Restitched: Recapped! | November 2021 (Patreon)

This is a trixel+ two-week-long early access post that will be posted on the Trixel Creative website later!

Welcome to the first-ever Restitched: Recapped! In these brand-new monthly features, we'll be recapping all of the internal developments made towards Restitched that took place in the previous month. These will be posted first on trixel+, and then publicly two weeks later via the Trixel Creative website. The vibe of these posts is a little laxer, so don't expect grand posts in tune with the Restitched: Dev Diary features - they may only be a paragraph or two, depending on progress and how much we can reveal!

Lethalities & Checkpoints

Halston, Billy, Matt, Michael, DeRose, Raphaël, and Carter began a detailed discussion into the kinds of lethalities that Stuffy may come across in Restitched! We did this by opening a new channel on our private development Discord server.

We sought to answer the questions: what types of Hazards would make sense in the world of Restitched? How would Stuffy be affected by these Hazards/how would Stuffy react? How lethal are they (as in, are they insta-death)? How would the player make an object a hazard with the level editor? How would a player know if something was lethal, and how might this vary in visuals by user-made level? 

Although no concept art was created during this discussion, ideas such as lasers and quicksand were discussed, as well as some inspiration from Super Mario 64 (of all places!). Fear not, however - our amazing artist Ari is eager to create some concepts for our lethalities soon!

We also further discussed checkpoints and how health or lives may be displayed to the player. Although, again, no concept art currently exists, we may have some in time for the next Restitched: Recapped!

Automation Systems

This month Halston, Billy, DeRose, Matt, Michael, Raphaël, and Jamie also began detailed discussion into how automated systems could be implemented in-game. How would a player program the elements of a level? What automations and effects can be created? How would these all look in-game, and how does that fit into the overall UX/UI design style we've set?

This is a very exciting element of Construction Mode that we know our community is eager to learn more about - but this aspect of development is still in early R&D, so take everything here with a pinch of salt!

Below is a very early piece of concept art by Halston and not in-game footage. This concept explores how menus may be separated from the main Craftbook for maximum accessibility visually and functionally.

Edit Cursors

Michael and Halston finalized many of the custom cursors! An image of the edit cursor in question is displayed below - showcasing the 'Edit Stamp' cursor! The goal of these custom cursor designs is to make the game feel more interactive while indicating to the player what it is they're doing at any given time.

Programming Development

As of November 26, Raphaël, Harry, Jamie, Michael, and Halston added 216 new commits to the Restitched code! We manage our code on GitHub, so we can easily track development and developer contributions. Here's a little insight into some of the commits...

Spoopy Stamps

Technically in October (October 30th), Carter and Halston designed a batch of new Stamps for the Halloween season! These were added to create some spooky scenes for updated promotional imagery - view how these look in-game below!

Importing Objects

Cade, Kyran, and Matt have created some props this month, which were then imported by Halston. This excitingly increases the collection of meshes that can be placed in player levels! Please note that some images below are taken in 3D modeling programs, and not from in-game!

Story Progression

Although we've had the story outline completed for a while now, there are always edits to be made! With the introduction of a new writer to the team (George), we've tweaked aspects of the story - including character motives. We can't share more at this moment in time, but we're excited to open up on the topic later down the line!

The Next Contest

We've been working on the next big community engagement event, which is a brand new contest! We promised this event in our 2021 roadmap, and it's still underway for launch in December. We'll share more very soon!

Key Art and Graphics Adjustments

The team's graphic designer (Halston) has been working to refine the key art composition and Restitched graphical assets. While these changes are very subtle, they're intended to add a bit more polish and visual balance. Some of the changes include the recoloring and rearrangement of assets, as well as Stuffy being moved in the official key art cover. We've also deepened the sky gradient color for a richer appearance and better overall color balance. 

Last but not least, we've remade parts of the signature blueprint backgrounds used for the game and its promos. The new versions will contain less color banding and are much crisper, scaling up to a whopping 8K resolution!

Multiplayer Future-Proofing

Our official Restitched FAQ states: 

Online multiplayer is something we are definitely looking into and setting up a framework for in Restitched. However, due to technical complexity, we cannot yet confirm or deny whether it will be included in the game at launch.

While we're still not ready to announce any concrete plans for online multiplayer, we have been working on the aforementioned framework. This month, we worked on making the game assign character cosmetics to the correct character (as before, when introducing another character, all cosmetics would be applied to the host). Here's a lovely little picture taken by DeRose once he figured this out (featuring Posh Bee with Welsh Dragon teeth)!

Please note that this definitely isn't confirming online multiplayer! This is only one step in the direction of future-proofing the game while keeping the framework clean and stable.

Cpt. Stuffy Progress!

Of course, with a new month comes a new page of Cpt. Stuffy. Here's a sneak peek into the progress made towards December's issue:

Additionally, Billy and George have written four new pages, meaning we now have Cpt. Stuffy pages written until February 2023! We're really looking forward to the story building momentum soon.

2022 Development Roadmap

We've been attempting to put together a new Restitched Public Roadmap for 2022! It's bound to be jam-packed with content, and we can't wait to share our future plans on that soon.

New Team Members

We recently brought on new team members to help us build Restitched and Cpt. Stuffy, and we're super excited to see what they bring to the team! These new additions include:

• Michael (programmer)
• Steven (programmer)
• Cade (3D artist)
• George (writer)

...and that's it for November!

Thank you for reading the very first Restitched: Recapped! What did you think? Would you like to see more? As this is the first feature of this kind, any feedback would be much appreciated! Thank you so much, see you next time!