Cavefish – Dev Diary 4

The last couple of weeks have been surprisingly productive for Cavefish with plenty of new features introduced. Let’s go over these changes!

Cavefish Development news

• Revamped Roadmap
  This helps me keep track of what is in development, finished, and what’s to come, as well as keep track of time and overall development. Laid out plans for the next couple of months.
  Will also help me write these diary posts and save time when doing them! Sorry that I can’t share the whole thing …and I can’t reveal why!

• Detailed RTTY Mechanics and implementation
  RTTY stands for Radioteletype and it is a radio receiver/printer (similar to a fax machine). I often refer to this as the ability to send/receive documents via radio. These mechanics have been detailed so I have a roadmap on how to implement them. I’ve also added the RTTY machine to the game, but interacting with it was delayed until other features were added first. I streamed this LIVE on Twitch at twitch.tv/starchildstudios.

• Calendar implementation
  This is the big development for this cycle. A system was added where the game recognizes transmissions and documents and places them in the game world when they are supposed to be there.
  For instance, if a radio transmission is expected between two towns at 10h tomorrow, the game recognizes this event and it spawns this transmission between both towns at that time. If the player is near this area by that time, he will be able to listen to the transmission if he finds the correct frequency.

• Document Spawning
  Major code changes to allow for documents to spawn at the right time in the right place. For instance, if you’re supposed to receive a letter by tomorrow at 10h, it will only show up in the RV’s mailbox at that time.

• Increased map detail and performance improvements
  Doubled the number of roads and towns, which allows for more immersive gameplay where route choices do have an impact.
  Traveling on the map view was causing some performance issues because it relies heavily on pathnodes for pathfinding and it scans them regularly. There were too many pathnodes and too many scans. Limited the number of scans and only enabled pathnodes near the vehicle. This made map frames per second go from just 15 to 145. Still need to add more pathnodes – only 1/4 of the map is ready, but this new system should guarantee solid FPS performance.

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• New exterior backgrounds and art style
  New exterior backgrounds. Not fully happy with the outcome, but some new assets are now available for future use and function as placeholder. New shader for trees that highlights them as light sources move around them.
  Studied a new graphic design approach and image filters for moods/poison/drunkenness visual effects, which turned out to be easy, effective and they provide decent performance.
  New pixel art approaches to make the graphic style a bit more interesting. Not yet ready to reveal. Would love to get some help from a pro pixel artist!

• Adjusted Transmission noise effects
  Maths, maths everywhere! Spent quite a bit of time figuring out a formula to improve the way radio noise works between transmissions, allowing them to shine through at the right frequency and become riddled with believable noise when not tuned correctly. Results are promising, need to check with more transmissions and how signals overlap.

• Sleep Mechanics
  The player is now able to go to sleep and time will move faster while sleeping. Implementation was quick and everything seems to be working just fine so I’ll take the day off and get some sleep myself!

• New sprites!
  I’ve been streaming graphic development at twitch.tv/starchildstudios. Go drop a follow and watch me draw and code live!

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…What’s next on the menu?

Sending documents via RTTY will be next.
This was the feature that was delayed for over two weeks, as it demanded all other systems to be implemented first. Things like the sleep mechanics were put in place to help test this feature, as documents and transmissions take some time to show up in the game. This might be delayed again, however, as the sender/receiver for these transmissions must be implemented first and that might take some time to develop properly. It’s mostly a reputation system that still needs to be detailed so that the player’s ability to file correct reports is recognized by the system and rewarded.

Planning to draw more pixel art in my spare time, as I need to improve the look of the game. The assets, are also useful for exterior shots. I will stream them live regularly at twitch.tv/starchildstudios.
Oh, and be the first to join me on Cavefish’s new Discord!

I’ve been watching “What we do in the shadows” spinoff “Wellington Paranormal”, it’s really fun!
Also been playing Valheim (like half of the people on earth have!) and I just started Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla.
So watch out as I’m in a Viking mood now.

Let’s berserk this code! WAAAAGH!
-Rui