A little bit late in March, but we have been working hard on fine tuning the game as to come out of early access as soon as possible. Progress is being performed slowly due the complexity of actually having to fine tune or fix very small details , which are by themselves very difficult to pinpoint correctly where the origin of the problem is, which forces developers to actually go deep under the hood of the game and to change some of the early developed systems ( which by direct relation will again generate a cascade of new bugs and new failures in a lot of mechanics) In the last weeks, development has been progressing very smoothly with a lot of very interesting changes to some of the main systems in the game. Below are a summary of all the changes performed throughout February.
1. Fixing the camera flip between worlds
The first version of the new camera flip is so much better and more stable, avoiding some of the lags that the previous was showing. There are still some glitches in some of the camera rotations toward the end of the camera movement which will require some wok to fine tune it definitively, but the result is already so much better.
2. Fine tuning the camera flip with new cinemachine dolley tracks system
One of the problems that is still affecting the game is the camera turn while switching from one world and the other, which involves turning the camera in arc between cameras, and flipping it during the process. The previous system was based in a code that some drawbacks that had been failing frequently. With the new shift of engine, we are now able to use Cinemachine and dolly tracks to work in a more fluid way. In the left image, it is possible to see the camera and the dolly track being moved based on the position of the character as it moves through the world. The view from the camera into the player worlds is not the definitive and is only used for references of the possibilities of the new camera. Mainly the problem was that the character was not stopping when a new calculation of the path was being performed, causing the agent to move for a while in a direction that was inconsistent to its objective, and in consequence generating an effect of gliding on the floor.
3. Artificial Intelligence pathfinding fix
Moving more in depth into the #AI of the enemies to fix some glitches in the pathfinding. Mainly the problem was that the character was not stopping when a new calculation of the path was being performed, causing the agent to move for a while in a direction that was inconsistent to its objective, and in consequence generating an effect of gliding on the floor.
4. Origami Samurai Attack Behavior
After the Origami Archer, it is time to fine tune the second origami warrior that the player will be able to summon to help fighting off the hordes of enemies that will try to block the progression. More fit to close range than the archer, the attack is quite effective and will certainly be a very good help for the player.
5. Face the enemy while orbiting around him during melee combats
Finally, when the player is engaging an enemy and if pressing the lock button, it will keep facing the enemy while moving around it. This will certainly improve the melee combat as it will allow for a more control on the enemy that the player wants to fight off. The only thing that needs to be fixed is the speed at which it can move around and maybe check on the animations as to see if some kind of strafe animation should be needed.
6. to make the player face the center of the rotation ( enemy)
In order to improve the melee combat and keep the player more in line with the enemy, we are trying to make the player character to face the target while orbiting it. Until now, the result is not the expected but at least we are closing in to the solution.
7. Origami sidekick behavior
The continuous flow of improvement has reached now the Artificial Intelligence for the origami sidekicks ( some special characters that you can summon if you have enough paper) and that will help the player fight off the enemies. Several changes have occurred, both in the locomotion and in the behavior that now is being managed by a state machine, which allows a much more precise and stable behavior form the characters.
8. Artificial Intelligence and behaviors improvement
During all the testings that we have done in the game in the last weeks, we were able to find some flaws in the artificial intelligence of the game, specially in the association of the ai logic with the ai movement through the pathfinding. We decided to start reworking the full AI layer as to improve the behaviors of enemies in the large spaces of the game
9. Fixing the origami archer attack
Fine tuning the origami archer attack that was not playing correctly the fire animation while attacking enemies. The animation was actually being played in a very clunky way which was not correct.
10. Improving on the Yari Samurai
Fine tuning the overall behavior of the Yari Samurai as to fit him correctly in the gameplay gap that we found in some of parts of the combat with enemies, and linked to having an enemy that could have the intelligence of a melee combat with the abilities of a ranged one. The enemy doesn´t move to fast but is able to track the player for a long distance before actually loosing his interest on the player, while still launching his spear at it.
