on friday we were mostly fixing the interaction scripts to allow timelines to trigger within other timelines. this was pretty easy to do with signals, but took a bit to learn the general workflow of them. Timeline has so many tools it’s insane! i really love this feature. Did some more work on the puzzle too.

today i did way more despite starting late, basically test the shit out of the fixes to the interaction scripts, polish some assets that were previously placeholders, and made some cutscenes. There’s one nag to figure out but that’s on me for not asking how multi-part puzzles work with the current tools. Ran into some lighting issues (point light not having much effect on the environment even when baked), and i think i’m half-way through this section. Just need to polish some of the puzzle design so it can’t be bruteforced (which i did during playtesting, so tweaks are on the way).

Over the weekend i got some cool new designs for a really special character and i hope to see her in 3d soon.

more progress on the level, mostly coding gameplay elements that flew under our radar like a reader(?)… think of those screens that show up when you pick up a magazine or a book in resident evil and there’s the contents on the screen. some fixes to how door transitions change the camera angles, and general work on event triggers that will see a lot of use thanks to its timeline integration.

I’m really excited about progress right now. Tomorrow i’ll go see the new place i’m likely moving to, that means sleeping early tonight and doing some other chores. Guy said it was gonna take like an hour so i’m gonna believe him and hopefully that’s the case.

forgot to post this on the 1st

disregard the above, this log is for my work on september 1st, i just wrote it at like 12 am of the 2nd.

grenade attacks 80% polished!

Also partially did the first polish pass to one of the puzzle rooms, 7 more to go which seems a lot but i got hella distracted today.

With this came a lot of props, so i worked on them too. Tested the new notification system and it seems to work alright.

There’s so much shit to do tomorrow. By the way, as mentioned yesterday i won’t be able to work at some point this week due to moving places, but it’s possible i do that over the weekend. I’ll go see the stuff this thursday and see what’s up but that’s allegedly gonna take less than an hour.

man, tomorrow will be september. what the fuck is time even!

today we made some big progress. brought in sophie to do puzzle design for the levels and boy, it was the right choice as it lifted a bunch of weight off my shoulders, allowing me to focus where i have the most fun (important). More work on the new drone enemies, more specifically the grenade attacks and some impact effects, some sound work and character design.

It’s possible i won’t be able to work for a couple days this week, as it’s likely i’ll be moving real soon from my current place to a bigger one.

If i don’t fall asleep like a loser i’ll probably just go back to work and prototype this puzzle plan.

so i did end up working on the level, just late because of some bullshit but i will keep working after writing this. so far just a bunch of prop making, fixing some quirks with how doors worked (looks like it was a bit finicky with assets made in blender instead of pro builder) and in general just making stuff happen. tomorrow we’ll likely code the new enemies i modeled and add whatever stuff comes up while i build.

instead of doing the dungeon i ended up running a couple tests on modeling enemies myself, since most mooks don’t need to be super detailed. Dunno why i feel bad about this hehe, like, i legit got like a gut punch but this one was pretty important to get going since i might need to speed up generic enemies with less detailed geometry and texturing, and save main characters and antagonists for the actual 3d team with talent and time in their hands.

Other than this more work on the backend of the character menu was done, as well as more writing. Tomorrow i do hope to go back to the dungeon proper.

more work on the ui and playtesting. allegedly we fixed a big one where the enemies would stop moving until getting hit again after a canceled attack; a mechanic that was completely accidental, we never designed enemy attacks to be canceled by the player, it just happens in the right window and we left it there, but it had some unexpected consequences.

the menu is not done yet but this is the format we are pursuing for it.

i still feel pretty bad over not being able to keep creating content and having to make do with usual under-the-hood things, but we gotta keep the engine running.