mdgunn

Been meaning to put time into C++ but for now have more experience in C# and Lua so voted for that.

Thanks!

I don't see it in my account. If you joined the KickStarter (as I did) should it be showing now? Steam key working.

Hi, Unfortunately my daughter has had a severe long term illness since November which she is still suffering from and likely will for quite some time to come. Ultimately she should be OK but it will take a long time. Things deteriorated around Christmas. I haven't had the strength or time to do anything on the project or many other things in my life. Due to these issues I don't really feel I can really commit to anything. I find this a bit annoying as I'd love to have got this into a better state but to get something worth a look at still feels like it would be a good chunk of time. Maybe when I get through this I'll check in again or if I make some progress I'll post something here. Best wishes, Michael

Small update: Haven't found too much time. My job and family issues have had to take priority. I have made a small amount of progress and I'll continue to pick away. Hopefully have something to show by the end of this week.

I've begun to pick apart the problem cryo room in an attempt to rebuild it. I may do some additional checkins into the old repository while I pick it apart before moving it.

I had a look at the current project. I will see if I can get together a new version of my stuff. Mostly it will probably be like the original cryo room but maybe with some aspects of what I did when I expanded the ship out. I will try to keep it relatively small as it was originally so we can get this thing done. Will still probably take me a while to find the time to get things done. I will say I will try to have something to show by the end of this weekend and try to have something solid by the end of the following week (8th Dec), if possible.

Hi, This project is often on my mind. I have not really been doing any hobby programming or game engine stuff or 3D modelling for a bit. I will take a look at what is in new repo over the next few days and see if I can see a route to an end point.

Just thought I should say I've not forgotten about the project. Unfortunately, I've struggled to find the time and have not had the energy - due to a really minor, but persistent, virus I can't seem to quite shake. I'll also be away for some time on holiday so it may be the best part of a month before I'll have a chance to jump-start things again. I'll be returning to trying to complete the ship and ship to temple entrance section, and also completing the post-title screen cutscenes. I'm still of the mind that if we can get to the end of integrating and polishing up what we have now (the sleep /VR sections and the ship) then we'll have something to be proud of.

Is it that LW has determined the collision map for this terrain as not what you expect. Is this a single large mesh? If the road is a mesh with the pavement then it may be not taking into account the drop from the pavement down to the road and the collision surface remains at pavement height over the road?

Think there is some confusion here. Perhaps I missed some new document that was put online when I was not around much in January or something. I always had the original document as a Google doc. It was created as such as I mentioned in the original post. I did not have anyones emails to be able to share this original doc. I think at some later point did someone create a second doc based on this? Situation now is that @aiaf uploaded a doc but the formatting is a bit screwed up. So I shared the original doc to him. Is it MY doc that you are saying is out of date or his? My suggestion would be that we stick with the original doc I have now shared to @aiaf but I need your email @Slastraf to be able to allow you access. My doc should not have any messed up formatting so I assume your last message was not referring to my doc?

The original doc is already a google doc so has all formatting intact. I mentioned this in original post but I don't think I had the neccessary email addresses of everyone to share it out. I might need to check my last edit was not in some other cope of the doc but this I think was the doc here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17IWnOOnHY27k2hLLkmP6Q1Q1_pXvChCNcZie46HApFw/edit#heading=h.z6ne0og04bp5 @aiaf if you PM me the emails you used to share the last one (not sure if I can see them) then I can set sharing on this one. Unless there a good reason not too, but loosing all the formatting will probably bug me so I'd prefer not to lose it.

Yeah....from the title screen, 3 cinematics See this post This other post also showed the last section taken a little further forward.

Don't know for sure but if create your own loading mechanism (a function which loads all your items using normall API loading calls) and load all the items via code then when you later load the map I think it will use the items already in memory......maybe? If you then don't release the objects then I think any map loaded will load faster as it's just loading its own map data and not loading all the assets it encounters as it realises it already has them. I could be completely wrong but I think this is how it would work.

I'm behind where I want to be at this stage but still mostly pleased that I've been making gradual steady progress. It's been hard to find the time the last couple of weeks and there is a LOT to do to take things from 2 or 3 rooms up to 9. Sometimes it feels that LW is fine for small simple levels and OK if you have all your assets sorted in advance but when you want to build a complex level up from scratch it can be quite a challenge and time is spent managing this challenge rather than moving forward as fast as you'd hope. There is a video of where things are at though some things may be confusing as to which room is what (maybe?). In my mind some things are still a little fluid as I try to put things together on the map and in my head. A few things have morphed a bit as I try to imagine how to manage the initial story should be realised in the actual game. Now I am thinking that the cube is taken inside from the crane through a sort of mine conveyor tube thing (the red tube) into somewhere that might laser samples rather than a human medical quarantine (though it would potentially serve this role too - though it does not currently look like this in current layout). I am thinking the cube has initially attacked the ship by injecting some virus in a port (largely in secret and unknown) and it disables the other pods and downgrades AI. It is not known to be an attack by the now downgraded (dumb) AI or by the waking hero (though we probably are shown it doing this - usure if it is best we know or not - maybe not - for later suprise - but then player is maybe never told this clearly enough not to be confusing - can't trust reading of text log - some people just don't read them). They think the cube may be a beacon of sorts sent to revive the ship to complete a new mission so the AI and hero think they should bring it inside to open it up and find out what is going on. The cube is picked up by the crane (simple script) and transported to the mining laser/quarantine area for investigation. This quarantine room then becomes a simple puzzle room where the cube will open up and attack the unarmed player and they must do a 2 or 3 stage activation of the laser (e.g. turn laser on, boost laser with reserve power, point laser at special point in centre of room with the right timing to destroy the drone. Drone explodes into bits and player gets weapon bit in their hand (unless we want to drop this bit - it was done to minimise weapon modelling etc.) There may be other effects (e.g. tiny micro-robots invade ship). Not having the cube attack the ship outside was also a way to avoid the potentially strange scenario where player wakes up and is straight away cast into super urgent situation but they must first do more carefully paced slower sections in sleep and VR. This seemed to introduce a gameplay conflict that I couldn't satifactorily resolve...at least in my head. Here is where the layout of the ship is at. There are many unfinished bits which will be clear but hopefully it can be seen that it quite a bit of work has been required to get it this far.

The detailed explanations are VERY welcome. Thanks for going int the process a bit. I'm very interested.

As I'd mentioned elsewhere I have problems with the single room cryo map not saving if I try to work on it now so I had always thought at some point I'd probably split things out into separate rooms and now seems to be that time. I've put together a ship schematic of sorts to help me figure out a logical structure and where the rooms we think we would need in the story would be compared to others, many of which we may not build. On the left in the image below :- Red outline rooms are ones that are probably required and most of which were present in the single main cryo and associated existing rooms in different sections. Orange rooms are rooms that I think might naturally be built next to make the ship feel more alive and if there were more quests to do. I probably will not build out the orange rooms at this stage. Instead focussing on getting what we had in place in place again in new rooms. Grey rooms are rooms that fill out other functions of the ship that probably can be avoided but might have also been interesting places to go. The purple rooms relate to the engines (covering 2 decks). I don't see we necessarily need to go in there and I haven't entirely figured them out but the engines can make the ship levitate (floating island) but also produce seismic shocks that can pretty much turn ground to be fluid like for the purposes of burying the ship where it would later construct an underground factory(or mine) as it has done in part at the start of the story. As usual, there may be errors. this is a WIP.

Thanks very much for the useful comments! ? I will have a proper look over them later and probably integrate into a v0.04 story path. In having to write it down and merge it together I think it will help make clearer if there are any issues. I'll see if I can pick off some the things you mention, sounds etc if I get a chance in that area while you're in France. Have a good trip.

Sections 14 15 and 16 could be omitted to reduce work and just have player come from ship via a bridge into temple and up unblocked temple ramp to excavation pit. This stuff is already blocked in (shown in previous images a day or 2 ago).

Here are my suggestions for clarifying what I had in mind for map area/sections in order to get us to a final closure on a first stage of the game and to which we may choose to leave as is as a sort of prequel version of our game. PLEASE NOTE: The following notes WILL HAVE ERRORS AND INACCURACIES in what I intended to put down. I have to do some other personal tasks so this is probably rough. If I've missed something previously discussed it's not intentional or necessarily because I don't remember I may have just temporarily overlooked it while rushing this content down. I had to rush the end sections a bit as I ran out of the time I'd set aside to do this so it may feel a bit rough at the end. This varies a bit from what is in design doc though in general is still fairly close. I might update that perhaps. Feel free to comment. I have no real attachment to anything here (as always). I have a picture in my head of how I roughly see things working out but if anyone has anything else they wanted to bring in or ditch there more chance I'd agree with you than disagree so anyone should feel free to suggest anything really. It's not that easy to tie it all together and make it seem to make sense. I suppose things don't always need to make sense, but I think my head prefers it that way at least. Here's the info. PDF same as text below it. Forth-Story-Path-v0-3.pdf Forth - Story Path WHAT THESE NOTES DO NOT YET COVER I would need to think about this a bit more and I need to move on to othere tasks but I think of note this document does not mention other spells/powers. These could well be introduced....somehow....but as I haven't really worked out how to satisfactorily explain there introduction I haven't tried to tackle it yet. Perhaps you gain them later at other temples/ships. Intro Cutscenes Space to Planet Sky to ground Temple Flythrough - Cutscenes end with cube spinning over ground outside ship. LEVEL SECTIONS SECTION 1 - Ship, Player, AI and Virus Introduction SPECIAL NOTES: Ideally this level would not be a separate level load, but at this time it might be if we are to travel through ship and show fully prop populated level. LEVEL: [level02] Cryo/Ship PURPOSE: Introduce the following:- main theat of enemy virus attack upon ship presence of friendly AI player character present in cryo tube. This section should be cinematic and engaging. Must aim to unambiguously set the scene through action not text if we can. Screens might display additional briefly seen information on attack situation as we pass by. FEATURES: Player has no control in this section. WALKTHROUGH: Cube stops spinning and descends to ground. Cube begins to launch a sort of EMP pulse attack to bring down internal systems. Cube is still closed at this point. Switch to inside ship at cryo tubes. After short pause cyro tube 1 is seen to be destroyed alarm starts in ship. Alarm is triggered in ship. Cryo tubes 1-3 are later seen to be destroy so set to destroyed state some time around now. Camera moves to cryo tube 4 and we hear/see AI begin wake up procedure for tube 4. Camera slowly moves forward toward head section of tube and fades to white. MAIN GOAL: Player is automatically switched to dream level 1 [LEVEL:01] at end. Player has no control but aim is for cinematic to set scene for start of story. GOAL RESULTS: None (no player control) SUCCESS RESULTS: None (no player control) SECTION 2 - Awaken Player LEVEL: [level01] Dream Level 1 PURPOSE: Introduces sleep type level. FEATURES: Level has elements of ship floating around to link to real world in this very abstract level. Monolith At end of level to represent the AI reviving the player from sleep. MAIN GAMEPLAY: Figure out how to successfully navigate the platforms to get to the end goal at other end of level. MAIN GOAL: Get to end of level. FAILURE RESULTS: Falling: Player resets to last checkpoint SUCCESS RESULTS: Reach Goal: Player transported to [Level:02] and awakes in cryo room. SECTION 3 - Cube Attack LEVEL: [level02] Cryo Room (Ship) PURPOSE: Introduces cryo room focussing on personal threat (low health) of player with outer threat of some distant external attack. FEATURES: Other cryo tubes are damaged and smoking - reasons yet not clear but cause is system damage from cube EMP attacks outside. Regular (15 second?) attacks still happening with camera shake. Player prompted to find health station. When they use health station they pass out and enter another short sleep level (if we want to do this dev?). Cryo room has VR pod (or user may use any other reachable - none?) MAIN GAMEPLAY: Player should turn of alarm (via switch - otherwise annoying). Player should locate health station or they will keep passing out. When health station used they will lose health much more slowly. FAILURE RESULTS: Player will keep passing out fairly rapidly as health is in 'red zone' until they use health station. SUCCESS RESULTS: Player is more stable....but must stabilise further with bandages which are just outside the cryo room in either a) locker or b) small medical station. SECTION 4 - Unlock Cryo Room Door LEVEL: [level03] VR Level 1 PURPOSE: Introduces VR type levels. MAIN GOAL: Player should locate cryo room door unlock controls in VR. FAILURES RESULTS: Falling: Player resets to start position if fall out of level (it has gaps initially). Puzzle Failure: Player does not complete puzzle correctly and must restart. Health Runs Out: Player passes out and returns to cryo room to re-heal and re-enter VR. SUCCESS RESULTS: Player performs VR puzzle that unlocks the cryo room door. SECTION 5 - Stabilise Health LEVEL: [level02] Ship (Locker/Health Station Area - just outside cryo room) PURPOSE: Get bandages from locker or health station so stabilise health. Cube still doing 15 second attacks inflicting small damage. Player can re-heal at health station. Player exits to main ship common area (essentially main room there before - but probably remodelled a bit to be minus cryo tubes and possibly lockers. MAIN GOAL: Player stabilises health (no longer goes down). FAILURE RESULTS: Player passes out: Reducing Health and/or timed Cube Attacks (ever 15 second) lead to small player damage. If player passes out may have to do short second sleep level again. SUCCESS RESULTS: Player stabilises health. OTHER RESULTS: Player may choose to enter main room without healing at this time but health will continue to reduce until they heal at health station or find bandages in locker. SECTION 6 - Repel Cube Threat/Sphere Entry LEVEL: [level02] Ship (Crane Area) PURPOSE: Introduce cube outside ship through switch to camera panning down to cube outside. Triggered by player approaching crane cab window. Player must use (flashing) crane control switch to try to destory cube in crane claw to stop it damaging ship. Sphere emerges when cube in claws and enters through the tube and into the ship progressing along the tube ino the science area (used to be hangar). Main ship room has VR pod (or user may use any other?) MAIN GOAL: Player must try to crush cube with external claws via switch in crane cab on ship. FAILURE RESULTS: Timed Cube Attacks: If player does not activate claw after prompts cube will continue to inflict timed (15 second) damage which will also damage player (electrical damage?). They may possibly have to do short second sleep level again and possibly re-heal via health-station (but no timed health decrease now). SUCCESS RESULTS: Player triggers progression: By using crane switch Sphere escape from cube and into ship. SECTION 7 - Unlock Science Room Doors LEVEL: [level03a] VR Level 2 (VR1 locking more complete - phase 2?) PURPOSE: Enter VR in order to solve puzzle to unlock science room doors. MAIN GOAL: Unlock science room doors. FAILURE RESULTS: Usual VR room failures? SUCCESS RESULTS: Complete VR puzzle to unlock science room doors. SECTION 8 - Sphere Defeated / Hand Cannon Gained LEVEL: [level02] Science Area PURPOSE: Investigate tube delivery/quarantine area. Sphere breaks out and attacks player. Room divided into some small areas which player can loop around and trigger an electrical dischage overload in a zone near the delivery tube when the player triggers via switch. Player must time this right. Room doors are locked during this section. Science Room has VR pod (or user may use any other?) MAIN GOAL: Defeat sphere. FAILURE RESULTS: Player killed by sphere through health reduction by electrical(?) attack. SUCCESS RESULTS: Sphere Exploded by electrical discharge. Player gains hand cannon. SECTION 9 - Unlock AI room LEVEL: VR level 3 PURPOSE: Enter VR in order to solve puzzle to unlock ai room doors. MAIN GOAL: Unlock AI room doors. FAILURE RESULTS: Usual VR room failures? SUCCESS RESULTS: Complete VR puzzle to unlock science room doors. SECTION 10 - Manually Repair AI room LEVEL: [level02] AI Room PURPOSE: AI informs that some of system boards (in stacks) are damaged. Player must fix. This could involve getting parts from another part of the ship (e.g. circuits from energy storage section) but initially may be SUPER simple and player just has to interact ('use' action) with (3) damaged boards hidden on the racks and are black rather than green for example. When boards fixed up AI gives user more info. Informs player than virus seems to be defeated but that it could be that it can't detect it being dormant. Tells user to escape the ship in case virus returns or further cubes arrive. Tells user to exit ship (there may be a couple of options here need to think it through some more) but they cannot unlock exit. Use must via VR. AI Room has pod (or user may use any other?) MAIN GOAL: Fix Mainboards. FAILURE RESULTS: None. SUCCESS RESULTS: Main boards fixed. AI now capable of controlling most of ship. SECTION 11 - Unlock Hangar/Airlock Door LEVEL: VR level 4 PURPOSE: Enter VR in order to solve puzzle to unlock ai room doors. MAIN GOAL: Unlock AI room doors. FAILURE RESULTS: Usual VR room failures? SUCCESS RESULTS: Complete VR puzzle to unlock science room doors. SECTION 12 - Hangar Attack LEVEL: [level02] Hangar Area PURPOSE: AI Opens Hangar Door. Player should eventually make way to hangar area where there will be ramp or exit door. Robot drones in this area will wake up as player approaches door. Doors shut and player forced to fight cam bot drones. MAIN GOAL: Defat enemies and Exit Ship FAILURE RESULTS: Player killed by enemies. SUCCESS RESULTS: Player leaves ship into new area. SECTION 13 - Exit Ship LEVEL: [level02] Hangar/Airlock Area (bit undecided) PURPOSE: AI Opens Hangar Door. Player should eventually make way to ship exit ship and begin making way out to surface via temple exit or other alternate exit (cave/factory areas) exiting near temple entrance in excavation pit at surface. MAIN GOAL: Exit Ship FAILURE RESULTS: SUCCESS RESULTS: Player leaves ship into new area. SECTION 14 - Cave Section LEVEL: [level04] Lava Pavement Area (near exterior crane) PURPOSE: Explore cave, possibly defeat more cam bot enemies arriving from direction of ship or hidden pipes or alcoves. Cave leads to bridge over lava. Bridge must be extended to reach inner temple are. MAIN GOAL: Defat enemies and Exit Ship FAILURE RESULTS: Player killed by enemies. SUCCESS RESULTS: Player leaves ship into new area. SECTION 15 - Factory Section LEVEL: [level04] Lava Pavement Area (near exterior crane) PURPOSE: Inner temple is mainly 1 room leading up to surface (but blocked) or through side doors to inner temple area which resembles constuction line area for assembling something such as robots. Further robot attacks from pipes etc in inner temple. MAIN GOAL: Defeat enemies and exit factory FAILURE RESULTS: Player killed by enemies. SUCCESS RESULTS: Player leaves factory section. Enters cave section 2. SECTION 16 - Cave Section 2 (possibly) LEVEL: [level04] Cave Section 2 Area PURPOSE: Explore and Defeat enemies on way to next section. MAIN GOAL: Defeat enemies and exit cave section 2. FAILURE RESULTS: Player killed by enemies. SUCCESS RESULTS: Player leaves cave section 2. Makes it to surface outside temple. SECTION 17 - Excavation Pit LEVEL: [level04] Excavation Area (outer temple entrance) PURPOSE: Player sees there is a larger world out here on the surface. MAIN GOAL: Player must ascend out of pit using scaffolding and or mechanisms. FAILURE RESULTS: Fall damage: Some health packs near by with other unuseful prop gear. SUCCESS RESULTS: Player leaves excavation pit. SECTION 18 - Pit Top (END) SPECIAL NOTES: This is the end point of the first chapter of the game. LEVEL: [level04] Above Pit (near temple entrance) PURPOSE: Player is now in open landscape. Perhaps there is something in distance village, or other temple? Enemies appear from ground protruding vents. Fade to black. MAIN GOAL: Close out the end of this section of the game. FAILURE RESULTS: None. SUCCESS RESULTS: Player leaves temple area for wider world and complete major game section.

As I keep losing track of in forum, or feeling a little unsure on what actions we want the user to take to progress through goals in the early sections of the game I have started putting together some notes. I think I will get this completed later tonight but this is a heads up so that others can consider what they might think of as the current goals.

Early version. Just a rough concept of what I was thinking. This area would be where the seating and table were and the seating and table would be which would be moved to a near-by section (I think). The desks and computers below were not really intended for this area so more of a stand-in for a console. Just an early test. It looks like it might be a bridge area more than a crane cab. I think I may reduce to 1 chair and put a few chunky console and machine parts in roof and side areas.

I hope to be able to build off the basic design of what is there but split the areas up a bit more with possibly 1 or more doors or short corridors or maybe just a few wall supports to split things up a bit. The basic idea of all the things in the cryo room will remain and will probably keep most aspects of the current room just chop bits into chunks. Something like this (remember they may just be sections of the same room rather than long corridors between separated rooms):- cryo pod room locker area (near but possibly separated by short corridor or just bulkhead) crew relaxation/communications area (table, chairs, monitors). a hangar/robot storage ai room observation/loading crane - currently would be where sphere would enter through external crane delivery tube claw thing(!). Small area with control desk, monitor, chair and viewing window so you can see attack happening outside (I think). All these rooms are pretty much what is there now but re-organised a bit. Some other thoughts for possible other rooms science analysis room - rather than sphere going to large hangar like room could go to smaller science analysis room which is more like how I envisioned it. hydroponics/energy storage - simple room a bit like AI room where you may need to get battery from or other task. kitchen/mess area - probably near relaxation/communications area sleeping bunks/bathroom - awake crew would need somewhere to sleep. possible small/ting bathroom section in this room. airlock corridor - short corridor section from hangar to outside storage area - could just be dealt with in the hangar but could be another area office area - small area (possibly off-shoot of other area with formal desk and monitor for admin tasks). I am concious that we do not necessarily want to keep stretching things out so I will probably hold off on developing any of these other areas and just try to getting working again the stuff that is in cryo room but in smaller maps that I will probably first work on in isolation then bring together. I tend to follow what currently takes my attention so it's possbible things might change a bit but I will keep updating forum and trello and pop on discord every now and then.