BLOG ENTRY 40 - 6.30.2022

DEV STATUS

Well I have to say that I have been extremely busy the past couple of months. I have been quite productive in the game as well as my personal life. but as a consequence I have neglected to document the projects progress on the page. I usually keep it as proof of how much I’ve progressed since last I wrote about it.

And there is a lot of progress to be documented. I will do my best to update broadly on how things have improved since… April? Fuck. Well, you know what they say about how time flies by. So lets get Into it.

CHARACTER CLASSES.

While each of the classes abilities have been reworked slightly, the core of the Playable classes is indeed still intact. Class Identity is one of the most important things in the game as the whole point of playing as a different class/character is to see the world from a different point of view. It can be Narratively or it can be Mechanically, but they have to feel distinct enough that it’s not just copy paste mechanics/Narrative responses/consequences.

I have shuffled some abilities around, but It’s providing some really interesting mechanical interactions, and opening up a lot of possibility space. I am still polishing the way that all these things work. and will show the updated mechanics once they’re post worthy. If I can be honest there is so much that can be done as far as ability interactions, not only creating a really cool synergy between your class abilities and playstyle, but also the possibility of these interactions working with other players. There is a lot to choose, so I’m working on narrowing down the type of interactions we’re going to make in order to make it manageable, the last thing we need is to overscope and have feature creep uh, creep up on us. you know?

But all in all, Mobility is resolved for all 5 classes, offensive ability works on 3 classes, 2 to go, utility only works on 2, so need 3 more. and when it comes to the ultimate abilities I currently only have one fully functional. The rest of the ultimates are in design, but I am close to making their base functionality, and because of the aforementioned intent on making each class unique, HOW each ultimate works is vastly different. so it requires unique code for each one, there is no copy pasta when it comes to this, hence why it’s taking a little longer than the other, well, more basic abilities.

Wraith’s Teleport + Toxic Area Denial Shotgun.

My philosophy when it comes to ultimates is that it should be the “break in case of emergency” kind of ability, but also make the player go “THAT’S RIGHT FUCKER!”, so the balance between something that you don’t want to use because of it’s potential to get you out of a sticky situation and spamming it everytime it’s cooldown is reset is where I need to focus my design efforts. Also, Ultimate interactions with the rest of your skills? tell me that doesn’t sound fucking cool.

THE ARMORY

This is where I’ve been having the most fun. In order to keep things under control and not spiraling beyond my capabilities. I decided to limit the prototype arsenal to 2 weapons per elemental damage type. in total they’re are currently 48 weapons including the melee weapons that are currently still in prototype due to animation issues. So far I believe I have about 20-30 of them at the very least as it’s own individual blueprint which I can edit manually in order to create their unique alternate fire mechanics.

United Standard Sidearm - Shock Net alt Fire.

I have to say I am very proud of the stuff that I’ve been making. So far the weapons feel unique enough, even though they’re currently all just guns, once I get to making the unique melee abilities, oh boy, we’re gonna start seeing some really cool shit. I am still working on how to do top down melee that doesn’t just require you swinging wildly in the general direction of the enemy, but Melee systems have a little more complexity due to how you’re supposed to manage animations in unreal. It’s all integrated yes, but I don’t know how to use those tools yet. I’m hoping I can get that resolved soon to make some cool new shots.

For the remainder of the prototype I will only be working with the weapons that I have already designed in order to not scope creep before production even starts. My hope is that even once the game is launched, I can easily sneak in new weapons when patching out bug fixes and adding quality of life. There’s nothing better than being surprised with new content when you’re just expecting bullets to stop clipping or something. So my focus will be making these weapons the best I can, and showing off the possibility space for each of the elements.

Staple Shotgun - Alt fire Magnetic field.

ANIMATION GROUNDWORK

Protector Mobility transition into Cover slide + Shield Activation. Weapon displayed Cryo Cannon.

Now that the base for creating ranged weapons is finished and weapon editing is simple enough. I have to make them feel correct. The main Issue is the fact that I’m using basic animation blueprints that come included with unreal, while they are very versatile, as I mentioned before. I dunno how to use them. I believe I have a good base to start working with but I still need to set it up in a way that the gun can be higher than the low cover, in order to avoid shots missing from your point of cover.

That requires for the full animation blueprint to be functioning. As in Register when you are in cover, both high and low. what happens if the cover is destroyed while you’re using it. and of course being able to vault over cover, be it from standing still or transition mid slide/mobility skill. That is a lot of work and I’m doing my best to learn how it’s supposed to be setup. Hopefully I can have a fully functioning animation blueprint to just add the unique animations specifically to each characters blendspace, but keep the back code so everyone changes to when they have a shotgun, or a pistol, or simply casting their abilities while in motion without everything breaking. Gamedev problems.

NEXT STEPS

I will attempt to finish all the class abilities in order to start tweaking and get them feeling right, or redesign completely if it doesn’t play well. After that I will focus on animation in order to get all the things that the game needs in order to feel more complete. I am also on the verge of finishing the inventory system and you should be able to use/store items by the next update (I hope).

The last two main mechanics that would be required for the game to be complete, would be the enemies and their AI, as well as the NPC dialogue system. So to recap, Abilities, Animations, AI and Dialogue. I’m so close to finishing the prototype, all these years of work are going to pay off soon, I can’t wait for this game to be out there.

Waiting on the Lazy Dev to get coding… It’s me, I’m the Lazy Dev.
Daniel “Freaky” Aguilar
Game Designer
Plasmapunk Studios

Pride & Progress