Weekly Update #2 - Gathering and Reactive Grass
Happy Saturday everyone! This week we've finished up the wagon's core features, added gathering jobs, and made grass that reacts to your movements! We're making steady headway on world design and squashing some bugs along the way.
Weekly Member Updates
Elijah (Team Lead & Co-Founder):
I spent the first half of the week developing gathering jobs that can be started at certain merchants. These shops have barrels out front that can be taken on your journey, rewarding you for finding and bringing back the items they need. Right now merchants request specific items, but some will be more open-ended by categories (like flowers or shiny stones) that can influence the final reward.
Picking Up Barrels From Stalls:
Gathering Example:
Also this week, I finally connected the Ebon Desert to Starter Island! Now you can make your way to the rest of the world and begin to really get a feel for the travel portion as you go from one region to the next.
Finally, I squashed some rather obnoxious bugs that made held tools occasionally flicker if you were holding them up to your face. That's it for me today - See you next weekend!
Dylan (Co-Founder):
Hey guys! This week I finished up the final edits to the new hover wagon prototype. The wagon now properly turns at road junctions. Even if you aren't driving, it will pick the road most directly in front of the wagon. Another addition is the ability to swerve safely within the boundary of the road to avoid obstacles like broken down wagons, wildlife, and the occasional wanderer!
After those edits, we reached a point where I could take a little brain break and work on something else besides the wagon (which took up a large part of this past month). Lo and behold… fancy grass displacement! We wanted to have foliage react to the player and other actors in a more persistent manner, so now you can leave trails of flattened foliage behind you.
It was refreshing to work on some technical art after burying my head in systems for a while. We're also looking to improve the techniques used to create this effect and apply it elsewhere in the project later on.
Thanks For Checking Us Out!
Next week we're looking forward to cleaning up some existing systems, beginning on companion features, and making good use of the new wagon to prepare some exciting travel scenarios and destinations.
Be sure to check back each week for the latest development and news! We want to foster an open dialogue with our community, so please do voice your thoughts below.
Until next time,
Elijah and Dylan @ Triglyph
