Devlog #9 It's pretty dark in here

Hello there,

So the last two weeks can more or less be summed up with “theory-crafting” mixed with me being super busy with life. With that being said, we’ve reached the culmination of the theories and putting them into practice on a basic level.

Level Design

https://kappa.lol/DvVLUs

So I did some experimenting with lighting as you can see. Obviously it’s way too dark, but I just wanted to fiddle with a bit of mood lighting using the old look from the crossroads at Kepler's Dome (You can view here: https://kappa.lol/X-SgBD) as inspiration, which is also what I used for the “room” design you see.  I also placed all the necessary terminals for testing in the same room, it’s clearly not big at all, just meant for experimenting right now, but gives more of a mood to the experience than the original grey boxes I had floating around.

I am still seeking an artist to create the world environment, but until then, I’m just working with the pre-made assets I have available.

Inventory

https://kappa.lol/A4EzVf

There now exists a basic UI that displays inventory data, there exists a proper database setup for items and there exists a proper set of code that transitions the data from the database to the UI.

As you can see in the quick video above, the data is only transmitted currently as “is there an item?” and “What slot is it in?”. The data about the actual item has not yet been input. But we have a general “pipeline” set up to allow the data to move from the database to the player’s screen.

Our current path for this process is data is pulled from the database into the server when a player attempts connection, the server stores the data and then duplicates the data of said player into the player’s client which then stores that data and displays the data onto the UI.

The reason this has taken so long is mostly because of us thinking up multiple possible methods and trying to set our minds on the most efficient route possible(At the moment) to bring the data from the database and how to manage that data while it is in play.  Majority of the days were just discussion on how best to make this happen.

Now that we are here, we can begin tying in the other systems that were in the previous single player inventory like picking and item up from inventory and moving it, stacking, reading the actual item data, hovering the mouse and getting information about the item and so on.

What’s next?

Once this is in a reasonably solid place, my hope is to move into the first iteration of mining, which you can read about my thoughts on that concept in the roadmap here: https://github.com/users/Chris-Greniewicki/projects/3/views/1?pane=issue&itemId=97877547&issue=Chris-Greniewicki%7CRealm-of-the-Dominion%7C15

This will be an experimentation of not only mining but also the first attempt at third person shooting mechanics as the mining tool will technically be a “weapon” that shoots. So that will be an interesting challenge to tackle.

From there it will be production and then the first lethal weapon which will be constructed using the previously made systems put together.

That’s all for now.

Until next time