Devlog #13 Red light, Yellow light, Green Light

Hello there,

Last couple weeks have been a mix of me recovering from pneumonia(again…) and a grind on the grid inventory system which as of this weekend is mostly complete with the exception of splitting stacks and dropping/destroying items and tool-tips on mouse hover.

So where we are is a mostly feature complete grid based inventory system. Now to be more realistic, this is more so mostly a feature complete phase 1 of a 2 phase development plan for the inventory system as a whole.  What this means is that while systems like moving items, stacking them, transferring between inventories and storing inventories within inventories is mostly working, the other part to inventory is the player inventory itself, which will operate using the same framework that’s been built here, but under a separate design to support “container” items attached to the player such as a backpack slot for backpacks specifically or a vest slot for vests specifically as well as armor and other type based components to the inventory system. 

That is the second half of inventory that we have not yet begun. Although the second half being based on the framework we’ve built will (fingers crossed) come together more smoothly and faster than the inventory built thus far. 

With that said, once we get item splitting/dropping/destroying in place, the semblance of a plan is to then attempt to set up the game for its first release build to allow you to experience the phase 1 part of the inventory system.  What’s involved in that is creating systems to allow players to generate items(Mostly placeholders) of different shapes, sizes and quantities so that you can mess around with and give feedback on the design of the grid based inventory yourselves.

So we will most likely build some form of item spawner for this purpose, likely a terminal you will interact with to select an item to be generated into your map storage.  This will likely be later reformed into the first mining terminal, but one step at a time.

Blackreach has had work done on fleshing out some basic design concepts, it’s not a very large map, mostly it’s just a recreation of Demorgan’s Castle from Face of Mankind from the entrance up to the sealed gate.  This is not planned to be a permanent map, it just exists for the purpose of advancing mechanics in a way that allows players to experience it and for those who have played FoM before to experience a bit of nostalgia together. Further map development for the actual game will not be recreations of old FoM maps.

We’ve spent some time working on some basic lighting to make it feel more immersive than just daylight everywhere. By the time we release the first build it will be generally properly lit entirely. A lot of this stuff is being learned as we use it in the Godot Engine, so our amateur nature will likely show in these areas.

The character controller has been smoothed out better to feel more clean. It’s still not remotely perfect by any means, it’s more of a sample for the time being until a proper controller is rewritten.

The goal for the moment is to reach the first build state and then to move onto the next mechanic we believe will be the most logical from there. It is possible there will be some steps we haven’t planned for before the first build to make it something usable for players and so it might take a bit longer than anticipated, but we’re building the framework to support a system where the players can play as we develop as each system is implemented.

To explain this better, an example is if we were to release the inventory straight away as soon as we get splitting/destroying/dropping into the grid system, what you would see is a blank inventory grid because the server database is generated upon first launch. There would be no items inside your inventories when you create a character.

Now while yes, we could just place items into the generation or hard coded items into the character creation, we’d rather focus our efforts into systems that will actually be used in game rather than ripped out later, thus the plan to create an item spawner terminal that will become the first mining terminal after the fact.

That’s what We’ve got thus far, the specific patch notes of the latest changes for the last couple weeks can be found below as usual. Still looking forward to getting the first build out as soon(™) as possible.

Until next time.

Pre-Build Update

Features

• Inventory 
  • Items can now be moved
    • https://kappa.lol/7PY_oI 
  • Items can now be moved from one inventory to another(From player inventory to map storage for example)
    • https://kappa.lol/sp4u3M 
  • Items can now be rotated when held via right click
    • https://kappa.lol/5VrcXd 
  • Items can now be combined up to their maximum stack quantity
    • https://kappa.lol/te315- 
  • All item movements are stored on the server and database
    • https://kappa.lol/mVMRQ- 
    • This means persistence for items you move around your inventory and persistence for items in general inside all inventories
  • An overlay appears behind the item along the grid to display colors to give contextual clues as to what you can do with the item while it is in your hand
    • Red means it can’t be placed here
      • https://kappa.lol/MJXnag 
    • Green means it can be placed here
      • https://kappa.lol/lhIPJb 
    • Yellow means the item in your hand can be combined with the item in the inventory slot
      • https://kappa.lol/chngU9 
• World Building
  • https://kappa.lol/JuCN0X 
  • Lightmap added to Blackreach - Environment and Directional default lights removed
    • Lights are now baked into the world providing better ambience and light on client resources
  • Lights have been added to assets giving off more realistic lighting effects
    • More lighting props added around the world to serve this purpose
  • Background music added to Blackreach
    • Ambient audio to fit the theme
• Player Controller
  • Player now moves the direction they are looking when rotating via keyboard so the player now rotates more naturally
  • Movement is now matched to a blended animation rate so the player transitions speeds smoother and more naturally

Changes

Bug Fixes

• All camera clipping fixed