Entry #9 - Meta progress

Last month was spent mostly on adding meta progression and improving existing systems.

Map objectives

There is a new system of map objectives that determine finishing every level. Two implemented quests are super simple proofs of concept, used to test the system. Basically at the start of each objective player can be presented with a popup about the story justification of the objective, then there is a hud widget tracking the progress of the objective. Once it's finished, a new popup can be shown and either a new objective starts or player is transferred to the world map where he can choose the next level he wants to play.

World map

I've added a world map, which shows players their progress on the main quest. There are nodes representing each level, indicating if the level is already completed, current, available to transfer to or still locked. My original idea is to have a dag structure of levels (graph with no cycles) but for now I just create one path. The background of the map is just a temporary ai generated thingy. I guess proper graphics will have to wait a looong time until I have a design for all levels. Only then I can represent the specific atmosphere of each part of the map with nice art. So it has ui, underlying logic and works pretty well. At least well enough for the current stage.

New level

To test the world map, I've added a new level. A simple entry map that is intended for 2-3 ingame days. It's purpose is to introduce basic mechanics, without penalizing players who need more time to grasp the controls or gameplay. Previously, I was always testing a level that was 6-7 days long. And if you made any bigger mistakes, you would just fail to finish it. Now this more difficult map is moved to be the second in the order. It required some slight adjustments in difficulty and characters progress but in general the whole process went surprisingly smoothly.

Base transfering

One of my core assumptions about this game is that players should have quite a bit of progress from each level transferred to the next one. That's why I have characters progression but also base transfering. All the constructions that are not defenses, that are built inside the main base, are moved to the next level. That means that you don't have to recreate most vital structures each time you move to the new map. Personally I hate it about older rts games, where the beginning of each game is exactly the same. I was a bit scared of the difficulty of implementing this mechanic but again: Unreals save system proved to be super helpful and made it really easy.

Focus, selection and orders

For a long time I battled how to make object selection and giving orders as clear and bulletproof as possible. The main issue was that clicking a workspot should work even if I don't precisely click a visible part of it. So having a bit bigger hit box is required. But at the same time, when there is a character inside of workspot or even close to it, I want to be sure that the character selecting works 100% of time - ignoring the bigger workspot hitbox. I remade the selection system, now I use 2 ray casts, with different channels. Also clicking characters overhead plates selects them. Finally I feel like it's robust enough. Or at least I can fine tune all the edge cases for each workspot.

Trailer illustrations

Eh... they are taking waay too long. I'm happy about the quality but the last illustration took way over 1 month. It's great, it's complicated (it was originally over 600 layers) but any of my or artist's estimations proved to be worth nothing.

Enviro

Still sucks.

Steam

It's high time to create a steam project page. My plan is to start working on it, check all the required graphics resolutions etc. I will slowly start preparing it, ordering art and writing content. My hope is to launch it live just before the trailer is ready, so that the video will be my first big update.