Weekly Devlog - Pre-Alpha 2

Release Notes:

• Fixed web build - web build now exists, and has textures
• Loading screen is now a little bit more proactive, no more waiting for the things to load in the scene after the scene loads!
  • There are still a few resources that need to be added to the preload (such as the damage numbers resource and the on hit particle effects)
  • Web doesn't handle threading very well so the loading will be a little more janky there
• Drag-to-move camera: (a classic RTS camera is planned as a future)
• Ground scatter: 2 grass and 3 rock + a slider, yay!
• Skybox: I'll likely tweek this skybox a bit, but it cycles between day and night
• Hit particle effects, different based on damage type
• Bells and whistles for PC (and maybe also linux and mac) build. Also sliders/checkboxes for all of them
• Design pass on settings menu, still not final, but more room for settings
• [qol tweek] FOV slider for wide monitors
• [qol tweek] Remove enemy DOTs at end of combat; this is more of a feel tweek, it may be reverted depending on later state of the game
• [for me] abstract-ified weapons to make implementing more a bit easier

Known Bugs:

• Sometimes the game will start freezing for ~1s at a time every 1-2s. As far as I've been able to reproduce, this always happens at the start of a session (after loading main scene), and may have something to do with full-screening the application. It's a pain to debug as there are no error messages associated with it. The bulit-in profiler seems to attribute the extra processing time to something within the engine. For now this will remain unpatched in hopes that a future Godot version will fix it. If that doesn't happen in the next couple of months I'll dedicate some more time to finding a work around.

Next up:

Now that I've decided on a direction (see below) my focus for the current week (likely next week too) will be reworks to the current game loop. Target features for the next couple of weeks include: Merchant (buy menu rework), Wizard (upgrades rework), Buildings rework (including adding Farm), Goblin ears and the exchange rate, Leather, Ore, and Magic Dust.

Current Direction:

Going with direction 1 for a few reasons:

• Helps to keep scope restrained
• I realized using goblins (and the mutation mechanic I had planed) would likely require more sophisticated models. This would have been possible, but see the first point)
• Human weapons are already designed to feel powerful (beyond just numbers)

This keeps the focus on a relaxed experience that you kind of wind-up-and-go. Attention will need to be paid to make sure players get to make meaningful decisions with their somewhat limited interactions in this direction.

For more info on Direction 1, see https://steved.itch.io/goblin-camp-alpha-1/devlog/628265/direction-1-outpost-in-...