishlist helps me, and costs nothing.
- Follow the steam page to get more updates about the game. (It's also a good metric.)
Now for this week's progress
---
Finish new structures. Storehouse and Vertical Farm at least. (more if I have time).
All of the new structures are in the game, plus an additional I managed to squeeze in there.
In the above we have the Brewery that I didn't show off last week, because I didn't have the steam animated. It will, again, be used to brew alcoholic beverages and solvents.
The Town Hall, which will have a governing operation, which is complicated to explain, but when I work on the job programming I'll expand on that.
Then we have the Warehouse, which is drawn in a way to attach to itself to expand a single building out horizontally to look like one large building. Once I have the decor for this rank in, then it will like more "rural town".
You can see how the storage structures fit together here. The unplanned structure is the one with the orange stripe; the Depot. It has a corrugated roof which I just realize I haven't shaded. As a bonus, the green grass in this screenshot is actually a mimic.
Finally, we have the vertical farm, which connects to it's neighbors in a similar way, forming large contiguous structures. This screenshot shows a bunch of Garlic and Onion, but when I have all of the plants done it will be procedural. The intent is to show random plants, much like the Market.
2 new crops. There are 8 left.
At the top we have Arugula and the bottom Black Beans. As with the rest of the plants there is a wild and domesticated version. I still need to make all of the dishes these plants turn into. The food diversity of the settlement will be part of the calculation for tourism attraction.
Preparations for trailer editing.
Nothing I can show here as it will spoil the trailer. Some shots will require all of the crops be done. The trailer has a hard deadline of May 2025 Week 2. The trailer will be public in June, along with a new demo build. That build will expand the demo content substantially, bringing the player up to a point just before they can upgrade cloaks.
Reworking of an existing feature, which I will explain next week. (priority task)
Alright so. This is a big one.
I am preparing for "combat features" which require a change to the way that the game implements engagements with targets. Before this change the player had to click on an enemy to target them. They would fully stop, and then fire at a creature walking away. This is easy to program behavior for the pawns. It's fine for "enemies" that don't fight back, but not for what I have planned.
The new combat movement is fully functional. The player fires while moving, and is able to "manually circle strafe" enemies. You can hold down the mouse and aim wherever you want with no checks for range. It's just better in every measurable way.
---
There was no unplanned content this week except for the Depot art. I decided not to separate it.
This upcoming week the following is planned.
- 6 more crops. Yep gonna just do the rest of them.
- Energy and food consumption for the player and pawns.
- HP DoT for certain environments, as well as "death". (I'll clarify that later.)
- (If I have time, I'll do some of the new building UI elements.)
I really want to get some programming done, I've been doing art for too long. Anyhow, that is all for this week.