Welcome to yet another dev blog!
This week I’ve been working with managing our graphics pipeline. SoC has a lot of visual assets that need to be sketched out, tested and turned into production quality pixel art. Some team members work remotely and it can be a hassle to get all material into the game for testing and approval. We are now figuring out ways to make this process easier and remove bottlenecks.
This is exactly the type of stuff that gets me excited: Making sure great people can deliver great content, without having to worry about the technical side of things!
Niklas has been working on creating a new system for the UX states. This system relates to the wielder interactions with map entities, buildings, and hostiles. He has also made sure that the outlines have correct colors depending on the states.
A small sample of the new outline system, showing a few pickups in an Arleon biome setting. It also includes an unintended blue loading circle, feel free to ignore that.
David has been working on the Adventure UI, updating it with new assets and layout. He’s shifting away from using a world space to a screen space canvas for some of our UI elements.
Carl has reworked the general structure of all faction campaigns. He also made a song specifically for the Arleon campaign, which he subsequently threw away. Because it was apparently not good enough...
I’m not sure though, he usually makes pretty darn good songs. But he is still very enthusiastic about the new campaign design though. So I’m confident he’ll nail that song sooner or later!
Patrik has been working on getting the marketplace to a functional state. This is just a temporary solution and not the final UX experience, as you might have guessed.
Emil Gustafsson has been working on getting the Order-spells up and running according to the new spell system. We have been getting a lot of questions about the Essence and magic system for the game recently. Carl has been following the community discussion and just from small clues and questions they seem to have worked out a lot of what we have decided. Including lore bits and thoughts around mechanics, it's been a blast to follow!
Felix has been working on how Cecilia Stoutheart, an Arleon wielder, could look on the adventure map. Do you have a favorite? Let us know in the comments below!
And finally, some people have asked us about the Corona situation and if it will affect development of the game. We can’t know for sure, but most of the team members are currently working from home, as a safety measure. And this is something we have excellent preparation for. Feel free to check out this old blog post about how we allow team members to work remotely and decide their own workspace.