Untitled Space Salvager Project

Done

Final thoughts.

I think the core idea behind the DK30 is to develop better processes. With a group especially when people only have a limited time plus whatever life throws out it is hard to feel like you are developing a good collective rhythm. But perhaps with a group it is more about slowly and surely improving communication skills around a project. It is not to be underestimated how hard it is to communicate well.

However the feeling of working on a project with a team and collectively celebrating those little steps forwards is great. I found that feeling was a good place to go to gain the energy and momentum to keep moving forwards.

Week 4. This week we have put a lot of effort into the implementation and design of the UI and it is looking pretty good!

However the other side of things is that we are sadly not going to have a demo done with the end of the DK30. On the bright side it has served as a good rallying point to make substantial progress.

Things that remain are the sound system, building models, a rework of the event system, and instantiation of items and encounter events.

It is sad that we do not have a demo ready to share, but we will keep going!

A slightly late week 3 update. Things continue to progress but with bigger projects the chance that life will get in the way is much higher.

We have more ship assets imported and set up within Unity - but it seems like for the purpose of the demo there will only be time to produce one or two new hulls. For the buildings - we’ll have to move to more placeholder level graphics.

Another new development is that @Fast Loris has stepped in to help us with 2D graphic assets in the form of graphics for icons and perhaps other UI stuff.

On the programming front @Berndy continues to charge ahead. There have been a bunch of updates that will support the build out of the UI and some small changes that will significantly help with the challenge of balancing and adjusting the values the game system depends on.

Here is a sample of Fast Loris’s work:

Meanwhile here is a peak at where this is all going. Hulls are interconnected and form the platform that the buildings sit upon. some basic testing light from a placeholder skybox texture.

Now in the next phase we are getting very close to integration. Our attention will turn to the UI design and build out and we’ll start testing the numbers so to speak in terms of how the simulation is built out. After that will be the relatively intense integration, testing and hunting of bugs.

Here we are approximately at the end of week 2.

Berndy has reworked the building system and hulls with an empty grid for engines etc are also possible. This makes us ready to start integrating things in unity. Integration has two ingredients: the underlying mechanics and their values and then the 3D model.

Speaking of mechanics I have finished mapping out a provisional model of how the buildings and resources all work.

In progress is a cool musical layering system and more modelling :D

Alright one week in and by in large things are looking good! There are some small twists and turns as is the nature of a complex project where the design is not set in stone. We have some new assets though, we have some new music and Berndy is killing it with getting on top of the code. While not all aspirations have been fufilled things are looking promising.