Derelict Void - Team Process Diary

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Final Update:

Putting the pieces together.

Over the last few days we have begun refining and reviewing how the game is shaping up. For the first time yesterday I had a moment where I felt like I was actually playing a game. Our attention now is on building up enough content that a short demo play of the game will capture the intended feel we have in mind.

Lets have a look at what we have been working on:

Game Design

During this project we tried to question our design choices as much as possible and decided to cut down on unnecessary complexities for now. The latest victim was our extensive productivity and priority system. The player would have been able to input a priority between 1 and 9 on buildings and people and power would be distributed accordingly. The factories would then produce more or less depending on how much of its productivity was fulfilled.

Now, we replaced this with a new system we call “crew tokens”. The player now has a number of specialist teams that he can assign to various tasks as well as use them to boost the throughput of factories. While tasks like sending teams to explore debris or construct/move buildings will require a specialist crew, actions like travel will run passively.

We also tried to figure out what a good starting point for the game would be. We came up with the idea of firing a report right at the start of the game, and having the player accept his starting resources. The player is also told that he has the parts for a water treatment plant, which he should start building right away to solve the problem of water running out in just a few days. Next the starting report immediately starts the action “Searching for filter replacements”, which needs a specialist crew to complete and will return with 100 carbon, which is required to run the water treatment plant. This way the player is introduced to most of the key game play elements. Reports through the opening message, buildings and building parts through the water treatment plant, crew tokens through the action searching for filter materials. Finally it also alerts the user of the life support system, since the water will run out in just a couple of hours, which will be solved by the intro. Then water moved to the bottom of the players priority list. Next, first food and then oxygen will slowly run out, however there is enough to last for a few jumps, giving the player some time to collect more resources and acquire buildings to take care of the problem.

Model Integration

We finally started to merge the work of the “in unity” people and our visual artists. You already saw the new models for spaceship hulls, now its time to show off all the beautiful models Juanete made.

First of a bunch of models for factories (Hydroponics, Heavy Fabricator, Light Facbricator, CO2 Scrubber and Water Treatment Plant)

Then there are a bunch of storage buildings (Warehouse, Residential Complex and Pressure Tanks)

But wait, theres more: We also added a model for debris, to fill up our unexplored hulls with broken structures that need to be cleared out for little reward if you want to keep the hull they’re occupying.

Importing models from our visual artists posed quite a challenge, since all models have to fit into the confines of our grid system. This means buildings have to have roughly the same height and must have the same length and width. For hulls we resorted to booling out a notch with specified sizing. Additionally, different 3D modeling programs and unity have differing sizing conventions. As a result we needed to scale up Okapi’s models by a factor of 100 while having to scale down Juanete’s models by a factor of 1000. Assets are hard.

Game Lighting

As it turns out, while integrating those new assets we discovered a few problems with our current setup, mostly revolving around lighting.

Firstly, somehow the lighting requirements for the building models and the hull models are very different, resulting in either the buildings looking very dark, or the hull being vastly overexposed. We will have to see if finished texturing will equalize the lighting requirements, otherwise we will have to search a deeper root of the problem.

Secondly, the Lightweight Render Pipeline of Unity, that we are currently using, limits us to only four dynamic light sources at once. Usually this problem would be solved by baking all of the light into the scene, but since we’re spawning in every hull and every building, this is not an option for us. This means that we will most likely will have to upgrade Unity version and/or to High Definition Render Pipeline.

Final Thoughts

Reflecting back on the DK30 - we have actually managed to produce a tonne of output. We did begin following a more structured approach to the project before, but more then that working with the idea of producing something to share at a particular time really does sharpen your focus and makes time a little bit more real. In terms of team processes. Somethings have definitely relaxed. We have kept up with weekly meetings and for the most part are tracking major tasks using Jira, but the degree of formality has softened. The point of agile is not to follow some prescribed structure for how to manage a team but to organically evolve towards what is essentially and effective for the team to follow.

Beyond the DK30 Demo we’ll focus on making sure that the graphical aspect are sorted out (the whole LWRP vs HDRP issue). Hopefully with the demo out we will also be able to collect good feed back especially around the balancing the systems in the game.

Week 4

Let us do the things Edition

So as the DK30 wraps up we are working towards finalizing integration to the point where we have something that we can share that is not an incoherent mess.

It is a push time, which is stressful and it becomes important to bear that in mind for future balance. After the DK30 demo (fingers crossed) we will collectively need to take a bit for a break to recharge our collective energies.

Meanwhile however lets take a peak at some of the things this week:

Here is a view of the newest version of open hull models from SmokingOkapi combined to make a nifty ship

This a test of how the action assignment works! You can also see some actually textured and animated buildings that Juanete has produced.

Here is an experiment with shade graph Berndy has developed that we intend to use to represent things being built.

Korius has been experimenting with developing some floaty bouncy boi drones to add a bit of flavour to the buildingscape.

The big push is to complete the ‘loop’ of the game and to begin polishing out the way that the player interacts with the world. Game balance will be a lot of work do get right.

In summary we are slowy but surely making our way towards something shareable so stay tuned!

Week 3

Well looks like week 2 is pinning for the fiords in terms of an update. I had some ideas to write about obstacles to working with a team that didn’t quite come together. However I’ll start by at least picking up the crumbs that were left.

Potential problems with teams:

Timezones. I think it goes without saying but when a team exists of multiple continents it can be a challenge to find times where people are available Further more those casual meetings can be hard to have as people might be sleeping. Little things can end taking multiple days to sort out that could have been done quickly if everyone involved were there at the time.

Motivation - dark underside edition: A team is a form of public space and you want to keep up the positive energy to keep people going. However life is not all toothy grins, twinkling eyes and a thumbs up. People have bad days or have those mental breaks that lead to sad wandering. I do not think it is healthy to pretend that those things do not happen, but at the same time there is a balance to strike in acknowledging the darkside of things in a way that is constructive and healing. I suspect the worst thing to do is to simply pretend that there are not problems and to try and force through positivity when it is wholly lacking on the inside. Maybe it speaks to the maturity of a team if it is able to have a good community space to share and discuss that side of things.

One of the major things that has happened over the last bit of time is Juanette teaching SmokingOkapi about using substance painter and the dark arts of UV mapping.

-A wild angry berndy hull by SmokingOkapi

Juanate has also showed off some pretty snazzy work of textured buildings.

Another thread of work is around the story telling, event representation. Korius has been building up a system using textmeshpro.

FastLoris assisted with packing some sprites into a format that textmeshpro likes

Bringing us along to here:

Then with a little bit more work it began to be harmonized with the rest of the UI design

Berndy has been working on some of the mechanical updates to player interaction with the ship: Here is part of the ship being deconstructed…

Week 1 Update

Discord and Confluence and Jira, oh my!

This week a bunch of different threads of activity have progressed. We’re still dialing in the design of some systems and experimenting with how some visuals might work. Our primary method of collaboration is to jump on discord. As I’ve mentioned we have weekly meeting and we are in the excellent position that most of the team is able to make it.

• capture from yesterday’s team meeting where Berndy was walking through work done in Unity.

Along with the bigger planned meeting we have had a decent number of smaller sessions to solve specific problems, teach each other skills, collaborate creatively, or produce memes.

• doodles by SmokingOkapi made while listening to some event narrative for the game

As was explicitly pointed out by KoriusDM, it is probably healthy for team to create and perpetuate memes. It seems right to not spend 100% of the time interacting as a team purely working on the project. We have been talking about, getting some sort of collaborative game going, like minecraft to chill out in, and probably make more memes with.

• the man himself, the legendary angry berndy: spacer extraordinaire. (disclaimer - berndy is never actually angry)

In summary: Progress this week has been good. Lots of collaborations have occurred. Documents are alive and growing in confluence. I think one of the most important thing about having a weekly meeting where we review the work done is that it really helps put in perspective how much work is actually getting done. We’ve been surprising ourselves. It feels good and it really helps motivation on a personal level.

Here is sneak preview of some excellent texturing work by Juanete

Introduction: Previously this project was known as space salvagers, but recently we developed a proper name. The Derelict Void project is a collaboration born out of members meeting in the Fall DK30 gamejam. Like with any good adventure we’ve picked up some more friends along the way and are now rocking a team of 8 wonderful folks.

ZoidbergTheGreat - music

KoriusDM - Game design, agile-scrum dude, Programming

Juanete - 3D modelling

SmokingOkapi - 3D modelling

Berndy - Programming

TheFastLoris - 2D art / GUI

irecabre97 - Concept Art

inertious - game design, writing

The Process

Currently we are using a combination of Discord and Jira/Confluence to organize. We are working an agile-like process where we organize around 2 week sprints with one weekly meeting to reflect.