Welcome to Dev Log #3! This time, we will talk about a region in the lands of Azur called the Swamps of Bremul and the development of some of it’s mechanics.
Azur is the name of an unexplored cluster of Islands located in the northern hemisphere of the Alassya Planet. The lands of Azur have different regions with very diverse ecosystems. From mountains to tundra, Azur stands out for its vast natural resources. Within the different areas in Azur are the Swamps of Bremul which after being taken by the Urlags, are home to a large number of dangerous enemies.
Concept Art of The Swamps of Bremul
Throughout the game, it is very important for us to keep adding different platforming elements for the player to explore the world of Azur. For this devlog, we wanted to delve deep into how we created the Interactive Ropes that you will find in this location.
The basic pieces of the Rope Physics In order for the ropes to look and behave in a natural way, we had to rely on the Unity Physics engine to do most of the work for their movement. Then, we made the characters behave around them accordingly.
The rope is created using multiple invisible pieces connected between them with Physics Joints allowing them to react as if they are linked to one another.
We then use a line that goes through each one of these links to make it look like it was a single interactive object.
Blending the Ropes with the World To make the Ropes blend in with the rest of the world, we added a texture in the line that connects the invisible pieces.
We then added a few additional details in order for them to stand out as an interactive object in the environment. For example, the counter weight at the bottom or the tiny gear at the top to represent the Rope anchor point.
Player Interaction and Animations In order for the characters to interact with the rope, it will check if they have come into contact with one of the invisible links, and when that happens, it can attach them to that point and interpolate their position.
Characters will always face the direction the rope is swinging towards. To make it feel a lot more responsive, we made different swinging animations that will be set depending on their speed. In this case, the characters will quickly turn around when they need to change their orientation.
Stacking characters in a single Rope Sometimes, when moving with multiple characters, there will be times when they all grab the same rope. In this case, it could become confusing since they would collide with one another.
To prevent this situation, we made them stack on top of each other and allowed only one character per Rope Link.
In Game Result Finally, here is the final result on how the ropes look in game!
We've got some other interesting surprises waiting for you at the Swamps of Bremul! We hope you have as much fun playing around with them as we did experimenting with the different ideas to make them work!
Thanks for reading this month's devlog, and stay tuned for more next time!
In our last announcement, we claimed to have released the final update to Project Exhibited. It turns out we lied. Because of the increasing interest of the speedrunning community, we have come back to bring you two small additions that might help your running career.
The two additions are:
In-game loot percentage counter
In-game timer
We hope these additions will help you find the most optimal routes! (Both can be found and activated in the general settings menu)
On another note, as of today, you can visit the store page for our upcoming release of the Project Exhbited Soundtrack. From the dynamic sound system present in the game, our music magician Stijn de Koning has created two linear versions for you to enjoy!
DumbBots: Hello World is the FREE demo for DumbBots.
The tutorial levels have been made freely available to provide a taste of what's to come, as well as a basic introduction to some coding principles for anyone interested in picking up the craft.
Try your luck in the Lucky Draw event, every day you get x1 free attempt to spin the wheel, and the spent gold coins are awarded to you in the form of points, which can also be used in this event.
Aircraft technologies allow you to develop and produce advanced air units. You’ll be able to deploy these to conquer ICBM’s nuclear green sky. In ICBM there are four kinds of air units:
Fighters: A fighter aircraft is a military fixed-wing aircraft primarily designed for air-to-air combat against other aircraft. Operating from carriers and airfields, their great speed and manoeuvrability make them perfect to establish air superiority over the battlefield. The trade off for this capability is that they are of limited use against surface targets. They carry heavy air-to-air armament and can also carry ALBM’s, if you have researched them.
Bombers: A strategic bomber is a long-range deep-striking aircraft designed to drop large amounts of air-to-ground weaponry onto distant targets for the purpose of debilitating the enemies capacity to wage war. They can carry the heaviest bombs and can only operate from airfields.
Attack bombers: An attack bomber is a tactical military aircraft that operates from a carrier. It has the primary role of carrying out airstrikes with greater precision than bombers can and it is robust enough to survive strong low-level air defences when on the offensive. This class of aircraft is designed mostly for naval air-to-surface missions. They can carry light nuclear weapons, but are much more difficult to intercept.
AEW&C aircraft: An airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) system is an airborne radar picket system designed to detect aircraft, ships and vehicles at long range. Both land-based and naval carrier-based versions are available.
The first three types of aircraft can be produced and deployed at the beginning of a match and you can improve them by researching additional aircraft technologies.
Improve your aircraft
You can research advanced aircraft to upgrade your aircraft to newer, more advanced models. In doing so, you will automatically increase the speed, manoeuvrability, durability and payload of all your planes.
You can additionally increase the capacity of your fuel tanks by researching aerial fueling once you have the advanced aircraft technology. This technology will greatly improve the range of all your planes.
If you want to establish air superiority in ICBM, having faster and more agile planes won’t be enough: you will also need to identify threats in advance, while going unnoticed at the same time. This is where AWACS and stealth aircraft can give you an additional edge.
AWACS can be researched and produced to secure better airspace surveillance: these "flying radars" are perfect for long-duration flights and can control airspace in a radius greater than 500 km. They are extremely vulnerable if they're attacked however and will need to be protected by SAMs or fighter aircraft. By researching AWACS, you will unlock two new air units: AWACS aircraft, which operate from an airfield and the Carrier AEW&C helicopter, which operates from a carrier. AEW&C helicopters have a smaller range than normal AWACS and less powerful radars, but they’re equipped with sonar and depth charges for anti-submarine operations.
You can elude enemy surveillance and decrease the visibility of your aircraft by researching stealth aircraft, the ultimate air technology in ICBM. This improvement automatically applies to all your planes, which will become much more difficult to detect and shut down.
Initially, your air forces won’t be very efficient in attacking surface units - the only available conventional means of sea or ground attack are the free-falling bombs, so you often will want to use smaller nuclear bombs for important targets. But this changes when you research the Air-to-Surface Missiles. You can then upgrade to Advanced ASM to further improve the efficiency of your bombers.
To have an edge in aerial combat, you could research the Advanced AAM - those make your fighters much more deadly in dogfights.
To fully reveal the advantages of AEW&C aircraft, invest into the radar technologies - LW radars if you just want to see the targets further away, and SW radars if you want to be able to supply the precise targeting information to your fighters and bombers, allowing them to engage the enemy from the maximal distance.
Airbases and carriers
Your aircraft can take off from airbases or from carriers; airbases carry up to 15 fighters and 5 bombers, while carriers carry up to 10 fighters and 10 attack bombers.
By selecting each airbase or carrier, you can decide whether to allow air patrol or not.
When you allow air patrol, you have two fighters always in skies looking for the potential threats. This usually helps to spot enemy aircraft on the far reach, giving more time to react. However, sometimes you want to have the patrol disabled. For example, if you already have AEW&C in the skies near your carrier, then you already have good visibility of the airborne targets, so you can switch off the patrolling to stay hidden and not give your enemy the possibility to detect the presence of your carrier by spotting the patrolling aircraft. Another case when you may want to have the patrol disabled is when your airfield is close to the enemy territory. In this case, your patrol could occasionally fly into the enemy air space triggering the response. This can easily escalate to the full-blown conflict much sooner than you’d like.
◆ Critical bugfixes and improvements - A bug where the "slate of growth" can be mass produced using the NPC in a certain situation has been fixed. - The quest NPC has been changed so that it will function properly in multiplayer mode.
◆ Bugfixes - Fixed an issue where the percentage reduction of DEF, such as "Backwater Formation", was not working properly. - Fixed an issue where the required world level was incorrectly displayed in the list of items that could be created in the item details screen. - Fixed an issue where the shield sound effect would continue to play while the shield was being held. - Fixed a bug where negative enchantment effects were not being applied. (Please note that negative effects that were not applied before may be applied now!)
◆ Improvements - In multiplayer, we changed it so that the experience gained when defeating an enemy would be split equally among other players nearby. - Reduced the weight of the conveyor belt. - Fixed the heat, cold, and poison resistant levels of equipment to now be displayed in the UI. - Tree and rock icons on the full map are no longer visible. - Changed text regarding possession loss on death. - Inventory screen scrolling has been fixed to avoid bouncing. Changed the draggable area. - Added option to toggle dash. - Texture quality settings added to the settings screen. - Default settings for texture quality was changed.