This week we updated the game with various improvements including the new WIP grapple system in Release 152. We also released a Testing version to Steam that supports download bandwidth limiting in Testing 32. The download bandwidth is displayed in the debugging info and can be limited in the main game options. The aim of this Testing update was to rate limit the chunk downloading to try and help with lag issues experienced by some players. There are more details about our work to improve the latency issues in this devlog.



In the next release we plan to:

• Update the grapple system with more improvements including replacing the debug line with a proper VFX.
  
• Release improved portal / warp transition for slower computers.
  
• Release a HUD update for Game, Combat and Chat logs.
  
• Make visual improvements on the Compass and add more features.
  
• Add support for Location Markers.
  
• Release the remaining Machine animation when active.
  
• Release Warping within the same world! So now you can Warp home if you're lost. Yeah!

Beyond these items we're working on: skinning the GUI, improved progression, improved creature combat, creature AI and creature animation.

In preparation for a Boundless 1.0 release we have published a more detailed set of Recommended and Minimum specs for Boundless. Boundless requires a decent GPU and Internet connection.

Code
We added the HUD log system and an update will be in the next version, with it available on the Testing branch.

The Grapple Hook polish continues, working on the controls and visual effects.

We fixed some more Portal transitions issues that caused some judder when entering the new world. The intra-planetary Warp work continues. This will lead into completing the Portals for players to create in game.

Additionally work has been done on creating creatures of different power levels, rather than the basic five tiers.

Quite a bit of time has been spent on server stability issues and updates. We continue to work on the network issues, adding an option to throttle data download and further updates of backend tech. We’ve also worked more on the bot testing system.

Design
This week Luke has been doing more work on the objectives system, making it a more key system for progression. He has also made a nice looking email template for us to use to send to backers. Initially we are aiming to send an email to everyone who owns the game, to invite people who haven’t played for a while to come back and give it another go. He has also been taking footage from the game, with the idea of making a short gameplay video to use to promote the game.

Rob has been mainly focussed on designing the details of the Guild system UX and UI. It’s a complex system allowing different factions to be set-up to divide guild roles and permissions.

Ollie has been supporting Rob in his work on Guilds as well as continuing to plan the upcoming work on the project. In between times he’s also been working with Fooksy setting up data for the creatures so that they can generate all the variations.

Art
This week the art team has been busy working on VFX, decals, creatures and machines.

Concept/VFX - Amanda has been defining the visual treatment of elemental effects.

Decals - Jess has created new decals for ore seams so they are easier to recognise. These were released this week and hope they improve your experience.


Coal Seams


Ore Seams

Creatures - Jess has also been working on creature models and completed the Hunter Tier 1 and Spitter Tier 1:









Animation - Gerry has been animating the Hunter as seen in the latest trailer.

Machines - Jim has (finally!) completed the machine animations for the Compactor, Extractor, Refinery, Workbench and Mixer. They will be available in next week’s release.

Noise
The original sound track for Boundless is nearly complete. Peter is recording some final pieces before vanishing into the mixing room.


Cross posted from devlog forum which can be found here

This week we updated the game with various improvements including the new WIP grapple system in Release 152. We also released a Testing version to Steam that supports download bandwidth limiting in Testing 32. The download bandwidth is displayed in the debugging info and can be limited in the main game options. The aim of this Testing update was to rate limit the chunk downloading to try and help with lag issues experienced by some players. There are more details about our work to improve the latency issues in this devlog.



In the next release we plan to:

• Update the grapple system with more improvements including replacing the debug line with a proper VFX.
  
• Release improved portal / warp transition for slower computers.
  
• Release a HUD update for Game, Combat and Chat logs.
  
• Make visual improvements on the Compass and add more features.
  
• Add support for Location Markers.
  
• Release the remaining Machine animation when active.
  
• Release Warping within the same world! So now you can Warp home if you're lost. Yeah!

Beyond these items we're working on: skinning the GUI, improved progression, improved creature combat, creature AI and creature animation.

In preparation for a Boundless 1.0 release we have published a more detailed set of Recommended and Minimum specs for Boundless. Boundless requires a decent GPU and Internet connection.

Code
We added the HUD log system and an update will be in the next version, with it available on the Testing branch.

The Grapple Hook polish continues, working on the controls and visual effects.

We fixed some more Portal transitions issues that caused some judder when entering the new world. The intra-planetary Warp work continues. This will lead into completing the Portals for players to create in game.

Additionally work has been done on creating creatures of different power levels, rather than the basic five tiers.

Quite a bit of time has been spent on server stability issues and updates. We continue to work on the network issues, adding an option to throttle data download and further updates of backend tech. We’ve also worked more on the bot testing system.

Design
This week Luke has been doing more work on the objectives system, making it a more key system for progression. He has also made a nice looking email template for us to use to send to backers. Initially we are aiming to send an email to everyone who owns the game, to invite people who haven’t played for a while to come back and give it another go. He has also been taking footage from the game, with the idea of making a short gameplay video to use to promote the game.

Rob has been mainly focussed on designing the details of the Guild system UX and UI. It’s a complex system allowing different factions to be set-up to divide guild roles and permissions.

Ollie has been supporting Rob in his work on Guilds as well as continuing to plan the upcoming work on the project. In between times he’s also been working with Fooksy setting up data for the creatures so that they can generate all the variations.

Art
This week the art team has been busy working on VFX, decals, creatures and machines.

Concept/VFX - Amanda has been defining the visual treatment of elemental effects.

Decals - Jess has created new decals for ore seams so they are easier to recognise. These were released this week and hope they improve your experience.


Coal Seams


Ore Seams

Creatures - Jess has also been working on creature models and completed the Hunter Tier 1 and Spitter Tier 1:









Animation - Gerry has been animating the Hunter as seen in the latest trailer.

Machines - Jim has (finally!) completed the machine animations for the Compactor, Extractor, Refinery, Workbench and Mixer. They will be available in next week’s release.

Noise
The original sound track for Boundless is nearly complete. Peter is recording some final pieces before vanishing into the mixing room.


Cross posted from devlog forum which can be found here

This update is accessible via the "Live" release of Boundless on Steam.

Please report all issues discovered with the update to this support thread.

Please restart Steam to make sure you get the latest version of Boundless. If the update happens whilst Steam is open it's unlikely you'll get the latest version.

Overview:

Minor update to introduce changes to the chisel, spanners and dual grapples.



Release Notes:

• Art + Animation + Assets:
  
  • Metal ore seams now have new unique textures to aid recognition.
• Crafting + Resources + Equipment:
  
  • Fix players being able to rotate blocks in other players' beacons.
    
  • Spanners have new models in line with the design of other tools and weapons.
    
  • The chisel tool can now rotate prop blocks (crafting table, crucible, machines, storage, shelves and plinths).
    
  • WIP (work in progress) dual handed grapple update.
• GUI + HUD:
  
  • Fixing bug on smart stacking items.
• SFX + Music:
  
  • New sound effects for:
    
    • light cube shake.
      
    • totem pick location.
      
    • add and remove beacon plots.
• Server:
  
  • Added more debugging tools for server crashes.
• Grapple system updated.
  
  • Grapple hooks detach when released and fired as a projectile (so there's no longer an instant hit!). The grapple does not become active until the hook has embedded into a target point, creature, or player.
    
  • Grapple connector rope rendered as a debug line, with a proper connector visualisation to follow.
    
  • Character animation updated to handle grapples in either hand. Some glitching occurs while grappling, but this will be fixed shortly.
    
  • MISSING: Grappling controls are due to be reworked.

Cross posted from devlog forum which can be found here

This update is accessible via the "Live" release of Boundless on Steam.

Please report all issues discovered with the update to this support thread.

Please restart Steam to make sure you get the latest version of Boundless. If the update happens whilst Steam is open it's unlikely you'll get the latest version.

Overview:

Minor update to introduce changes to the chisel, spanners and dual grapples.



Release Notes:

• Art + Animation + Assets:
  
  • Metal ore seams now have new unique textures to aid recognition.
• Crafting + Resources + Equipment:
  
  • Fix players being able to rotate blocks in other players' beacons.
    
  • Spanners have new models in line with the design of other tools and weapons.
    
  • The chisel tool can now rotate prop blocks (crafting table, crucible, machines, storage, shelves and plinths).
    
  • WIP (work in progress) dual handed grapple update.
• GUI + HUD:
  
  • Fixing bug on smart stacking items.
• SFX + Music:
  
  • New sound effects for:
    
    • light cube shake.
      
    • totem pick location.
      
    • add and remove beacon plots.
• Server:
  
  • Added more debugging tools for server crashes.
• Grapple system updated.
  
  • Grapple hooks detach when released and fired as a projectile (so there's no longer an instant hit!). The grapple does not become active until the hook has embedded into a target point, creature, or player.
    
  • Grapple connector rope rendered as a debug line, with a proper connector visualisation to follow.
    
  • Character animation updated to handle grapples in either hand. Some glitching occurs while grappling, but this will be fixed shortly.
    
  • MISSING: Grappling controls are due to be reworked.

Cross posted from devlog forum which can be found here

This week we updated the Live release in Steam with the contents from Testing 30 as Release 151. The major change in these updates is a refactoring of the Smart Stacking system to improve the stability on the server and clients. Thank you to the players who took the time to send us bug reports. There are still a few outstanding issues which we will resolve this coming week.

Next week, we are targeting to release the following:

• Updated Grapple hook system including new 3rd person animations
  
• Improved Game, Combat and Chart logs in the HUD.
  
• Rotate Machines and Storage to change the direction they face using a chisel.

As stated in last week’s Weekly Dev Update there are many improvements and new features we're working on in parallel and coming this month.

We've also done a round of PS4 and PC consistency testing to make sure there is feature parity. Currently all the features in the PC version are working in the PS4 version at Boundless HQ.

Code
This week we’ve continued to work on issues users have been experiencing, especially around Inventory and Smart Stacks. Two updates were released containing these fixes.

We continue to look into the network lag issues, running some experiments and updating the network libraries that we use to their latest versions. Details of our progress have been shared in this post - please track this if you experience significant latency.

We've also been working on the following:

• The Grapple Hook works now as much of the functionally and animations in with some work remaining on controls and the effects.
  
• Some additional sound effects have been added for beacon plots and the light cube.
  
• The HUD work has added more to the combat logs.
  
• The chisel is now super powered with the ability to rotate any orientable mesh blocks.
  
• The intra-planet warps refactoring is underway. This will allow Warps and Portals to work within the same world.
  
• Engine side we’ve been working on some loaded testing with bots to help stress test the servers.

Design
This week has been quite bitty as we’re working on improving stability, choosing the direction for the next major release, and understanding how best we can get more people to know about Boundless.

Ollie has been planning and documenting the next steps for the project, as well as supporting Rob in his UX work. He’s also been supporting work on creature generation, the stats system and the grapple.

Rob has been working on the UX and GUI design for Portals and Warps, Friends, and Locations and Worlds.

Luke has continued his work on the Steam store page and publicising the game generally. This includes looking at other games and how they represent themselves on Steam. As part of that he’s been writing a feature list to better communicate what features we have now, and what we intend to implement in the future. With his remaining time he’s been continuing with work on the stats system.

Art + Animation
This week the art team has been busy working on items, creatures and the grapple.

• Items - we have a new ingot asset for metal alloys. This should be available in the latest release.

• Creatures - Amanda has been looking at how we will convert the giant worm to 3D. Below is a sheet with construction details:

• Creatures - Jess is modelling the Hunter and done a first pass on the hunter trails. This is still WIP and it takes time to get things looking really slick:

• Grapple - Here’s Dom’s WIP VFX for the grapple line:

Gerry has been working on an improved grapple animation set which is a big improvement to what we had previously. These anims together with the new grapple functionality should be available soon.

Cross posted from devlog forum which can be found here

This week we updated the Live release in Steam with the contents from Testing 30 as Release 151. The major change in these updates is a refactoring of the Smart Stacking system to improve the stability on the server and clients. Thank you to the players who took the time to send us bug reports. There are still a few outstanding issues which we will resolve this coming week.

Next week, we are targeting to release the following:

• Updated Grapple hook system including new 3rd person animations
  
• Improved Game, Combat and Chart logs in the HUD.
  
• Rotate Machines and Storage to change the direction they face using a chisel.

As stated in last week’s Weekly Dev Update there are many improvements and new features we're working on in parallel and coming this month.

We've also done a round of PS4 and PC consistency testing to make sure there is feature parity. Currently all the features in the PC version are working in the PS4 version at Boundless HQ.

Code
This week we’ve continued to work on issues users have been experiencing, especially around Inventory and Smart Stacks. Two updates were released containing these fixes.

We continue to look into the network lag issues, running some experiments and updating the network libraries that we use to their latest versions. Details of our progress have been shared in this post - please track this if you experience significant latency.

We've also been working on the following:

• The Grapple Hook works now as much of the functionally and animations in with some work remaining on controls and the effects.
  
• Some additional sound effects have been added for beacon plots and the light cube.
  
• The HUD work has added more to the combat logs.
  
• The chisel is now super powered with the ability to rotate any orientable mesh blocks.
  
• The intra-planet warps refactoring is underway. This will allow Warps and Portals to work within the same world.
  
• Engine side we’ve been working on some loaded testing with bots to help stress test the servers.

Design
This week has been quite bitty as we’re working on improving stability, choosing the direction for the next major release, and understanding how best we can get more people to know about Boundless.

Ollie has been planning and documenting the next steps for the project, as well as supporting Rob in his UX work. He’s also been supporting work on creature generation, the stats system and the grapple.

Rob has been working on the UX and GUI design for Portals and Warps, Friends, and Locations and Worlds.

Luke has continued his work on the Steam store page and publicising the game generally. This includes looking at other games and how they represent themselves on Steam. As part of that he’s been writing a feature list to better communicate what features we have now, and what we intend to implement in the future. With his remaining time he’s been continuing with work on the stats system.

Art + Animation
This week the art team has been busy working on items, creatures and the grapple.

• Items - we have a new ingot asset for metal alloys. This should be available in the latest release.

• Creatures - Amanda has been looking at how we will convert the giant worm to 3D. Below is a sheet with construction details:

• Creatures - Jess is modelling the Hunter and done a first pass on the hunter trails. This is still WIP and it takes time to get things looking really slick:

• Grapple - Here’s Dom’s WIP VFX for the grapple line:

Gerry has been working on an improved grapple animation set which is a big improvement to what we had previously. These anims together with the new grapple functionality should be available soon.

Cross posted from devlog forum which can be found here

This update is accessible via the "Live" release of Boundless on Steam.

Please report all issues discovered with the update to this support thread.

Please restart Steam to make sure you get the latest version of Boundless. If the update happens whilst Steam is open it's unlikely you'll get the latest version.

Overview:

This Live release contains the features from Testing 30 and some additional fixes.

The most significant update is a refactored Smart Stacking system. Hopefully this will be much more solid and greatly reduce the number of client and server crashes.



Important:

If you experience any ongoing networking or latency issues then please track this thread. We're continuing to investigate and work on resolutions to the issue.

Release Notes:

• Art + Animation + Assets:
  
  • Added machine animations for workbench, workbench rotator, workbench input, refinery rotator, extractor rotator and extractor input.
    
  • Fixed black plants on some worlds.
    
  • Fixed ink, fibre and cloth not inheriting colours from ingredients.
    
  • Fixed some prop blocks appearing inside the floor when placed on a slope.
    
  • Locks no longer flip upside-down at a distance.
    
  • Metal alloys created by crafting now have an asset instead of a placeholder cube.
• Creatures + Combat:
  
  • Arrows and tools no longer hit dead creatures.
    
  • Fixed a bug where chasing wildstock can't climb up 1 high blocks.
    
  • Fixed server crash when a cuttletrunk follows a target for a long time.
    
  • Point planets now displayed as stars.
• GUI + HUD:
  
  • Added combat log first state.
    
  • Fixed an issue where it was possible to select planets through solid geometry including distant mountains.
    
  • Inventory tooltips now give a preview of what action will occur between the held item and the hovered item.
    
  • Refactored inventory API and Smart Stacking code to make it less fragile for fixes and additions.
    
  • Support for using Smart Stacks in plinths, machines and furnaces.

Resolved Known Issues:

The following items were known issues in previous releases and have now been resolved.

• Buying plinth not displaying items on top.
  
• Cannot smart stack walls.
  
• Some of the items were not positioned in the hand correctly when the players are seen in 3rd person view.
  
• Some of the items displayed in the inventory screen were not positioned correctly.

Known Issues:

The following items are known issues in this release.

• Shift-clicking an item from the selling plinth will show odd numbers and will not always go in the shopping basket.
  
• Shift-clicking and dragging on the coin icons from within the trading menus may cause a crash.
  
• Some interactive blocks (crafting table, machine, beacon control) have become corrupted during the migration. This will result in at best those blocks not being able to be interacted with, at worst the game crashing when interacting with those blocks. To fix the issue the block(s) in question need to be re-placed. In the case of anything other than a beacon control the block can simply be broken, picked up, and then re-placed. In the case of a beacon control this will work, although it would result in all the plots having to be re-placed one at a time and during that process the contents being unprotected. A better workaround for a beacon control is to craft a new beacon control, place that, and then break the old one, which will keep the beacon's plots placed throughout the process.
  
• The recipes are not final.
  
• Z-fighting with some items (workbench and other machines) when placed underwater.

Cross posted from devlog forum which can be found here

This update is accessible via the "Live" release of Boundless on Steam.

Please report all issues discovered with the update to this support thread.

Please restart Steam to make sure you get the latest version of Boundless. If the update happens whilst Steam is open it's unlikely you'll get the latest version.

Overview:

This Live release contains the features from Testing 30 and some additional fixes.

The most significant update is a refactored Smart Stacking system. Hopefully this will be much more solid and greatly reduce the number of client and server crashes.



Important:

If you experience any ongoing networking or latency issues then please track this thread. We're continuing to investigate and work on resolutions to the issue.

Release Notes:

• Art + Animation + Assets:
  
  • Added machine animations for workbench, workbench rotator, workbench input, refinery rotator, extractor rotator and extractor input.
    
  • Fixed black plants on some worlds.
    
  • Fixed ink, fibre and cloth not inheriting colours from ingredients.
    
  • Fixed some prop blocks appearing inside the floor when placed on a slope.
    
  • Locks no longer flip upside-down at a distance.
    
  • Metal alloys created by crafting now have an asset instead of a placeholder cube.
• Creatures + Combat:
  
  • Arrows and tools no longer hit dead creatures.
    
  • Fixed a bug where chasing wildstock can't climb up 1 high blocks.
    
  • Fixed server crash when a cuttletrunk follows a target for a long time.
    
  • Point planets now displayed as stars.
• GUI + HUD:
  
  • Added combat log first state.
    
  • Fixed an issue where it was possible to select planets through solid geometry including distant mountains.
    
  • Inventory tooltips now give a preview of what action will occur between the held item and the hovered item.
    
  • Refactored inventory API and Smart Stacking code to make it less fragile for fixes and additions.
    
  • Support for using Smart Stacks in plinths, machines and furnaces.

Resolved Known Issues:

The following items were known issues in previous releases and have now been resolved.

• Buying plinth not displaying items on top.
  
• Cannot smart stack walls.
  
• Some of the items were not positioned in the hand correctly when the players are seen in 3rd person view.
  
• Some of the items displayed in the inventory screen were not positioned correctly.

Known Issues:

The following items are known issues in this release.

• Shift-clicking an item from the selling plinth will show odd numbers and will not always go in the shopping basket.
  
• Shift-clicking and dragging on the coin icons from within the trading menus may cause a crash.
  
• Some interactive blocks (crafting table, machine, beacon control) have become corrupted during the migration. This will result in at best those blocks not being able to be interacted with, at worst the game crashing when interacting with those blocks. To fix the issue the block(s) in question need to be re-placed. In the case of anything other than a beacon control the block can simply be broken, picked up, and then re-placed. In the case of a beacon control this will work, although it would result in all the plots having to be re-placed one at a time and during that process the contents being unprotected. A better workaround for a beacon control is to craft a new beacon control, place that, and then break the old one, which will keep the beacon's plots placed throughout the process.
  
• The recipes are not final.
  
• Z-fighting with some items (workbench and other machines) when placed underwater.

Cross posted from devlog forum which can be found here

Happy Perihelion everyone!!

And welcome to the first Weekly Dev Update of 2017. This will be the year that Boundless hits 1.0. Thank you to everyone who has supported the game so far, and we're excited to see how the game and community can grow this year.



This week, we have been busy fixing issues reported over the Christmas and New Year break. We have updated the game twice with 150 and 150.1, addressing some critical issues. We are also looking into the lag issue that is making the game unplayable at times for some players. We have also released Testing 30 that mainly contains a refactoring of the Smart Stacking system. Assuming this doesn't devour everyone's inventories it will be deployed to Live next week.

Here is a list of work we are looking into completing or starting this month:

• HUD + GUI:
  
  • Release overhauled Smart Stacking + Inventory system to address the numerous smart stacking issues.
    
  • Complete the HUD visual overhaul (improved compass, improve chat, add combat log, ...)
    
  • Start reskinning all the other GUI such as storage and crafting GUI to match the HUD design.
    
  • Finalise the GUI design for the Character Select, Player Info, Guild Control, etc.
• Assets:
  
  • Complete Machine animation.
    
  • Implement the updated Grapple + Hookshot to function properly.
    
  • Create more decorative and functional props.
    
  • Integrate all outstanding SFXs into the game.
• Creatures:
  
  • Add more animations for the Hopper and improve the Hopper AI
    
  • More sophisticated creature generation and spawning. Adding support for the creature tints, decals and elementals.
    
  • Complete more Hunter variant meshes.
    
  • Release the Roadrunner into the wild.
    
  • Complete a total of 15 creatures concepts sheets.
• Engine:
  
  • Finalise, migrate and deploy the Servers to a local database system for all world data and entities to make them more efficiency.
    
  • Implement an initial caching system for World Chunks to greatly reduce bandwidth when restarting the game.
    
  • Add support for Warping within a world.
    
  • Complete and release user crafted Portals.
• Make improvements to the Player Stats + Attributes system.
  
• Invite Trailblazers to play Boundless in Early Access.

We will also be addressing issues and ideas contributed to the “Planning for 2017 - Contribute your ideas!” Thank you to everyone who took the time to contribute.

Code
This week we have been investigating and fixing up bugs that have shown up in the latest versions and pushed out two updates to address some of the issues. We continue to look at the remaining issues including the rubber banding and slow network messages some people experience.

The grapple hook is being worked on to add the full behaviour, animation and fx. We have hooked in additional animations for machines when they are active.

The HUD has a new combat log on the right for damage related messages. We’ve been doing the last of the changes before the smart stacking and inventory rework in merged in.

Additionally we are working to get the database update integrated into the main line.

Design
This week has been about recovering from the long and strenuous Christmas break where too much was eaten, and too much was drunk. Now we’re all back in the office we can relax into the comfortable rhythms of work.

Luke has been focused on two areas: the stats system, and our Steam store page.

• The stats system is a core foundation of many of the RPG elements of the game (combat, progression, creatures etc). We’re preparing for implementation of this system, which will enable us to build all the brilliant gameplay on top of it. At this stage it’s less about the exact details of the gameplay, and more about the constraints of the system.
  
• Our Steam store page is currently pretty sparse and is covered in caveats because we didn’t want people to buy the game unless they were fully prepared for its early state. As more gameplay is added to Boundless, we want to start to push the game more and raise the number of people playing. Updating our Steam store page is one part of that.

Rob has been writing up a very comprehensive spec for the final iteration of the inventory system which covers any functionality around moving items between slots in the game, which is most of the GUI. We’re now ready to implement this, although it’s a fair amount of work to get it all done.

Ollie has been wrapping up a few bits and pieces of design, as well as helping to plan the next few weeks of work. The design areas touched on are: the grapple, the creature generation system, portals and warps, and impact VFX.

Art
The art team has been a bit light this week with people coming back in dribs and drabs from the festive season.
We’re all refreshed though after the break and have made progress in these areas that you can see in the next release.

Pipes of power - Jess has put the final pipe junction asset in place and added an emissive pulsing animation shader to the pipes.





Juice! - Jess has also made some transparency fixes to the liquid bottle assets.





We’ve also added several machine animations for the workbench, refinery and extractor that will be available in the next release. We’ll be completing the full set of animations over the next few weeks.

Animation (Gerry) and VFX (Dom) are supporting grapple functionality development.

Cross posted from devlog forum which can be found here

Happy Perihelion everyone!!

And welcome to the first Weekly Dev Update of 2017. This will be the year that Boundless hits 1.0. Thank you to everyone who has supported the game so far, and we're excited to see how the game and community can grow this year.



This week, we have been busy fixing issues reported over the Christmas and New Year break. We have updated the game twice with 150 and 150.1, addressing some critical issues. We are also looking into the lag issue that is making the game unplayable at times for some players. We have also released Testing 30 that mainly contains a refactoring of the Smart Stacking system. Assuming this doesn't devour everyone's inventories it will be deployed to Live next week.

Here is a list of work we are looking into completing or starting this month:

• HUD + GUI:
  
  • Release overhauled Smart Stacking + Inventory system to address the numerous smart stacking issues.
    
  • Complete the HUD visual overhaul (improved compass, improve chat, add combat log, ...)
    
  • Start reskinning all the other GUI such as storage and crafting GUI to match the HUD design.
    
  • Finalise the GUI design for the Character Select, Player Info, Guild Control, etc.
• Assets:
  
  • Complete Machine animation.
    
  • Implement the updated Grapple + Hookshot to function properly.
    
  • Create more decorative and functional props.
    
  • Integrate all outstanding SFXs into the game.
• Creatures:
  
  • Add more animations for the Hopper and improve the Hopper AI
    
  • More sophisticated creature generation and spawning. Adding support for the creature tints, decals and elementals.
    
  • Complete more Hunter variant meshes.
    
  • Release the Roadrunner into the wild.
    
  • Complete a total of 15 creatures concepts sheets.
• Engine:
  
  • Finalise, migrate and deploy the Servers to a local database system for all world data and entities to make them more efficiency.
    
  • Implement an initial caching system for World Chunks to greatly reduce bandwidth when restarting the game.
    
  • Add support for Warping within a world.
    
  • Complete and release user crafted Portals.
• Make improvements to the Player Stats + Attributes system.
  
• Invite Trailblazers to play Boundless in Early Access.

We will also be addressing issues and ideas contributed to the “Planning for 2017 - Contribute your ideas!” Thank you to everyone who took the time to contribute.

Code
This week we have been investigating and fixing up bugs that have shown up in the latest versions and pushed out two updates to address some of the issues. We continue to look at the remaining issues including the rubber banding and slow network messages some people experience.

The grapple hook is being worked on to add the full behaviour, animation and fx. We have hooked in additional animations for machines when they are active.

The HUD has a new combat log on the right for damage related messages. We’ve been doing the last of the changes before the smart stacking and inventory rework in merged in.

Additionally we are working to get the database update integrated into the main line.

Design
This week has been about recovering from the long and strenuous Christmas break where too much was eaten, and too much was drunk. Now we’re all back in the office we can relax into the comfortable rhythms of work.

Luke has been focused on two areas: the stats system, and our Steam store page.

• The stats system is a core foundation of many of the RPG elements of the game (combat, progression, creatures etc). We’re preparing for implementation of this system, which will enable us to build all the brilliant gameplay on top of it. At this stage it’s less about the exact details of the gameplay, and more about the constraints of the system.
  
• Our Steam store page is currently pretty sparse and is covered in caveats because we didn’t want people to buy the game unless they were fully prepared for its early state. As more gameplay is added to Boundless, we want to start to push the game more and raise the number of people playing. Updating our Steam store page is one part of that.

Rob has been writing up a very comprehensive spec for the final iteration of the inventory system which covers any functionality around moving items between slots in the game, which is most of the GUI. We’re now ready to implement this, although it’s a fair amount of work to get it all done.

Ollie has been wrapping up a few bits and pieces of design, as well as helping to plan the next few weeks of work. The design areas touched on are: the grapple, the creature generation system, portals and warps, and impact VFX.

Art
The art team has been a bit light this week with people coming back in dribs and drabs from the festive season.
We’re all refreshed though after the break and have made progress in these areas that you can see in the next release.

Pipes of power - Jess has put the final pipe junction asset in place and added an emissive pulsing animation shader to the pipes.





Juice! - Jess has also made some transparency fixes to the liquid bottle assets.





We’ve also added several machine animations for the workbench, refinery and extractor that will be available in the next release. We’ll be completing the full set of animations over the next few weeks.

Animation (Gerry) and VFX (Dom) are supporting grapple functionality development.

Cross posted from devlog forum which can be found here