Now that we've spent some sprints building the Reach, GANYMEDE is where we begin adding flesh to the skeleton we’ve constructed. Art have continued their construction of ports, officers, locomotives and worked on improving the docking platforms. The content team outlined the next area of the High Wilderness: Albion. Tech have been busy implementing wrath, heat, armaments, shop mechanics and storylet UI.


Art

This sprint Tobias (formerly known as Toby here) began work on the Royal Society port! Backers managed to achieve all five portions of this port during the Kickstarter.



The once-moribund Royal Society of inventors, explorers, and scientists has received a generous grant from Her Enduring Majesty and a renewed mandate: to unravel the mysteries of the High Wilderness!

Both Paul and Tobias also finished up some of the officers. Below you can see the Incautious Driver as well as Sunless Skies’ version of an old favourite, the Blind Bruiser.



Art also spent some time redesigning the docking experience at ports, which Tobias implemented.



With this version, players can pull into the dock from either direction, however, the dock will expel players’ locomotives out of the dock in only a single direction. The artists were far too delighted envisioning being able to rev up the locomotive’s’ engine so that docks would actually shoot locomotives back into space. This has yet to be tested as a possibility.

Content

This sprint, the content team have developed a comprehensive story document for the game's second region: Albion! Albion represents London's core territories, basking in the radiance of the Clockwork Sun.

Creating a document like this is an involved process. We take our initial high-level outline of a region and drill mercilessly into it, pitching ideas for ports, quests, conflicts, and discoveries. Every member of the team pitches concepts and takes part in the discussion, and we bring members of other teams in (production, tech, comms, analytics) to pitch and contribute, too.

Every pitch gets polished, expanded and tied into the overall stories of the region. Some pitches won't make it to the final game - we can't do everything we'd love to, so (as much as it pains us) we have to choose the ones that work best together.

Then Chris takes the pitches and discussion and compiles them all into a document. Writers get an opportunity to make final amendment to their pitches, and then the document is shared with the whole company so everyone can offer feedback. That feedback is discussed, then incorporated into a final (ish) version of the document.

Then we can start writing ports!

Speaking of which, here's a sneak peak at the list of the ports we're considering for Albion, a few of which may ring bells for fans of Sunless Sea and Fallen London:

Avid Horizon, the Clockwork Sun, the Brabazon workworld, the Most Serene Mausoleum, Worlebury-Juxta-Mare, Ephemera, Eagle's Empyrean, and the Floating Parliament.

Cash and James also worked on one of the Reach’s remaining ports: Polmear & Plenty’s Inconceivable Circus, where weary acrobats and grizzled clowns entertain an audience of visitors. A handful of those visitors will choose to stay here, and never leave. Are they charmed by the magic of the Big Top? Or is it something deeper?

Exceptional Freelancers

We can also reveal some of the exceptional freelancers who have already begun work on ports for Sunless Skies. All three worked extensively on Sunless Sea, and are experienced with our processes and tools. They're already sinking their (very sharp) teeth into the new story possibilities offered by expansions to our narrative content system.

These freelancers are:

Meg Jayanth (80 Days, Horizon: Zero Dawn): who wrote the Isle of Cats and Varchas in Sunless Sea.

Emily Short (Galatea, Inform 7, Versu) - who wrote Station III, Visage, Nuncio, Dahut, Anthe and Aigul for Sunless Sea and Zubmariner.

Richard Cobbett (The Long Journey Home, games journalism) whose Sunless Sea and Zubmariner work includes Saviour's Rocks, the Empire of Hands, Mr Sacks, the Pirate Poet, Nook and the Gant Pole.


Gameplay and Design

Barry implemented heat, a subtle mechanic with big effects in-game. You'll primarily notice this in combat, when you'll see firing your guns and moving at top speed slowly increase your locomotive's heat gauge until - if you're not careful - your engines may overheat.

This won't result in immediate destruction, but you'll be punished with an array of possible effects for running your equipment too hard. This applies both to the player's and agent locomotives.

Barry has also implemented Wrath, which Adam discussed last week on the FBG Podcast. Wrath represents an agent's current hostility towards another agent or the player. This allows agents to fight one another when it logically makes sense, and also allows players to identify simple narratives in regards to why the fight occurred.

Wrath is modified by provocations, which can be instantaneous (like being hit by an attack) or periodic (like a specific type of agent being a certain distance away).

When an agent's Wrath towards any other agent or the player is at a certain level, the agent is marked as hostile and will enter combat!

Meanwhile Mac worked on implementing shop functionality in ports, and our first run at the cannon and shotgun armaments, which are featured below (more glamorous gifs to come as armaments progress).



We've agreed the Art Nouveau style we'd like for our UI, and Liam's now going in and implementing this across the game. This should do a great deal to establish the tone and time of Sunless Skies. He’s also been refining the transitions to create a sleeker feel.




Our next FBG Podcast will be Friday 22nd June at 16:00 BST, where we’ll be happy to take your questions. Our next sprint, HYPERGALAXY, will feature bug fixes, weapons content and locomotive UI!

Now that we've spent some sprints building the Reach, GANYMEDE is where we begin adding flesh to the skeleton we’ve constructed. Art have continued their construction of ports, officers, locomotives and worked on improving the docking platforms. The content team outlined the next area of the High Wilderness: Albion. Tech have been busy implementing wrath, heat, armaments, shop mechanics and storylet UI.


Art

This sprint Tobias (formerly known as Toby here) began work on the Royal Society port! Backers managed to achieve all five portions of this port during the Kickstarter.



The once-moribund Royal Society of inventors, explorers, and scientists has received a generous grant from Her Enduring Majesty and a renewed mandate: to unravel the mysteries of the High Wilderness!

Both Paul and Tobias also finished up some of the officers. Below you can see the Incautious Driver as well as Sunless Skies’ version of an old favourite, the Blind Bruiser.



Art also spent some time redesigning the docking experience at ports, which Tobias implemented.



With this version, players can pull into the dock from either direction, however, the dock will expel players’ locomotives out of the dock in only a single direction. The artists were far too delighted envisioning being able to rev up the locomotive’s’ engine so that docks would actually shoot locomotives back into space. This has yet to be tested as a possibility.

Content

This sprint, the content team have developed a comprehensive story document for the game's second region: Albion! Albion represents London's core territories, basking in the radiance of the Clockwork Sun.

Creating a document like this is an involved process. We take our initial high-level outline of a region and drill mercilessly into it, pitching ideas for ports, quests, conflicts, and discoveries. Every member of the team pitches concepts and takes part in the discussion, and we bring members of other teams in (production, tech, comms, analytics) to pitch and contribute, too.

Every pitch gets polished, expanded and tied into the overall stories of the region. Some pitches won't make it to the final game - we can't do everything we'd love to, so (as much as it pains us) we have to choose the ones that work best together.

Then Chris takes the pitches and discussion and compiles them all into a document. Writers get an opportunity to make final amendment to their pitches, and then the document is shared with the whole company so everyone can offer feedback. That feedback is discussed, then incorporated into a final (ish) version of the document.

Then we can start writing ports!

Speaking of which, here's a sneak peak at the list of the ports we're considering for Albion, a few of which may ring bells for fans of Sunless Sea and Fallen London:

Avid Horizon, the Clockwork Sun, the Brabazon workworld, the Most Serene Mausoleum, Worlebury-Juxta-Mare, Ephemera, Eagle's Empyrean, and the Floating Parliament.

Cash and James also worked on one of the Reach’s remaining ports: Polmear & Plenty’s Inconceivable Circus, where weary acrobats and grizzled clowns entertain an audience of visitors. A handful of those visitors will choose to stay here, and never leave. Are they charmed by the magic of the Big Top? Or is it something deeper?

Exceptional Freelancers

We can also reveal some of the exceptional freelancers who have already begun work on ports for Sunless Skies. All three worked extensively on Sunless Sea, and are experienced with our processes and tools. They're already sinking their (very sharp) teeth into the new story possibilities offered by expansions to our narrative content system.

These freelancers are:

Meg Jayanth (80 Days, Horizon: Zero Dawn): who wrote the Isle of Cats and Varchas in Sunless Sea.

Emily Short (Galatea, Inform 7, Versu) - who wrote Station III, Visage, Nuncio, Dahut, Anthe and Aigul for Sunless Sea and Zubmariner.

Richard Cobbett (The Long Journey Home, games journalism) whose Sunless Sea and Zubmariner work includes Saviour's Rocks, the Empire of Hands, Mr Sacks, the Pirate Poet, Nook and the Gant Pole.


Gameplay and Design

Barry implemented heat, a subtle mechanic with big effects in-game. You'll primarily notice this in combat, when you'll see firing your guns and moving at top speed slowly increase your locomotive's heat gauge until - if you're not careful - your engines may overheat.

This won't result in immediate destruction, but you'll be punished with an array of possible effects for running your equipment too hard. This applies both to the player's and agent locomotives.

Barry has also implemented Wrath, which Adam discussed last week on the FBG Podcast. Wrath represents an agent's current hostility towards another agent or the player. This allows agents to fight one another when it logically makes sense, and also allows players to identify simple narratives in regards to why the fight occurred.

Wrath is modified by provocations, which can be instantaneous (like being hit by an attack) or periodic (like a specific type of agent being a certain distance away).

When an agent's Wrath towards any other agent or the player is at a certain level, the agent is marked as hostile and will enter combat!

Meanwhile Mac worked on implementing shop functionality in ports, and our first run at the cannon and shotgun armaments, which are featured below (more glamorous gifs to come as armaments progress).



We've agreed the Art Nouveau style we'd like for our UI, and Liam's now going in and implementing this across the game. This should do a great deal to establish the tone and time of Sunless Skies. He’s also been refining the transitions to create a sleeker feel.




Our next FBG Podcast will be Friday 22nd June at 16:00 BST, where we’ll be happy to take your questions. Our next sprint, HYPERGALAXY, will feature bug fixes, weapons content and locomotive UI!

Our latest sprint FORTUNE continues the work of populating the Reach! Both character creation and character progression specs have been designed. Meanwhile, Tech was focused on finalising the storylet service, a fundamental piece of code which enables the player to interact with stories in-game. Both Art and Content have been continuing their work on filling out ports, locomotives, wrecks, characters and even our first Ambition!

Art

Both artists have been working at full steam this sprint. While Paul has been busy with the Leadbeater & Stainrod Nature Reserve, Toby worked on a port called Magdalene’s.



Pulled from the art brief: The glass spires of Magdalene's pierce the clouds like swords stuck in the firmament.

If you’ve been enjoying our FBG Podcasts, you may have seen a sneak peek of Paul’s updated version of the Inconvenient Aunt during our art podcast. Here she is in all her inconvenient glory.



Toby has been bringing a few more locomotives to life. As we continue development, you’ll see various classes of vessel. Previously, we’ve shared a Tackety Scout. This sprint we have a Reach Marauder! A ship captained by the sky-maddened: those who have looked too long at the stars.




Content

This sprint James was tasked with creating pitches for various locomotives that will be seen throughout the High Wilderness. Each vessel is pitched with a name, an outline of their fiction, an art brief, a difficulty tier, and proposals for their behavior.

Chris and James also began work on the first ambition for Sunless Skies. This ambition resembles the 'Retire to a Life of Luxury' ambition from Sunless Sea.

Unlike in Sunless Sea though, players don't have to retire in only London. In addition to accruing a big retirement fund, players need to purchase accommodation suitable to the manner in which they want to retire, and they can do so in any of the major hubs: London, New Winchester, Pan or the House of the Feather.


Gameplay and Design

Quite a bit of tech work this sprint went into preparations for the closed alpha. For example, Mac ensured there were versions of Sunless Skies across all three operating systems: PC, Mac and Linux.

Liam and Mac also worked on the storylet service, which has many different pieces that allow the storylet content to function. These may include the functionality of how storylets update or how available storylets are called up when a player enters a port.

Meanwhile, Barry has been implementing passions, which are what control AI behaviour when not in combat. Passions can have a wide range of effects: the possibilities include making a pirate hunt trading vessels, or causing a creature to seek out others of its kind, or visit particular features (like wells or wrecks). Note that these are just examples: we haven't decided exactly which ones to implement yet. We've designed the system to be flexible and easy to extend.


Our next FBG Podcast will be Friday 9th June at 16:00 BST, where we’ll be happy to take your questions. In our next sprint, GANYMEDE, we'll be working to enrich the Reach with audio, legacies and scouts!

Our latest sprint FORTUNE continues the work of populating the Reach! Both character creation and character progression specs have been designed. Meanwhile, Tech was focused on finalising the storylet service, a fundamental piece of code which enables the player to interact with stories in-game. Both Art and Content have been continuing their work on filling out ports, locomotives, wrecks, characters and even our first Ambition!

Art

Both artists have been working at full steam this sprint. While Paul has been busy with the Leadbeater & Stainrod Nature Reserve, Toby worked on a port called Magdalene’s.



Pulled from the art brief: The glass spires of Magdalene's pierce the clouds like swords stuck in the firmament.

If you’ve been enjoying our FBG Podcasts, you may have seen a sneak peek of Paul’s updated version of the Inconvenient Aunt during our art podcast. Here she is in all her inconvenient glory.



Toby has been bringing a few more locomotives to life. As we continue development, you’ll see various classes of vessel. Previously, we’ve shared a Tackety Scout. This sprint we have a Reach Marauder! A ship captained by the sky-maddened: those who have looked too long at the stars.




Content

This sprint James was tasked with creating pitches for various locomotives that will be seen throughout the High Wilderness. Each vessel is pitched with a name, an outline of their fiction, an art brief, a difficulty tier, and proposals for their behavior.

Chris and James also began work on the first ambition for Sunless Skies. This ambition resembles the 'Retire to a Life of Luxury' ambition from Sunless Sea.

Unlike in Sunless Sea though, players don't have to retire in only London. In addition to accruing a big retirement fund, players need to purchase accommodation suitable to the manner in which they want to retire, and they can do so in any of the major hubs: London, New Winchester, Pan or the House of the Feather.


Gameplay and Design

Quite a bit of tech work this sprint went into preparations for the closed alpha. For example, Mac ensured there were versions of Sunless Skies across all three operating systems: PC, Mac and Linux.

Liam and Mac also worked on the storylet service, which has many different pieces that allow the storylet content to function. These may include the functionality of how storylets update or how available storylets are called up when a player enters a port.

Meanwhile, Barry has been implementing passions, which are what control AI behaviour when not in combat. Passions can have a wide range of effects: the possibilities include making a pirate hunt trading vessels, or causing a creature to seek out others of its kind, or visit particular features (like wells or wrecks). Note that these are just examples: we haven't decided exactly which ones to implement yet. We've designed the system to be flexible and easy to extend.


Our next FBG Podcast will be Friday 9th June at 16:00 BST, where we’ll be happy to take your questions. In our next sprint, GANYMEDE, we'll be working to enrich the Reach with audio, legacies and scouts!

In order to help us find and fix bugs during Sunless Skies development, we will be holding a closed alpha, beginning 5th June!



GOALS
This alpha will help us find technical bugs and discover initial player experience within the framework of Sunless Skies.

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT
If you are interested in being involved with the development of the game and aiding the production of Sunless Skies, we'd love to have you join our alpha list. Joining the alpha means experiencing Sunless Skies in a very unpolished state, without all features implemented, and plenty of bugs.

If that doesn’t sound appealing to you, it’s best to wait for Early Access, which will begin this summer, where players will be able to experience a more complete piece of Sunless Skies while we’re still in development. Early Access will start with a single region available to players in a close-to-finished state.

TIMELINE
Alpha testing will begin the 5th of June and run until the end of July. During this time, we will invite people from the alpha list in batches to help us test Sunless Skies, so it’ll be important to keep an eye on your email for your invitation link.

REQUIREMENTS

• Must have a Steam account you can use
  
• PC/Mac/Linux operating system

WHO ARE WE LOOKING FOR?
We’re looking for a variety of people to help us test the alpha!

• People who have played Failbetter games before
  
• PC gamers who haven’t played our games before (especially RPG fans)
  
• Players with accessibility requirements, so we can build Sunless Skies with specific accessibility feedback in mind
  
• People who have QA or previous testing experience (though not required!)

For those invited, we'd of course ask you to install and play the Sunless Skies alpha. Each batch will be involved for at least two weeks, though you are free to help us test until the alpha ends! We will be looking for you to report any bugs you find, along with your general thoughts on the game so far.

If all of that sounds good to you, we’d love to have you help us test Sunless Skies! We expect to be inundated with requests, so it’s important to note that joining the list doesn’t guarantee being invited to the alpha.

Join our alpha signup list!

TL;DR Summary:

• This is a closed alpha, so not everyone is guaranteed to get in
  
• Only join the alpha if you don’t mind an unpolished state of play full of bugs
  
• You need a Steam account to help us test
  
• PC/Mac/Linux alpha will start 5th June
  alpha will close at the end of July
  
• You will not be able to carry through your character into Early Access

In order to help us find and fix bugs during Sunless Skies development, we will be holding a closed alpha, beginning 5th June!



GOALS
This alpha will help us find technical bugs and discover initial player experience within the framework of Sunless Skies.

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT
If you are interested in being involved with the development of the game and aiding the production of Sunless Skies, we'd love to have you join our alpha list. Joining the alpha means experiencing Sunless Skies in a very unpolished state, without all features implemented, and plenty of bugs.

If that doesn’t sound appealing to you, it’s best to wait for Early Access, which will begin this summer, where players will be able to experience a more complete piece of Sunless Skies while we’re still in development. Early Access will start with a single region available to players in a close-to-finished state.

TIMELINE
Alpha testing will begin the 5th of June and run until the end of July. During this time, we will invite people from the alpha list in batches to help us test Sunless Skies, so it’ll be important to keep an eye on your email for your invitation link.

REQUIREMENTS

• Must have a Steam account you can use
  
• PC/Mac/Linux operating system

WHO ARE WE LOOKING FOR?
We’re looking for a variety of people to help us test the alpha!

• People who have played Failbetter games before
  
• PC gamers who haven’t played our games before (especially RPG fans)
  
• Players with accessibility requirements, so we can build Sunless Skies with specific accessibility feedback in mind
  
• People who have QA or previous testing experience (though not required!)

For those invited, we'd of course ask you to install and play the Sunless Skies alpha. Each batch will be involved for at least two weeks, though you are free to help us test until the alpha ends! We will be looking for you to report any bugs you find, along with your general thoughts on the game so far.

If all of that sounds good to you, we’d love to have you help us test Sunless Skies! We expect to be inundated with requests, so it’s important to note that joining the list doesn’t guarantee being invited to the alpha.

Join our alpha signup list!

TL;DR Summary:

• This is a closed alpha, so not everyone is guaranteed to get in
  
• Only join the alpha if you don’t mind an unpolished state of play full of bugs
  
• You need a Steam account to help us test
  
• PC/Mac/Linux alpha will start 5th June
  alpha will close at the end of July
  
• You will not be able to carry through your character into Early Access

Our EXOGENESIS sprint is our first specific pass at populating the Reach, which means working on its denizens from officers to the agents you’ll encounter in the skies. Our art team, which has recently doubled, continued their work on ports, brought some agents to life, and created our first pass art pass over the UI. Content also continued work on various ports, while also creating a magnificent spreadsheet that will help keep track of Sunless Skies’ officers. Meanwhile, tech busied themselves with expanding on the pathfinding discussed last sprint, along with implementing tooltips (hugely important for our wordy games), balancing survival mechanics, and implementing agents.

ART
While Paul is busy tackling Titania, one of our more complex ports so far, we’ve wasted no time putting Toby to work. His first job was Hybras, a rather fungal settlement with a dark secret.



Toby also created one of our agents, a Tackety Scout, while Paul tackled the Scrive Spinster. During the Sprint Review we all oohed and awed over both, though the Tackety Scout stole our hearts. In James’ words, “It looks like it might explode at any minute....it's perfect.”



Meanwhile the art team has been giving Liam’s initial UI wireframes an Art Nouveau-influenced facelift. Below you can see some initial designs on how they might look, though we’re sure they will go through a few iterations.





CONTENT
The writers tackled two more ports this sprint. James fleshed out the London stronghold, Port Prosper, where London Loyalists (or opportunists) can accept bounties for hunting pirates and Tacketies. Meanwhile Cash designed the Leadbeater & Stainrod Nature Reserve, where a research outpost conducts investigations into the secrets of the Reach.

Officers

Another beautiful spreadsheet has also been created, this time it’s all about officers. While the writers are currently pitching their content ideas for officers, this spreadsheet details which slot they’d go in (First Officer, Signaller, Quartermaster, Chief Engineer, and - of course - Mascot), where players would recruit them, which bonuses they’d provide, and how bonuses would change when upgraded. This lets us ensure that officers provide an even distribution of bonuses, and ensure that there are satisfying choices to be made for each slot.

Non-Player Locomotives

Meanwhile, we’ve started turning our Kickstarter backer survey responses into locomotive names! We’d like to note that no fewer than three people recommended “HML Ubiquitous” and we feel strongly that all three should be entered in the game.

In Sunless Skies, when certain non-player locomotives spawn in the game, they're given unique names. So instead of seeing a generic Tackety Scout, you might see the 'UCE Vagabond'. These names are drawn from a list of six hundred entries inspired by our wonderful backers. Our task has been to take information provided by them and turn it into names that fit the period and tone of Sunless Skies. Six hundred times. Six actual hundred.

If you haven’t filled out your Kickstarter Survey, please do so at your earliest convenience! And if you know someone who hasn’t, poke them!


GAMEPLAY & DESIGN
Continuing the pathfinding work for combat, Barry has focused on long-distance pathfinding this sprint.



Some background on this: pathfinding in Sunless Skies will be based on nodes, points on a mesh. When an AI agent needs to get somewhere, it looks for the best (usually, the shortest) path from its current location to the destination node.

The world of Sunless Skies is very large, and pathfinding between nodes that are very far apart is computationally expensive. We could solve this problem by making it so that AI agents only move around when the player is nearby. But in Sunless Skies we want agents to sometimes remain active and pursue their own agendas at distant locations. So we need a more efficient method for them to find their way around.

The solution we’re using is to group all the nodes in a given area together, and treat them all as a single point on a larger meta-mesh that covers the entire map. Even though it covers the whole map, the number of nodes on it is manageable. So the AI can use it efficiently for long-distance pathfinding, and then switch to local pathfinding to deal with obstacles in its immediate area.


Our next FBG Podcast will be this Friday 26 May, at 16:00 BST! This week will be focused on art, to answer any questions you may have about the art process, especially now that we have multiple artists!

Our EXOGENESIS sprint is our first specific pass at populating the Reach, which means working on its denizens from officers to the agents you’ll encounter in the skies. Our art team, which has recently doubled, continued their work on ports, brought some agents to life, and created our first pass art pass over the UI. Content also continued work on various ports, while also creating a magnificent spreadsheet that will help keep track of Sunless Skies’ officers. Meanwhile, tech busied themselves with expanding on the pathfinding discussed last sprint, along with implementing tooltips (hugely important for our wordy games), balancing survival mechanics, and implementing agents.

ART
While Paul is busy tackling Titania, one of our more complex ports so far, we’ve wasted no time putting Toby to work. His first job was Hybras, a rather fungal settlement with a dark secret.



Toby also created one of our agents, a Tackety Scout, while Paul tackled the Scrive Spinster. During the Sprint Review we all oohed and awed over both, though the Tackety Scout stole our hearts. In James’ words, “It looks like it might explode at any minute....it's perfect.”



Meanwhile the art team has been giving Liam’s initial UI wireframes an Art Nouveau-influenced facelift. Below you can see some initial designs on how they might look, though we’re sure they will go through a few iterations.





CONTENT
The writers tackled two more ports this sprint. James fleshed out the London stronghold, Port Prosper, where London Loyalists (or opportunists) can accept bounties for hunting pirates and Tacketies. Meanwhile Cash designed the Leadbeater & Stainrod Nature Reserve, where a research outpost conducts investigations into the secrets of the Reach.

Officers

Another beautiful spreadsheet has also been created, this time it’s all about officers. While the writers are currently pitching their content ideas for officers, this spreadsheet details which slot they’d go in (First Officer, Signaller, Quartermaster, Chief Engineer, and - of course - Mascot), where players would recruit them, which bonuses they’d provide, and how bonuses would change when upgraded. This lets us ensure that officers provide an even distribution of bonuses, and ensure that there are satisfying choices to be made for each slot.

Non-Player Locomotives

Meanwhile, we’ve started turning our Kickstarter backer survey responses into locomotive names! We’d like to note that no fewer than three people recommended “HML Ubiquitous” and we feel strongly that all three should be entered in the game.

In Sunless Skies, when certain non-player locomotives spawn in the game, they're given unique names. So instead of seeing a generic Tackety Scout, you might see the 'UCE Vagabond'. These names are drawn from a list of six hundred entries inspired by our wonderful backers. Our task has been to take information provided by them and turn it into names that fit the period and tone of Sunless Skies. Six hundred times. Six actual hundred.

If you haven’t filled out your Kickstarter Survey, please do so at your earliest convenience! And if you know someone who hasn’t, poke them!


GAMEPLAY & DESIGN
Continuing the pathfinding work for combat, Barry has focused on long-distance pathfinding this sprint.



Some background on this: pathfinding in Sunless Skies will be based on nodes, points on a mesh. When an AI agent needs to get somewhere, it looks for the best (usually, the shortest) path from its current location to the destination node.

The world of Sunless Skies is very large, and pathfinding between nodes that are very far apart is computationally expensive. We could solve this problem by making it so that AI agents only move around when the player is nearby. But in Sunless Skies we want agents to sometimes remain active and pursue their own agendas at distant locations. So we need a more efficient method for them to find their way around.

The solution we’re using is to group all the nodes in a given area together, and treat them all as a single point on a larger meta-mesh that covers the entire map. Even though it covers the whole map, the number of nodes on it is manageable. So the AI can use it efficiently for long-distance pathfinding, and then switch to local pathfinding to deal with obstacles in its immediate area.


Our next FBG Podcast will be this Friday 26 May, at 16:00 BST! This week will be focused on art, to answer any questions you may have about the art process, especially now that we have multiple artists!

In DARK MATTER we foray further into combat! Tech have been busy plotting enemy behavior and implementing pathfinding. Meanwhile, our writers have continued spinning tales for the ports within the Reach. This sprint, we also welcome a new artist to our team—Toby!



ART

First off, a very warm and exceptional welcome to our new artist Toby Cook! We are delighted to have him onboard this space locomotive with us and we’re sure we’ll be featuring his work within these blogs sometime soon.

Paul has been continuing to bring various ports within the Reach to life. This sprint, we’ll give you a glimpse of Traitor’s Wood:



Traitor’s Wood: “A gloomy forest rears up from a flinty outcropping. Grave firs rise in furrows behind the station, where a few gaudy tents have been set up, sheltering from the persistent drizzle. A great stone bulk, like a barrow mound, rises over the trees in the far distance.”

Paul and Chris have also been fine-tuning the art brief process now that we have more than one artist!


CONTENT

James and Olivia fleshed out two different ports this sprint: Hybras and Magdalene’s. Hybras was a once-promising port, but suddenly and mysteriously became deserted. It’ll be up to you to uncover the fate of its inhabitants.

Magdalene’s on the other hand is a port that will allow players to improve their Condition. For a price, the skilled staff at Magdalene's will tell you precisely the lies you need to hear. Terror works differently in Sunless Skies to Sunless Sea. Every time Terror reaches 100, your Condition worsens. Reducing Terror is easy; improving Condition is hard. But Magdalene's is one of the few places you can do so. But be warned: each time you do, the price goes up.

Chris has also been putting his sinister talents into creating a Discovery called Old Tom’s Well. In Sunless Skies, wells are wounds in the heavens, often used to banish and imprison beings which are disinclined to die. At Old Tom's Well you can encounter the Cursing Church, a fledgling sect which considers the wells sacred.


GAMEPLAY & DESIGN

Now that Barry is back from his holiday, he’s been heavily working on different aspects of combat. One of the first things he shared with us during our sprint review meeting this week was the pathfinding he’s implemented.



Note: The light blue squares are the path for the agitated agent. The green line is its next target.

Then he proved his driving skills as two enemy agent locomotives chased after him. Barry also implemented what we call Tactics, the motivation for which paths agents choose to take. We'll build on this further next sprint with Wrath and Passions, the driving factors behind agents' (locomotives or beasties) behaviour in-game.



Tactics are meant to be modular and reusable. In Sunless Sea players could expect enemy vessels or passive vessels, but in Sunless Skies it’s not so black and white. In the High Wilderness, players can expect to find these agents have a variety of different motives. When we design them, we’re no longer thinking “will it fight the player?” but rather “when will it fight the player” and “what else will it do?”

Our very first sound effects have also been commissioned, such as different engine sounds for our three types of player locomotive, changes to Terror levels, and discover and general UI interaction sounds. Lottie and Liam have been working with the lovely Soundcuts team on these, the same audio production studio we worked with for Zubmariner's SFX.



This Friday at 16:00 BST we’ll be holding our bi-weekly FBG Podcast on Twitch—we do hope you’ll join us! Lottie will be hosting this week, as Haley will be off on holiday in America, and will be joined by Sam and James. If you have any questions for them to discuss in the podcast, feel free to send them to @Failbettergames!

Our next sprint, EXOGENESIS will be all about the people of the Reach, as we begin designing crew, locomotives, and more agents!

In DARK MATTER we foray further into combat! Tech have been busy plotting enemy behavior and implementing pathfinding. Meanwhile, our writers have continued spinning tales for the ports within the Reach. This sprint, we also welcome a new artist to our team—Toby!



ART

First off, a very warm and exceptional welcome to our new artist Toby Cook! We are delighted to have him onboard this space locomotive with us and we’re sure we’ll be featuring his work within these blogs sometime soon.

Paul has been continuing to bring various ports within the Reach to life. This sprint, we’ll give you a glimpse of Traitor’s Wood:



Traitor’s Wood: “A gloomy forest rears up from a flinty outcropping. Grave firs rise in furrows behind the station, where a few gaudy tents have been set up, sheltering from the persistent drizzle. A great stone bulk, like a barrow mound, rises over the trees in the far distance.”

Paul and Chris have also been fine-tuning the art brief process now that we have more than one artist!


CONTENT

James and Olivia fleshed out two different ports this sprint: Hybras and Magdalene’s. Hybras was a once-promising port, but suddenly and mysteriously became deserted. It’ll be up to you to uncover the fate of its inhabitants.

Magdalene’s on the other hand is a port that will allow players to improve their Condition. For a price, the skilled staff at Magdalene's will tell you precisely the lies you need to hear. Terror works differently in Sunless Skies to Sunless Sea. Every time Terror reaches 100, your Condition worsens. Reducing Terror is easy; improving Condition is hard. But Magdalene's is one of the few places you can do so. But be warned: each time you do, the price goes up.

Chris has also been putting his sinister talents into creating a Discovery called Old Tom’s Well. In Sunless Skies, wells are wounds in the heavens, often used to banish and imprison beings which are disinclined to die. At Old Tom's Well you can encounter the Cursing Church, a fledgling sect which considers the wells sacred.


GAMEPLAY & DESIGN

Now that Barry is back from his holiday, he’s been heavily working on different aspects of combat. One of the first things he shared with us during our sprint review meeting this week was the pathfinding he’s implemented.



Note: The light blue squares are the path for the agitated agent. The green line is its next target.

Then he proved his driving skills as two enemy agent locomotives chased after him. Barry also implemented what we call Tactics, the motivation for which paths agents choose to take. We'll build on this further next sprint with Wrath and Passions, the driving factors behind agents' (locomotives or beasties) behaviour in-game.



Tactics are meant to be modular and reusable. In Sunless Sea players could expect enemy vessels or passive vessels, but in Sunless Skies it’s not so black and white. In the High Wilderness, players can expect to find these agents have a variety of different motives. When we design them, we’re no longer thinking “will it fight the player?” but rather “when will it fight the player” and “what else will it do?”

Our very first sound effects have also been commissioned, such as different engine sounds for our three types of player locomotive, changes to Terror levels, and discover and general UI interaction sounds. Lottie and Liam have been working with the lovely Soundcuts team on these, the same audio production studio we worked with for Zubmariner's SFX.



This Friday at 16:00 BST we’ll be holding our bi-weekly FBG Podcast on Twitch—we do hope you’ll join us! Lottie will be hosting this week, as Haley will be off on holiday in America, and will be joined by Sam and James. If you have any questions for them to discuss in the podcast, feel free to send them to @Failbettergames!

Our next sprint, EXOGENESIS will be all about the people of the Reach, as we begin designing crew, locomotives, and more agents!