Devlog #3

Welcome back to another update!

This time we’ll be looking at progress the team made throughout September.

Game Development Progress

A lot has happened this month, and we’re getting to a stage where we don’t want to share too much in case it ruins the experience of playing the game once you’re able to get your hands on it! That being said, here’s what we can share…

A lot of tweaks and adjustments are being made to different models, as we want them to look as clean as possible. We’ve scaled down the hook size slightly to make it look better positioned within the bike and have less clipping issues. With the hook being one of the main gameplay features, we have to be careful that hit boxes remain reliable and feel good to play.

The art team have run into challenges whilst creating certain models due to having a grand vision that they’re eager to implement. Working through these issues is a creative challenge but well worth it as we want to make sure it looks super epic for you all! Besides, would it really be game development without a few hitches along the way?

Continuously updating models such as None, our main protagonist, is important to elevate the overall quality of the art within the game. We’re also creating new concept art to redesign some already implemented models, as we want everything to feel meshed together and as though it belongs in the same world.

Character models are being built upon to make sure they’re more in line with the concept art created, adding any details that may have been missed off in the beginning to keep things simple. This is important as we want our designs to be visually interesting and stand out when the game is being played. The same is happening with environmental objects already implemented in the build, to really make them feel as though they belong in this post-apocalyptic cyberpunk world.

Making sure models are implemented with story beats in mind is something the team have been going over, as some aspects of models will change throughout the game. Ensuring all versions of a model are given the same care within the code and art teams is super important to the momentum of the game. Deciding how much time is put into certain models before the final polish is an ongoing conversation, as some parts of models aren’t visible from the gameplay camera or within cutscenes, so we want to make sure everything that *is* visible is to the highest standard.

Late game arenas are being built into their final stages where gameplay, namely combat, can be focused on. Playing around with 2D and 3D elements to flesh out environments is also in the works, but this is in early stages so we’re unsure if it will make it into the final build of the game. Testing different lighting within environments is in progress, and whilst we can’t show you anything right now, our areas are looking really beautiful! Finessing code has also been happening to make aspects of the game smoother, as well as giving the team a higher level of control when implementing things.

New features are being implemented into the game, such as:

• Victory screens

• Game mode menus

• Quest menus

• Health bar in tunnels

• Progression in upgrade menus

Big progress has been made with in-house play testing, and is allowing us to understand what the strengths and weaknesses are within the game at this point in development. We’re really excited about it as a lot of what’s being picked up on to improve is already within our schedule at later dates, so we’re hopeful the final build will be awesome.

Finally, we have a lot of audio in development, trying to make soundtracks sound awesome and capture the feeling of the story. Deciding whether certain tracks will benefit from being instrumental or with vocals is a choice in discussion, and we really want to get this one right as a great soundtrack can add so much to a game.

We don’t want to share too much more at this stage, as it will ruin the surprise!

Until next time! See you soon!