Hey guys, here’s another dev diary for my upcoming game Cavefish.
This week I’ve been focusing a bit more on integrating interaction elements together and polishing the first few days of the calendar that I mentioned in Cavefish Dev Diary 1. Mostly being able to move documents between places and animating transitions. I feel like there’s a ton of tiny things that were accomplished in this dev cycle, but not worth detailing, so I’ll keep it short.
New radio stations and inter-frequency noise
I’ve also added new radio stations and perfected sound transitions from noise to broadcast. I reckon there’s more work to be done here. I’m partly adjusting pitch, when in fact I should be doing low and high-frequency gating. I felt that this required a bit more Unity R&D before going forward, but I decided to invest my time in other parts of the game before coming back to perfect this feature. I had to iterate a lot on this concept because I wanted to get a more progressive and believable noise effect between transmissions. Still a WIP.
Mailbox and animations
I’ve added a new place where documents can be stored – the mailbox! From time to time, you will receive documents via the RV’s mailbox. This was critical for the first few days of the game, since you’ll pretty much receive your tutorial via mail. This also led me to work on animations because from time to time you’ll receive letters inside of envelopes that need to be opened before read. The mailbox is also animated and plays a metal squeaking sound when opened.
I’ve also added a “flip” mechanic to be able to see the backside of any document. This feature still needs refining, because the buttons on the side aren’t matching with the document when it changes size or orientation. I’m having some trouble moving documents from the mailbox to the desk because the current code “wants” to grab and drag, instead of picking and placing them on the desk. It works, but it is buggy as hell. WIP.
Number Stations
Much of the game’s core mechanics revolve around listening to spies and getting useful information to your Intelligence headquarters. To make things interesting, I’ve decided to focus a bit on Number Stations. These are transmissions that use artificial or pre-recorded voices to send a sequence of number messages to agents on the field. Number Stations are still being used to this day by governments and spies all over the world. As far as we know these are pretty much impossible to crack and allow spies and agencies to communicate secretly in public. Anyone can listen to number stations, but only the agent that knows how to interpret those numbers is able to get any valuable information from them. In order for an agent to get valuable info or instructions from a number station, they use a “One-Time-Pad” – a page filled with numbers that is discarded once it is used.
I decided to add these to the game, but for gameplay sake, and because this can be a lengthy (and mathematical) process to decode, I opted to make a simplified version of this feature that still keeps the core idea intact and makes for a more enjoyable and faster gamepace.
I’ve been thinking of adding an addendum to the game that describes most of the technologies and agents that I’ve studied and based my game upon. The risks taken by these agents on the field are well worth honoring.
To make things easier, the player’s Intelligence Agency will be dropping these One-Time-Pads in the mail from time to time. They’re disguised as pocket calendars and they’re edible in case you get caught. Problem is, they’re also poisonous. Just in case.
Day/Night Cycle
Talking about days, I’ve also added a day/night cycle. Time won’t stop in the game, and transmissions will happen at any time of day and so, representing time and space is critical. This feature connects with the in-game clock to simulate outside day/night conditions. This will be visible inside the RV as the sun comes through the windows.
You’ll see the sun and the moon rise and fall at the start and end of each day. It will also serve as a stepping stone (not yet implemented) for having different landscape backgrounds (like lakes, mountains, etc.) that change according to your location on the map. Sleeping mechanics will be implemented in the next cycle, and will be very important, since we need to sleep/wake up at the correct time to listen to specific transmissions. Also added the shadow of a person moving past the window – to be triggered when people come to “visit” the player.
Transmission over
I think that’s mostly it. If you’re a talented pixel artist let me know!
I still haven’t decided when is the ideal time to start publicizing the game, but by adding all these gameplay mechanics, it is finally starting to feel like one!
I’m just a few steps from implementing the first few missions – that’s what keeps me really excited about the next dev cycle.
I’ve been listening to Soviet marches and afraid of what Youtube might think of my searches.
Stay tuned (literally)!
Rui S.