Cosmic Construct News

[p]This is the 31st week devlog for Cosmic Construct, and a big new thing. As I mentioned last week, this devlog was going to be a patch notes for the new demo version. There is nothing to review, as I set no goals during the last devlog.[/p][p]To follow the game's progress you can join me at:[/p]

• [p]My bluesky account which gives more frequent updates.[/p]
• [p]The Cosmic Construct community discord server.[/p]
• [p]Also Wishlist Cosmic Construct on Steam and follow it's steam page.[/p]

[p]---[/p][p]The demo is now available on itch again.[/p][p]---[/p][p]\[] Demo Version 0.2.0 Patch Notes[/p][p]Access Changes[/p]

• [p]Increased max Totem Level to 8 from 5.[/p]
• [p]Increased max Pawns to 16 from 10.[/p]

[p]New Features[/p]

• [p]New open ended objective and achievement system. There is a short tutorial objective list. All other objectives are accessed by pressing the "O" key.[/p]
• [p]Added skilling. There are now 10 skills the player can increase by doing various activities while playing the game. The skilling menu can be accessed by pressing the "K" key. Not all skills are available in the demo.[/p]
• [p]The energy bar in the top left is now functional. It will decrease over time. It is restored by eating food items. Pawns currently do not consume food, that will be coming sometime soon.[/p]
• [p]Pawn social interactions. The player can now talk to Pawns by interacting with them using the "E" key. This is replacing the Log Menu, which is currently unused. Still need to echo those messages to the Log.[/p]
• [p]Added new pawn jobs.[/p]
• [p]Added 14 new harvestable crops.[/p]
• [p]Added the Lunland Biome[/p]
• [p]Added the Grotlands Biome[/p]
• [p]Added the Omnilands Biome[/p]
• [p]Added many new items.[/p]
• [p]Added new BGM tracks.[/p]
• [p]Added many new voice lines.[/p]

[p]Quality of Life[/p]

• [p]Added a custom mouse cursor, which respond to clickable elements.[/p]
• [p]Correctly colored non-clickable elements in some UI pages.[/p]
• [p]Changed the way attacks are made by the player. The player can now draw back and hold an arrow before firing. You can now also move while the arrow is drawn, and strafe.[/p]
• [p]Decreased the length of Tudi's voice lines.[/p]
• [p]Crafting stations now decline crafting immediately.[/p]
• [p]Crafting stations now craft all items in the inventory without reselecting the inventory.[/p]
• [p]Crafting stations will now display what item they will craft when nearby.[/p]
• [p]Storage crates will now pull out partial stacks of 10 items if 10 items are not available.[/p]
• [p]Silk items have been renamed to Satin.[/p]
• [p]Unassignable professions are not displayed.[/p]

[p]Performance Changes[/p]

• [p]Map files now use a new seeding system which decreases map file size.[/p]
• [p]Changed the way save files are structured meaning old save files no longer function.[/p]
• [p]Changed pawn checks to use Manhattan distance.[/p]
• [p]Changed pawn checks to check nearby grid cells more efficiently.[/p]

[p]Bug Fixes[/p]

• [p]Included and corrected some build menu icons.[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue that would cause legacy options files not to load.[/p]

[p]---[/p][p]Let me know if there are any issues you experience. I'll roll out fixes for them as fast as I can.[/p][p]Most problems can be fixed by deleting all files in the save file directory in %appdata%/Cosmic_Construct[/p][p]---[/p][p]This week I'll be working on the following things.[/p][p]- Supporting the demo release.[/p][p]- Getting Pawns to consume food like they should.[/p][p]- Add achievements for exotic items that are missing from new biomes.[/p][p]- Get some more structure art done.[/p][p]That is all, and thank you for being here.[/p]

[p]Welcome to the week 30 devlog for Cosmic Construct. Here I am apologizing for missing my schedule again, but what can you do.[/p][p]I was waiting for the results of the Rising Tide trailer contest before making this new devlog. To make a long story short, my performance wasn't very good. But what can I do than learn how to make a better product for you all.[/p][p]I usually mix up the below link section, but I'm tired of doing that, so it's going to be boilerplate from now on.[/p][p]---[/p][p]To follow the game's progress you can join me at:[/p]

• [p]My bluesky account which gives more frequent updates.[/p]
• [p]The Cosmic Construct community discord server.[/p]
• [p]Also Wishlist Cosmic Construct on Steam and follow it's steam page.[/p]

[p]--[/p][p]Each week we go over development goals established at the end of the previous devlog.[/p][p]---[/p][p]\[] Demo preparation. (priority task)[/p][p]There is still alot of work that needs to be done here. Many of the things in this category are tiny changes to polish up how the game feels to play. It's difficult to describe visually, even with a video. Hundreds of tiny changes to code all over the place to squeak out performance. Texture page and preloading, Sounds. That kind of thing. I didn't do much in this category because I was working on other things.[/p][p]One of the things I've done in the demo prep is reworked save file versioning. So that I have a little more future proofing for changes to game mechanics and systems. I might show the save file version upon loading the game.[/p][p]\[] A secret feature. (What could it be?)[/p][p][/p][p]SKILLING! The secret feature is skilling.[/p][p]When the player harvests any resource, they gain experience in that gathering type, which will increase the speed they perform that action. As well as rare drop rate for stellar resources, gems, and many other upcoming items. The skills covered so far are:[/p]

• [p]Forestry: Increasing tree cutting speed, and stellar log drop rate.[/p]
• [p]Mining: Increasing stone and iron picking speed, and stellar ore and gem drop rates.[/p]
• [p]Farming: Increasing harvesting speed, and stellar crop drop rates.[/p]
• [p]Construction: Increases the speed at which items are submitted to blueprints.[/p]
• [p]Smithing: Increases smelting and smithing speed.[/p]
• [p]Processing: Increases the speed of woodcutting, stonecutting, and other mundane crafting operations.[/p]
• [p]Cooking: Increases cooking speed.[/p]
• [p]Merchantile: Gives a small discount when buying and trading goods, and increases tax rate as well as the frequency taxes are collected.[/p]
• [p]Gaming: Gives a small luck based advantage when playing certain games.[/p]

[p]These are the first 10 skills. I have it coded in to allow up to 20 skills. So there is plenty of room to add more to the save file later.[/p][p]\[] Totem ranks 26-30[/p][p][/p][p]I've finished totem ranks 26-30. Although, The totem art is getting to the point where I don't actually want to show it off, as to let players discover it when the game releases. This is probably the last full totem art you are going to see. If you want to see the rest of them, you are just going to have to play the game.[/p][p]As usual, each totem rank n mod 5 = 1 is a bare statue. Then I add a clock, flowers, stonework, and then liveries with a crown. This will be true up to and including totem rank 50. In the full game it will be possible to gain totem ranks beyond 50. I'm not sure what visuals I will add for that, but I will do so.[/p][p]\[] Structure art[/p][p]Didn't work on this at all. Sorry.[/p][p]\[] Finishing up the pawn complaints[/p][p][/p][p]This was the most complex thing I did during the week. The screenshot doesn't show much more than a new line of dialogue, however there was a significant change to how all complaints are handled by pawns. Before pawns would automatically submit complaints to the complaint log. I instead last week, pushed them to the pawns. This was not working as I had intended.[/p][p]Talking to a pawn would give a complaint but give the "hewa" line for all of those interactions, because I didn't have voice lines for them. Calling a category was using a reworked script which couldn't match voice lines to text. So it was pulling a random voice line for completed conversation categories, and Cosmish translations were not matching the text on screen; which defeats the purpose of making a conlang.[/p][p][/p][p]I've rewritten the entire database of dialogue and voices as a json struct. This is very robust, modular, and can be expanded ad infinitum. It will support the thousands of voice lines I have planned to include. Eventually pawns will have conversations between each other, and voice lines will be pulled for those conversations. When this happens, the game will be very lively.[/p][p]Also, I finally had an excuse to get the pitch modulation for pawns done. So now, pawns in addition to have masculine and feminine voices, can now modify that pitch. I'll add a section to exit this on the character customization screens sometime in the future.[/p][p]---[/p][p]This next work week will be dedicated to preparing the new demo for public testing.[/p][p]This new demo will then have weekly builds adding new content.[/p][p]The playtesting team will then have access to the full game under NDA. If you want to join the playtesting team, you can do so on our discord server linked at the top of this post.[/p][p]Therefore, there is only one task this week.[/p][p]- Prepare the demo for public playtesting. (priority task)[/p][p]The next devlog will basically be a long patch notes. See you then.[/p]

[p]This is a very short week 29 devlog to get the schedule of posting these back on track. As usually I go over development goals set up at the end of the previous week's post.[/p][p]To follow the game's progress you can join me at:[/p]

• [p]My bluesky account which gives more frequent updates.[/p]
• [p]The Cosmic Construct community discord server.[/p]
• [p]Also Wishlist Cosmic Construct on Steam and follow it's steam page.[/p]

[p]---[/p][p]\[] Demo preparations, testing and bug fixes. (priority)
[/p][p]Outside of the voice lines below, there is a long to do list I have in obsidian to get fixed before the demo can be made ready for testing. Along with the demo, I'll have a closed playtest build available for the people who have signed up or contacted me to do that. The game is really only playable up to level 20 or so, and half of the pawn jobs up to that point don't have AI. Like the Marketplace, or Bank. I'd like to have the pawns automating those processes up to mid-game, but I'm not sure if I'll have that done in two weeks. I can always update that later.[/p][p]\[] Pawn voice lines, and fixing of pawn complaints. (difficult)[/p][p]As I expected I didn't finish up with this. In addition to preparing over a hundred voice lines for pawns for both feminine and masculine voice, I also have to get the complaints working, which can be kind of difficult to test; as its deals with specific situations. For example when a pawn's house is unavailable, or all of the trees have been cut down. Most of these things will happen late game with 100 working pawns moving at the Tier 5 cloak speed.[/p][p]Thus this isn't done, but it needs to be done before the summer demo can be made available.[/p][p]\[] Structure art, and totem ranks 21-25.[/p][p][/p][p]I did manage to get the totem ranks done for 21 through 25. Now, the totem is doing the pay respects pose. It's getting more and more difficult to come up with bundles of flowers for the pots. I realized I made a mistake with the rate of the totem's growth for previous stages. However, the art is already done, and I'm not going to go back and change it. So for the last 30 stages, its height will rapidly grow to become more and more imposing. I'm okay with that.[/p][p]---[/p][p]This next development week will be of the normal length, and with it a normal amount of work.[/p][p]- Demo preparation. (priority task)[/p][p]- A secret feature. (What could it be?)[/p][p]- Totem ranks 26-30[/p][p]- Structure art[/p][p]- Finishing up the pawn complaints[/p][p]Alright, I'll see you all next week, or sooner if you are following on bluesky.[/p]

[p]This is the week 28th devlog for Cosmic Construct. So much for the  devlog schedule I put forth last week. I ended up devoting time to other things. Like playing games with friends. I'm probably just really lazy to be honest.[/p][p]Each week we go over development goals set up during the prior week and see if they were met.[/p][p]To follow the game's progress you can join me at:[/p]

• [p]My bluesky account which gives more frequent updates.[/p]
• [p]The Cosmic Construct community discord server.[/p]
• [p]Also Wishlist Cosmic Construct on Steam and follow it's steam page.[/p]

[p]---[/p][p]Demo preparations.[/p][p]Nothing really pretty to show other than an engine screenshot. Cosmic Construct is make in the Gamemaker Studio 2 engine. But I feel like I don't use gamemaker how almost any other person does. My rooms have a single object in them on a black background. I'm not using the editor as anything more than an IDE alot of the time.[/p][p]Most of the work for the demo has been revolving around making sure the state machine tree for the pawns is doing everything it is intended to do. Testing all of the corner cases is difficult. Sometime pawns get a task then rapidly switch between idle and planning stages because they are stuck, or walk off to the far corner of the map because they were loaded incorrectly. Pawns will be the main source of bugs for the foreseeable future it seems.[/p][p]
Lock out unassignable professions.[/p][p][/p][p]This is one of those things that looks like a step backwards until you actually use it. Before there were a list of about 50 professions pawns could take up. Which is overwhelming to someone looking at the pawn manager menu for the first time. I wanted to prevent this, and remove all of the jobs that would do nothing when selected. This meant also writing logic to handle checking of available jobs, and removing redundant assignments in case a building is deconstructed.[/p][p][/p][p]Lock out objectives categories that aren't available.[/p][p][/p][p]Before categories would show as locked until there level requirements were meet. This no longer happens. Only the objectives themselves show as locked, in categories that have been unlocked. This very much streamlines the list of objectives making it for less unwieldly.[/p][p][/p][p]Structure art of some kind.[/p][p][/p][p]Haven't done much here. I tried doing the 21-25 totem level sprites, but didn't end up finishing them. I really haven't felt like doing any of the art stuff recently. I'm doing my best to prevent burnout when it comes to that.[/p][p]---[/p][p]Rising Tide[/p][p][/p][p]I spent a significant amount my days at the end of this week voting on the Rising Tide trailer jam / competition hosted by Blue Ocean Games. Over 1000 game trailer submissions were made, and Cosmic Construct was one of them. For the competition, people can watch these trailers and vote on winners in an ELO based ranking system. I have watched and voted on nearly all of these trailers. I've spent about 16 hours doing this.[/p][p]---[/p][p]This WILL be a very short week. I have to get devlog posting back on schedule. I will be posting on the 9th or 10th. 3 days, 3 tasks.[/p][p]- Demo preparations, testing and bug fixes. (priority)[/p][p]- Pawn voice lines, and fixing of pawn complaints. (difficult)[/p][p]- Structure art, and totem ranks 21-25.[/p][p]Thank you for joining me for this devlog.[/p]

Welcome to the 27th week of development for Cosmic Construct. This week has been what I would like to call a "productive week with little productivity". Basically, I'm not happy with my performance here. I didn't do everything that I wanted to get done, and I'm not happy about it. I'll make the excuse that I haven't felt well, but that doesn't matter.

Every development project has its highs and lows. I appreciate anyone who sticks around through both.

If you want to do that you can follow the project through:

• My bluesky account where I try to post daily updates.
  
• The Cosmic Construct community discord server.
  
• And of course you should Wishlist Cosmic Construct on Steam and follow it's steam page.
  

Each week in these devlogs I review development goals set at the end of the prior week's log.

Spoiler, I didn't get it done.
---

Finish two separate 2 minute gameplay trailers. (priority task)



As expected, this has taken up a bulk of my development time. Committing to two trailers being done at around the same time was convenient as I have footage I could use between the two of them. However, having to cut them together hasn't been easy. I'm not really a video editor. I've done some of it for youtube, but I don't have enough experience doing it to call it easy. The 18 second sequence screenshotted above took about 3 hours of just recording and arranging to get correct. I also had to program in an alignment teleport script, for the player to that I could sync the animations and player position to the changing crops. Despite all of this effort I still managed to screw up one of them. >(o.o)<



I did two separate 2 hour playthroughs of the game to get trailer footage, only to find many bugs and minor annoyances that needed to be corrected. I'll go over that later in this devlog. Regardless, I think the little town I constructed is rather nice, even through after the two hour mark I cheated in a bunch of structures because silkworm farming and its profession isn't programmed in yet.



I have to say, now that the crafting tables tell you what is being crafted, and that the crafting autocompletes after each craft step; its so much more satisfying to craft manually. All of the pawns do the work I expected them to do when assigning, and I didn't have to babysit them to ensure they were actually doing work. Talking to them, makes the game feel much more lively. Although I do miss Logs coming up in the logging menu. I really need to have social events from pawns interact with the player in game verbally, with a pop up overhead text.

Add new structure icons and complete gameplay balance.



I got the new structure icons in, which is the first time backgrounds show up for the tier 6 and 7 buildings. When the game is finished, there will be just as many red, cyan, and rainbow background structures as there are gold. That's how many buildings are left.

Art for new structures.

I got about a third of one structure done, and I'm not even happy with that. I might delete it and start over. I was trying to draw the Abattoir, which is a slaughterhouse. I was trying to do this in such a way as to have grubs swarming around it like the Orchard and Arboretum do for trees. I just couldn't mentally visualize that for some reason while working on it. I know what I need to do now, I just haven't gone back to it.

Either way, zero progress on this. Big sad.

New pawn interactions and voice dialogue for existing complaint types.

This was more broken than I thought, and dialogues aren't working for complaints. Because of the way it's implemented, it's difficult to test. I have to make a testing suite for the pawn interactions to sus out where the problems actually are.

---

Unplanned work.

Bug Fixes

During gameplay recording for the trailer I found so many bugs that needed to be squished.

Most of them have centered around the way food was implemented. I found I couldn't eat meat. What I could eat could be consumed multiple times, wasn't restoring the correct amount of energy, could be eaten and wasted, and many other problems. Basically, just the animation was and energy restoration was working. Everything else, like, preventing you from eating while you are already eating was completely ignored for some reason. That has all been fixed.

Player eating frequency is easy to adjust as I can simply change the energy consumption. Because more physically demanding activities have a higher animation rate, I found it convenient to consume energy relative to the player's animation and movement speed. The more you run around and collect, the more energy you consume; as expected. Before it was just sort of going down over time, that felt "abnormal". Unfortunately, pawns don't yet consume food... and they definitely need to. I was preparing crops to feed them, only to realize I was making food only for myself. That is a bad feeling.

I've been doing gameplay balance changes and implementations for the cost of mid game structures. I have input them into the database incorrectly, and many were requested items that didn't exist. Those have been fixed. I still have to add costs for the mid-late and late game structures. This isn't hard to do, but the balance is difficult to test as I don't have a "naturally constructed save file" to see how long it would take a player with 50 optimized pawns to construct one of those buildings.

Many other bugs were fixed with structure placement. Some structures weren't aligned to grid. The Mint building specifically was set to the wrong structure id in two separate places in the structure database which was a pain to figure out. I somehow managed to set the Mint's name field to "! INTERACT ERROR !", and it caused a lot of confusion. I have confirmed that the entire crafting line from mining to minting coinage now works as intended. I just need to get the market working.

One of the big issues I found that isn't a bug, as that the game now feels a little aimless when it comes to goals. It isn't clear exactly what the player is getting "experience" in their bar for, or what to do after they have gained a point. The intent was to have the player open the objectives menu to find stuff to do, but it is frankly unwieldly and intimidating. So I might also find a way to remove the locked objectives from showing up. I need to add an objective / achievement popup display. Which means I need to make about 500 icons for that. I am not in the mood to do that right now.

Demo Preparation

Last week I said that the demo will be available on June 3rd. That is not the case. I might be delaying it until mid to late June given all of the new problems that have come up. I don't want to present something that has so many issues. I want players to be able to play up to level 8 (when the Shed is unlocked) at least, where production really starts ramping up.

Given the amount of stuff I still need to do, like locking off professions in the pawn manager, I expect 2-3 more devlog weeks before I have the demo ready.

---

Anyhow, that is all of what was done this week. Hopefully this upcoming week is better. I'm going to shorten this one by one or two days as the devlogs are getting off schedule. This week 3 devlog should be coming out on the 21st not on the 28th, so I'm misaligned by a full week. It is easily fixed by just releasing them every 7 days, as months have 2-3 more days than 28. So it will fix itself naturally if I do that.

So this week will be a "short one" to get me back to a correct schedule. June 2nd, June 9th, June 16th, June 23rd, and June 30th; will bring the 4th June devlog back to being actually "at" the end of June.

With that said this next devlog will be posted in 5 days, so don't expect much.

- Demo preparations.

- Lock out unassignable professions.

- Lock out objectives categories that aren't available.

- Structure art of some kind.

Thank you for following the development of my game. I'll have more updates soon.