Development Update 06.06.2025

Hello everyone, welcome to this week's progress report. 

Level: 
We have been reviewing all props this week, evaluating which of them are ready to be implemented into the sandbox, and fixing those that need some adjustments. We expect around 400 props, maybe more, to be added for the coming build. This includes Galactic Ranger and native Kerpali props such as beds, chairs, chests, buckets, plates, cups, bottles, cutlery, food items, and many more. At the same time, we are continuing to build more props that will probably be added in a second batch later on.
We have also been working on some look-development for our landscape material to improve its visual quality, such as making the desert dunes region more readable and giving it a more natural flair by improving textures and adding landscape details. 
Further, we continued our work on detailing the Adûn region using our procedural content generation tools.

Code:
This week, we have implemented an anti-air behaviour that allows NPCs to dodge flying drop-kicks if they are already targeting the player. This is needed, as the drop-kick would be very overpowered otherwise.
We have also been resolving many smaller issues, e.g. NPCs immediately sheathing their weapon upon defeating their target instead of playing the attack move to the end, loot containers not being visible once the NPC is despawned, NPCs immediately cancelling their pursuit when shot from a distance, and a few other minor tweaks.
On another note, we have started working on improving various UI screens. The inventory has already received a small, but incomplete overhaul, now with armor slots for story mode, as well as a more detailed item stats view and the ability to compare weapons and armor with their equipped counterparts.

In the sandbox, all recent additions like character morph targets and clothes customization have received Event/Lua support.

Character:
More progress has been made for the big boss’ body hair situation - no, shaving was not an option :D We have also made a female skeleton-character for Maya’s proportions, and transferred some of the new outfits over to Maya and Jadeen.

Animations: 
In the animation department, work on the final boss continues. We also wrapped up all attack animations for the finisher moves, so all that is left to do there now is to transfer the "victim" animations over to all humanoids and to also make one for each monster that can be finished.

Design:
We have made some very nice progress on the romance side of the story, working out more and more details for each of the six romance options in the game as well as the Maya + Max romance itself, now reaching a point where we will begin setting up some of those.

We also finalized the background story / lore about the origins of the Kerpali and Kerpal history, e.g. what exactly happened before the ship crashed, who or what started the war with the lizards, etc. Not all of this will find its way into the game, but some strong hints and "historic documents" can be found by the player.

Further, we have implemented Max's quest to join the Warrior tribe. The quest is available after finishing the 'we come in peace' main quest and talking to Maya about 'learning how to fight'. Additionally, plenty of dialogue between Max and Agon giving information about warrior culture and their role in the game world has been added.

Work on AI tweaking is continuing, as well. We are now setting up data for factions and their behavior, e.g. who helps who in combat, who is indifferent, who attacks on sight, etc.

A new weapon type has also been implemented: the greatbow, a larger, more powerful, but slower version of the bow.

Thank you for all your continued support,

-Wild Life Team