Project Vault Game Dev Log 015

And July is done! This month was a heavy month focused on some major modeling and rigging updates on the current AI systems! Did a full modeling pass for the Sensor Puppet enemy while also working on getting the Living Mine enemy into the game! To tie it all in, I gave another major pass to the AI systems I currently have in play so that they are a bit more inline with my vision of the game!

Living Mine Enemy: A new enemy AI has been added to the game! One of the enemies I wanted to play around with a lot in the game was a sort of minefield enemy that gets activated if you walk past them. In game they are nicknamed the Living Mines and are these goofy yet dangerous little enemies that like to hide in the ruins, ready to activate on interlopers. Modeling wise, the initial model I had started in the fall was cleaned up and is now ready for the engine. Rigging was also added in to the model so that I could add in a few preliminary animations to them for testing. Finally I worked up a few color ideas for the various areas in the game so that I could get some base colors into the game. At the moment a good chunk of the coding is now done for them so that I can see how they perform!

Sensor Puppet Enemy: The first major enemy AI, the Sensor Puppet, also got a pretty big face lift. The model went through a hefty model cleanup and rehaul to get the model ready for rigging. Had to learn quite a few new rigging things to get it working. At the moment I've gotten enough of it added in so that I can actually test and play with it in game now, although I can already see a few areas I want to see about updating later on for easier rigging/movement. As with the Living Mine, the Sensor Puppet got a wash of colors also to go with it in game!

AI Updates: Been working through the AI for both to introduce some new updates. Major things like decoupling some systems so that it can have better flexibility for the game states, adding in AI testing controls, and adding in some AI reactions to inputs. Most importantly tho, I reworked the sight system for the enemy AI in the game to a new sight cone system that gives me a bit better control over what triggers the AI sight lines. Although it's mainly just for testing right now, I've also added in some placeholder colored icons that popup when an enemy is alerted or might have seen Bod.

Now for August! Main plan for next month is to finally add in some of the main infiltration mechanics left. These will be the Resonance Pulse mechanic to highlight nearby enemies, traps, and salvage. The second major mechanic is the unlockable mini map for the Bod. Outside of both of those, I'll be revisiting the wall press mechanic to get some needed updates in for it while also working on some new features for the camera system! Going to be a packed month to prototype all these mechanics haha!