ABSENT LOG Dev Update 4/15/2025

This month we want to take a deep look into one of the main campaign levels we've been hard at work on lately.

The residential / commerce sector serves as the main living space, market, entertainment and cultural center of the crew. As mentioned in the last update, a key aspect of the visuals for the ship and really this level in particular, was to press on the fact that the crew of this ship would not be on board for a few weeks, but oftentimes years. Therefore, the crew would really live their lives on this ship. Residential gives us an opportunity to explore what that is like in more detail.

This level in particular hits about a halfway point in the campaign, and serves as a slower paced exploration zone as compared to the other levels we have planned. Rooms are large and expansive, with a lot of planned detail and a heavy use of environmental storytelling. We don’t want to give away too much of what's planned in terms of events and story here, as they are fairly important and we want to keep that close to the chest, but hopefully, as we start to flesh out this area a bit more the world will start feeling a bit more realized.

The draft we had settled on ended up taking a long tram approach. A large space in the middle that moves you back and forth between the 3 main areas, Hab Block, Medical, and Commerce sector. It was a surprisingly natural and quick conclusion we had come to in setting it up this way. With the main requirement of these spaces being a “livable, human space”, we had to approach things in a manner where the player would be interacting and moving through these areas much the same way the crew would have in their day-to-day. Each room had to go through a check of “if someone was moving from their apartment to this area, could they get there in a reasonably intuitive fashion?”, and layouts were tweaked based on this check.

From a story aspect it sort of sets up this very interesting dynamic where you are almost retracing these ghosts’ steps, seeing small glimpses into their lives, very mundane everyday interactions like commerce, eating, talking, walking, playing. It feels bittersweet in the context of a space tailor made to bring comfort and respite for so many people, devoid of any noise, movement or presence.

The first main area we tackled was the Hab Block. We first started with the idea of having stacked, canted habitat modules along a wall, and built it out from there. These modules are fairly small, akin to a smaller sized studio apartment. The basic idea was that the crew really only used these for rest and privacy, but most of their interactions were outside of these so they prioritized space optimization and simplicity.

From here we moved to getting the main Hab Block nailed down. Originally we had just set up a big courtyard in the middle, with some sort of turf or grass to give a little bit of a public park kind of feel. It looked a bit anemic from the mockups we had made, so we played around with a few ideas and decided on having some kind of 70s retro art deco structure that doubled as a walkable space. 2 floors for a bit of variation and verticality, and to have a clearly defined purpose for each floor, first could possibly be some coffee bar or small cafe section, with some seating on the top and bottom, and maybe the top floor could be used for hosting community events specific to this block.

“I personally loved the idea of having a mixture of some kind of 70s syd-meadian art deco structure with a summer pergola. The contrast of swooping perfect curves and segmented struts or supports was such a strong and aesthetically pleasing image, I'm really happy how this little structure has shaped up.”

- Loom

Next area in focus was the entryway from the Hab Block into the Tram Station. This was fairly simple, and will rely pretty heavily on careful prop placement and decoration to feel more substantial. We wanted to have a lot of various different spaces that were dedicated “lounge zones”, as with a ship of thousands of crew on board, things can get cramped fairly quickly, so ensuring there are adequate rest spots is key here. We want to try and incorporate some form of fancy, stylized lighting feature coming from the ceilings onto the left and right zones, and have that middle section moving into the tram station be very open and cleared to allow free flow of foot traffic.

For this (and a number of other areas) we’ve looked at how real spaces designed for heavy foot traffic will often use colonnades to create clearly-defined lanes of travel, without needing to actually close off any space.

The tram station was fairly straight forward, we needed an elevated deck to board the tram, but wanted to include a small explorable space at the bottom. A good way to have both of these was to have the tram move on a floating system, as opposed to having it laid flat on the ground or even recessed. This also helps give a better sense of the scale of the interior without having to make a ton of walkable space.

On the top level, we want to include waiting benches, and some kind of tram schedule either on the ceiling or form some sort of column element in the center. On the bottom floor will be access to tram maintenance. In this area it has a small section where busted trams can be moved in and replaced or repaired.

The maintenance section was a sort of unplanned addition, but we thought that even if everyroom doesn't have a specific gameplay sort narrative function, adding small explorable areas like that helps make things feel a bit more realized.

Next area is the Aquatics and Fitness center. Regular exercise is a major requirement in on-vessel living mostly due to microgravity fluctuations in order to avoid muscle atrophy, And generally exercise is good for a clear working mind. This area will be filled out with general exercise equipment and peripherals. The aquatics center serves as both a public pool and a sort of relaxation center complete with private and public saunas. Tekka had mentioned that “in-setting, saunas could have some sort of cultural importance,” which has led to thinking about interesting ways to incorporate bodily health not ust as a sterile physical sense but a deeply spiritual one as well for the crew, and how that may eventually shape some of the styling in this area. Perhaps it doubles as a spiritual wellness zone.


Last but not least, we have the commerce center tram station. This is the end point of the tram and leads you directly into the commerce sector and second portion of the map. This is a point where the aesthetic of the map starts to change into a softer, rounded, sleek feel. Curved and chamfered walls, big swooping, Frutiger Aero-inspired angles, emphasis on organic forms and appealing flows. A key inspiration for this area is the hub and mall zones featured in Phantasy Star Online and Phantasy Star Universe. They have this fresh, futurist quality very indicative of the early-to-mid 2000s aesthetic that we want to emulate. Warm colors, welcoming shapes, and an almost tropical, sunny feel, maybe not so much in atmosphere and lighting but in color usage and stylization. Much like the previous tram stations, this will also be decorated with various benches and stylized furnishing that will flow with the curvature of the walls, keeping things uniform and cohesive. An addition we will make is having a large truss that doubles as a support and an end cap for the floating tram rails.

The map itself spans about 3  hab blocks, and has a total of 5 stations: Medical, 3 hab blocks, and the commerce sector. The length in total runs about the entire span of the level, however for narrative reasons not all hab blocks are accessible. Immediate plans are to fill this out more and start building the blockouts for the Medical center, and the commerce sector (not currently shown in image below.)

Below are a collection of images from our asset import tests. We started to throw these into the engine and build out the level to get a sense of scale and distance, and fine tune things on the fly.

Commons area 1

Commons area 2

Commons area 3

Aquatic center (Pool Rooms)

Entry way to tram

Tram tunnel

Tram maintenance room

Sauna interior

A potential idea we are playing with is to have the projected sky in the hab block be damaged, with visible NO FEED screens, glitch effects, and even some missing panels with cabling spilling out. Purely exploratory at the moment, but once we flesh out this area a bit more we can have a better idea on what our limitations are.

“Following Loom’s lead, I’ve started developing a suite of universal architecture elements that we can use to both beautify and add complexity to our environments.  As with other level assets that we’ve developed for ALOG, I’m trying to design these in a way that will let us do the most with a modest batch of items.  The “Greeble Unit” in particular includes some considerations that I’ll go into greater depth about once the finished model is presentable.”

-Tekka

MAIN PROJECT UPDATES:

- Implementation of consumable items.
- Implementation of consumable item effects (drunk, nourishment).
- Implementation of melee attacks to all MDs.

- Implementation of “stunned” hit reacts for TW.
- Implementation of various shuffle and movement sounds to TW.
- Added better impact effects when falling from specific heights.
- Implementation of vault and mantle mechanics with animations.
- Addition of first pass of Residential/Commerce sector map assets (Hab Block, Tram station, Fitness Center).
- Touch-up of MD Kill Team assets (Textures).
- Added assets for MD Kill Team.
- Implemented MD Kill Team as new enemies.
- Touch-up of MD heavy assets (mesh, textures and rig).
- Added assets for MD Heavy.
- Created basic AI for MD heavy (Not testable yet).

- Touch-up of TW’s anchor suit assets (Textures).
- Touch-up of Huey’s assets (Mesh, Textures).

- Added weapon icons for Tapar and Stiletto.

- Rework of post-process system, testing things for FXAA pipeline.


PLAYTEST BUILD CHANGELIST:

- Fixed an issue where moving while interacting with the power level puzzle would lock you out from exiting the puzzle.
- Fixed a spawn issue related to a scripted event when accessing Rebecca’s terminal.
- Fixed an issue where using the elevator override would not actually unlock the elevator at times.

- Fixed an issue related to the GEAR menu UI where you had to click out of the window in order to exit.
- Fixed an issue where the laser sight was shooting past objects, now both the sight and reticle are in sync.
- Added a “shield gating system”, when shields are depleted, there is a 1 second invulnerability buffer to avoid instant death.
- Reduced some of the intensity of the camera hit effects when getting shot.
- Boosted TW’s sprint interpolation just a smidge, should feel a little bit more response when running now.
- Fixed an issue where TW’s procedural lean would occasionally snap to the other side when doing a full rotation.
- Tweaked camera positioning when aiming to feel a little less claustrophobic

- Completely reworked large parts of the ladder climbing system to resolve a myriad of bugs. It should be more reliable to use now.
- Added bleed and hit effects to enemies when getting shot. 

- Increased rotation rate of Mannequins.

- Fixed various collision bugs causing issues with laser sight.

- Added extra goodies tucked away in a few corners, go explore!

(The playtest demo link has been updated, and the new build can be accessed from the link below.)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1icBzt91wIFiLsyRs-Fl2nQAecqE7bwwS/view?usp=sharing