ABSENT LOG Dev Update 12/15/2023

We are excited to present our first official Dev update!

Christmas is fast approaching, and we at Brian Box 015 would like to get in early and wish everyone a merry merry Christmas! We hope you are looking forward to warm times with friends and family!

Due to us launching our schedule late into our update cycle, This update is going to be short, sweet, and free for everyone, as we only had about a week to get things ready. Starting in January we will begin our regular update cycle. On the 15th of each month we will provide the update and playtest build exclusive to patrons, and these will become publicly accessible for everyone the following week.

The main focus of this update was to work on immediately requested QoL changes, some visual improvements, AI changes and refinements, various bug fixes and UI changes, and a hefty rework to the player camera management system. Art is currently getting ready to ramp up production and we are moving into our level design and asset building stage. It’s hard to make a definitive “plan” for what needs to come next, as is the case with most development, things typically get done as they need to, but we anticipate that our focus for the next month will most likely be the design and implementation of TW and Huey’s home ship, and fleshing out initial plans for tackling the world ship (game world).

Of course, bug fixing and refinement is an almost never ending process, so these will continue on almost every single update as we refine the project further.

Included change list for 12/15/2023:

- First pass of Huey's outfit textures implemented ( final version still being worked on)

- Added Hearing sense to AI, currently functioning at a very basic level. (still needs more work)

- Added avoidance detection for enemies to prevent them from walking into/on top of each other.

- Added a "stun" state for enemies

- Removed Security Mandrone's ability to dodge roll

- Implementation of an early "radial buff" system for MD Kill team Commando units. Currently only boosting armor rating, will be fleshed out more in later updates.

- Fixed an issue related to certain weapons actually blocking projectiles

- Fixed an issue where the enemy melee attacks had massive hit boxes, they have been reduced and feel much more reasonable.

- Tweaked ammo counter placement on certain weapons for better readability.

- Fixed an issue related to damage values and the shield recharge where it would occasionally play the “fully recharged” animation despite being interrupted

- Fixed some animation errors where if a Mandrone was stunned, occasionally, if receiving damage again during a “stunned” state, it would attempt to perform a dodge.

- Fixed an issue related to AI navigation, where if an AI is spawned it would render its spawn location as not accessible to “walk” over, creating small “dead zones” on the map, despite being open flat ground.

- Fixed an issue where an AI would attempt to fire on the player even if another AI is directly in its line of fire.

- Fixed an issue where if killed while sprinting occasionally the “heavy breathing” SFX from TW would play on loop.

- Fixed a collision issue where projectiles were hitting the pick up detection box for certain pickups.

- Fixed an issue where if you attempt to dodge roll during TW’s death animation it would prevent her demise.

- Fixed a bug for AI, that didn’t allow enemies to disable Inverse Kinematics during certain dodge and hit react animations, meaning that their hands would always stay in the same location despite running a new animation. Now this works as intended.

- Added a light source to TW’s back hud projection, small thing but makes it look a bit nicer as it affects the game world now.

- Fine-tuned the AI peripheral sense to detect the player better if they get too close to the left or right back of the AI, but not directly behind them

- Added sound attenuation for enemy weapons.

- Reduced the focal length of the camera to give some more breathing room and visibility, for idle, moving, and aiming.

- Slightly tweaked some of TW's animations, to make transitions slightly more snappier.

- Added a much better damage feedback system, a slight dark red blur appears when the player is actively taking damage, and Added a procedural camera shake.

-  Added a small and very brief global "slow mo" on an enemy's death if a critical hit is achieved.

- Fixed an issue where enemies would attempt to unlock a locked door to get to the player, if they hear gunshots from outside  their room.

- Added a darkened "backboard" to TW's HUD items, to improve readability.

- Reduced the size and streamlined the content on the Health bars displays to be less intrusive.

- Added Camera lag to help decrease the jerkiness of the camera movement.

- Created an offset for the camera collision so that it will push to just over TW's shoulder instead of directly up to her back. This should alleviate a lot of that claustrophobic camera clipping when up against walls.

- Added random rotation for bullet impact decals, and an emissive effect for authentic battle damage, also added a slow fade out.

- Fixed an issue where the Estoc and Patta carbine were not spawning impact decals.

- Added some variety to the testing map layout to help stress test AI navigation.

-Refined and tweaked the blend out time for TW’s Death animations

ART ASSETS:

As mentioned before, the focus was bug fixing and refinements for this update, but we are preparing some things to be worked on. Here is a small showcase of some current items in the works.

TW & HUEY’s SHIP:

Art by Tekka Croe.

“My main concern in designing Huey's and TW's ship is that it should be visibly modular and have kind of a chunky, high-function shape.  It also needs to be compact enough to feel cozy and be enjoyable to move through as a game space.  The initial sketches had a cross-shaped layout in the middle- a long central hull with a pair of pylons sticking out the sides that would be used to mount the engines and other modules like crew quarters and big outboard RCS pontoons.  That basic layout is still present, but I've been working on refining it.

Loom had the idea to add a big diamond-shaped shroud to the upper hull, and it looked striking so I ran with it.  We also weren't sure initially what to do with the side-modules opposite the crew quarters, but Loom (in a very Loom Move) suggested that we make it a big asymmetric sensor pylon, and that's turned out to be my favorite part of the current design pass.

At the moment I'm working on blocking the ship's shapes in 3d.  I can already tell that I'll need to re approach some parts of the design, as they don't look as nice in 3d as they do in orthographic drawings.”

- Tekka

HEAVENLY BODY FACTION ICON:

Art by Looming

“Heavenly Body is the mysterious benefactor that employs the Player Character, TW. The challenge with exploring them is that there is intentionally very little known about them, and given their elusive nature, it leaves a lot of room for unnecessary exploration. The current look and feel for most graphic and decal treatments lends itself more heavily into that y2k era crunchy and blocky design sense. However in order to push the almost mystical feeling around this group I opted for a more esoteric and symbolism heavy look. The Imperial Ah-Sahmar uses motifs and elements heavily inspired by snakes, and worships an ancient cosmic being (Ah-Sahmar), often described to be snake-like, as an almost center point of culture and philosophy. As Heavenly Body is opposed to them I felt it would be interesting to include as a visual element a figure inspired by the Vitruvian Man, typically a symbol of celebrating man or humanity, grasping a snake, holding it at bay. A visual “insult” if you will to the Imperial Ah-Sahmar. I’ve taken heavy inspirations of occult symbology and declarations, and tried to write my own that makes sense to the values and this organization.

Open Eyes ( Illuminated, Unclouded by cosmic influence. )

Open Hands ( Truth, unwavering, to hold something at bay, and to give freely to others. )

Open Faith ( To declare, to be bold, total rejection of oppressive dogma. )

DL Link to play test Build:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HpwjW8GwWXGrD33pMlAnRcmwvupOam0V/view?usp=sharing