Hey everyone! we are past the midpoint in sprint 2 and are still working full steam ahead. This week we continued our focus on gameplay, sound effects and visuals. Let's see exactly what our team cooked up this week:

GamePlay

A lot has been improved about the gameplay. A lot of interactions have been refined and added. Water vases can now be used to create water puddles, these can put out fires that appear in any way. Fire now spreads to oil, and can ignite explosive barrels. Players ragdoll when hit with certain forces no matter where they come from; crates, the mast or others.

Player feedback

We have also started implementing sound effects and particle effects. For example spawning particles and running particles with the appropriate sound effect accompanying it.

Player Spawn RFX

A visual effect for when player is spawned/respawned. It also comes with a sound effect!

Running RFX

A simple effect to indicate player movement. A random footsteps sound is also included in this effect.

Crate Sliding Visuals

A trail which brings the movement of the crates more to life.

Mast Chip RFX

An effect that can be used to indicate ship taking damage when the mast event is not completed in time.

Cell Shader - Testing

A first look at the implementation of cell shading in our game. At the moment there are some issues with the shader and so we have to make a decision whether we're going to use it or not.

Fire and explosions

The interactions of our fires have been worked out a lot, and now the fire spreads correctly between oil spills, lanterns, explosives, all of it. Player included of course!
Explosions now also damage and burn the player, if you want to be put out of fire you will need to douse yourself with some water (or a teammate can just throw the vase in your general direction and hope it works).

Fire spreading via player to second Oil Spill, causes explosion because of Oil Vase

Menus

The menu elements are now also more easy to navigate, since you can use keyboard or controller instead of being limited to the mouse!

We also have some artwork for our victory and defeat screen!

Behind the scenes

A few changes happened behind the scenes too, causes multiple events to not happen at the same time, and making certain ones more common the closer you come to the end of the game!

Level dressing and boat enhancements

Islands floating by

These 2 islands float by the boat to mimic some kind of boat movement. They have a mist material applied that can be viewed from the distance.

Boat upgrades

To bring harmony to the things already in the game we decided level dressing would be nice. With this we decided to give the boat 1 last upgrade. different sized crates and more!

New vs old 

Size differences

Dither shader for sail

To enhance overall gameplay we decided to make a dither shader that make the sail somewhat invisible on the bottom so plays can walk behind the sail without visual struggles. 

Small adjustments

Furthermore, we just made some small adjustments to other props like the fire pit/lantern stand and other stuff to suit gameplay and aesthetics. 

Whats next?

We will be continuing the focus next week to make the game feature complete before the polishing phase, that means adding in the last gameplay features, the UI, etc,  so that the game can be played from start to finish!