Biweekly Update - 9-17-2023 (Blaster design update + energy glow, experimenting with Godot and 3D) (Patreon)

Hey everyone! So this is a bit of an odd update to write; to be upfront about it, while I did get some CPE work in, I didn't work on Crisis Point very much these past few weeks, but I HAVE actually been quite productive!

As many of you know, I plan on moving on from my current engine (GameMaker Studio) once Crisis Point is finished, because I'm not happy with the direction the engine has been going. I settled on using Godot a while ago, due to it being open source software (even more valuable considering the recent Unity news..) Up til now, I haven't really used it much, so these past few weeks I decided to start experimenting with Godot to get a feel for the engine. Unlike GMS, Godot specializes in both 2D and 3D games, with the recent launch of Godot 4 dramatically improving its 3D capabilities, so after learning the ropes on the 2D side of things, I decided to experiment with 3D for the first time.

I've been really nervous about moving into 3D game development, always seemed like the kind of thing I wasn't skilled enough to be able to do, but, well..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZB_LUfH-5I

(Posted as a YouTube link because Patreon doesn't support embedding videos mid-post)

I'm a huge fan of Xenoblade Chronicles (especially 1 and 3), and I decided it'd be a fun project to try and recreate that style of combat system while learning 3D at the same time, which is what you're seeing here! All the assets are placeholders I downloaded for testing purposes, of course, the programming side is what I've been working on. The point of all this is to say, even though I've only been working in Godot for a few weeks, I'm completely in love with this engine. 3D is certainly more difficult to work with than 2D, but it's nowhere near as intimidating as I expected it to be. I can't say for sure if our next project will be 2D or 3D yet, that's something we're still deciding, but I've always wanted to be able to make 3D games, so I'm excited to even be able to consider it at this point!

Anyway, sorry for going on about that for a while. I know it's not actual Crisis Point work, but it's something I'm REALLY excited about, and could have major implications for the future of our games! Moving on, though, the Crisis Point work I did get done this update involves Alicia's blaster. Like I've discussed in previous biweekly updates, we've been working on some improvements to her weaponry; we still haven't settled on any alternate gun designs for the Trigger types, so I don't have anything to show off there yet, but we did decide to do some alterations to Alicia's original blaster design, which you can see here:

Like I said in the last update, the color scheme of Alicia's blaster now changes based on the shot type - it's not shown in this gif, but the classic orange blaster is tied to the default shot type. In addition to the color scheme changing, we added a line of energy running through the center of the blaster. When Alicia shoots, the energy glows brightly for a few moments before fading away. It's a small touch, but the main motivation behind it was to add a third color to her blaster: the main body, the handle, and now the energy. While working on the recolors, I wasn't really happy with the designs I was coming up with. I was initially changing the body color to match the color of the bullet, but that made every design look very one-note. Then I tried matching the handle color to the bullet, but the handle is such a minor part of the color scheme that that didn't feel right either - and NOT using the bullet color in the designs also felt lacking, like the color scheme wasn't related to the shot type. Thus, the addition of a third accent color! It makes Alicia's blaster look more dynamic, and now I can match the energy color with the color of the bullet, and design the body and handle colors to compliment it, and I'm a lot happier with the results. More colors will also make creating the alternate blaster designs easier, so hopefully we'll be able to settle on some designs and show them off soon too.

One last thing before I go, I wanted to address the lack of streams lately. Streaming is still something I want to try and do regularly, but to be honest, in recent days I just kinda haven't been up for doing it - though it might be more accurate to say that I've been avoiding my office in general. I'm not entirely sure why, but I've been enjoying working off my laptop on the couch in my living room more than in my dedicated office space. My laptop is nowhere near strong enough to stream, though, hence the lack of dev streams in the past few weeks.

I can't really say when (or how often) we'll be streaming. As an ADHD person, I'm trying to accommodate my brain's odd little whims a bit more, instead of trying to force myself into a more "normal" work schedule. I figure as long as I'm getting work done, that's what really matters - I haven't done nearly as much CPE-specific work as I want to be doing, so I need to work on improving that, but with how much I've been struggling with being productive at all lately, I'm happy that I've been able to work on anything at all with some consistency. Now all that's left is to work on making more of that productivity CPE-related.

Alright, that's it from me today! We'll see you again in the next biweekly update - with more CPE work! Specifically, Orex finished all the cutscene animations I need for one of the new cutscenes we're adding, so I'll be working on that and some of the new blaster designs. I also came up with another idea for a new Trigger type, so I'll work on that too, and I should be able to show it off during the next update.

In any case, thank you all for reading! See you again in the next update!