Update on the economic, management and exploration aspects of the game.
The game is set in a procedural multiverse, standard C-class universes (like ours) and subspace S-class universes (more universe classes will be added later).

• Multiverse generation is up and running.
  
• Astro characteristics are implemented.
  
• Colony bases production and management mechanics are mostly implemented.

Hi everyone!
Welcome to a new devlog!
In this episode, I will show the progress made this past month. This update includes:

• My token system for combat.
  
• My solution for storytelling.
  
• Using PCG for Level Design.
  
• Improvements in the spectator camera.
  
• New AI behaviors.
  
• Headshots.

As you can see, there is lots of new stuff, so let's get started!

If you are new here, welcome! My name is Dani Marti, and I'm a solo developer creating an action-adventure game inspired by The Last of Us and Diablo.

This system may look very complex, but it's much simpler than it seems.
In my case, the Player and the Enemy are children classes from the same parent. So, since both will need a counter for tokens, I added the Combat Tokens variable to the parent. So I can access it from the children. In the same way, I added a new variable called Combat Tokens Max. This variable is hard-coded, but it could be different, for example, if I decide to have various difficulty levels. The hard-coded value is right now 2. That means that only two enemies will be able to attack at once.

On the Enemy side, there is a little more work; so let's see it step by step.

I'm using Behavior trees, and I have a task to perform the attack; if we take a look at the function, we will see that before attacking, we check if the attack is possible, so this is the perfect place to add a new condition, has the Player available tokens?

To answer this, I'm using a blueprint interface to improve the communication between the Player and the Enemy. Here, I have three functions, get the available tokens, consume tokens, and replenish tokens. This way, I can perform all the operations I need for the Enemy and the Player.

So, as you can see, the Enemy can perform Special Attacks, Finishers, and Normal Attacks. For Special and Normal Attacks, the Enemy only needs 1 token, but for Finishers, it uses 2; this is a way to ensure Finishers can be only performed by one Enemy at a time since finishers are synced animations and won't look good if more enemies are performing at the same time.

So, the first step is to check how many tokens the Player has available; in step 2, if there are enough tokens, the Enemy consumes the tokens from the Player. You can see the Consume and Replenish Token functions in action here.

The check fails if there aren't enough tokens and the Enemy circles the target. This behavior makes the Enemy look smarter since it looks like the Enemy moves to a better location to wait and try to attack again.

All the attacks are performed using Anim Montages, so after the Anim Montage is complete, we return the tokens from the Enemy to the Player, using the Consume and Replenish Tokens functions again.

The last thing to take into consideration is death. If an Enemy took Tokens from the Player, but we killed them before returning those Tokens, I forced the return in the Death Event. This way, other Enemies can still attack us.

That's how I created the system; the UI on top of the characters is just for debugging and making it more visual.
Please let me know in the comments below if you have any questions about the system.

The next significant feature is the Dynamic Comic Strip.
I created this feature because I'm creating an adventure game, and this kind of game usually has tons of cinematics. Since I'm not an animator, and my expectations are over the top due to my annoying perfectionism. I knew that would take too long, and I probably wouldn't be happy with the results. So, I came up with this system:

• I have several Scene Capture Cameras in the scene that frame what will be shown in the comic strip.
  
• Each camera has a post-process effect with the hatching style and the outline.
  
• I use the Custom Depth pass to choose what elements are displayed in color.
  
• All is displayed as UI.

If you are interested in the system, I can go for a deeper dive in another devlog, but this is, so far, the overview.

A couple things worth mentioning, I'm not a shader artist by any means; so for my shader, I created a mix using tutorials from Visual Tech Art and Kamil Hepner. They are very good tutorials and worth checking out.

The other thing is that I find the animation UI system very annoying and hard to manipulate. So, I created a blueprint assistant that manages the UI animations using timelines; this way, I can just manipulate the times and curves more efficiently, which allows for a very fast iteration.

For my UI and animations, I used the UI materials from the UI Material Lab, which is a free resource from Unreal Engine. The information there is pure gold.

The last thing I want to mention is that the system initially fed the comic stripes with render target textures, so the caption was done in real-time.

After some testing, I realized the rendering of three images simultaneously was dropping my fps considerably, so now I'm manually rendering and saving the images beforehand. It's not so convenient, but it's much more performant since I'm just dealing with textures and UI now.

If you have been watching my devlogs, you know how much I struggle with my level design. Step by step, I'm getting more comfortable and coming up with my own solutions. For me, one of the biggest challenges is creating boundaries that limit the Player's movement.

I found Blaze 92, a youtube channel that showcases games and how they overcome that challenge. Very interesting and inspirational to apply to your games.

So why creating boundaries is a challenge? In my case, I want the boundaries to be and feel natural, i'm not creating an open world, but I want the Player to have 'certain' freedom to move around. And when you do that, the dangers are:

• The Player can feel lost.
  
• The Player has more freedom to do things you didn't expect, which is always very dangerous.
  
• It's harder to direct the Player towards goals and quests.

So, after some research, I decided to limit my level using geographical boundaries such as cliffs and rock formations. And when the level is flatter, I use what I call Forest walls; those are dense and have higher bushes, which show the Player that they can't go through, just like you wouldn't go through in real life. To add and manipulate those boundaries, I created a PCG Spline tool that allows me to easily make them.

On the other hand, I'm populating my forest using PCG based on landscape materials; this is super useful because I just need to paint my landscape with different materials to populate different assets. If you are into PCG, I highly recommend you check Aziel Arts's tutorials; for me, the best PCG tutorials on Youtube. He has a tutorial about populating landscapes.


Last but not least, I made some improvements in my Spectator Camera, so now, the camera is always consistent with the framing, that means for example if the Enemy was coming from the left, the spectator camera keeps that framing so the Player and the Enemy are in the same position. That can seem silly, but because the camera now has collisions and detects nearby objects, it could pick a better location with fewer collisions, switching the frame, which doesn't look good. Now, the camera keeps the framing and adjusts the focal length to fit all the actors in the frame.

On the other hand, AI now shares core behaviors for different enemy types, such as discovering dead fellas and warning other enemies.

I also improved the aiming and shooting system, including headshots, which are very satisfactory.

So that was all the progress since the last devlog. I hope you like it.
On the other hand, Lobo is on Steam, so please don't forget to add it to your wishlist if you like it, and if you want to support me further, I created a Ko-fi page where you have special perks and exclusive content.


As always, thanks so much for watching and see you in the next devlog! Bye bye!

Watch the Champions of Canaan duke it out for to see who will reign supreme. The eternal fight to establish who is the strongest and craftiest in this legendary city. Join in the fight when Street Flicker launches this July!


Fight - Free-to-play quick play PVP Matches. Fight for glory, earn fans, and be the Champion of Canaan!

Story Mode - Fight through the mean streets to Canaan with Matcha - first four single player levels are free for all players. Test your might across 35 Character Driven Single Player Levels in our quirky adventure.

Forge - Use your earned words and coins to generate cosmetics that match your style!

IT'S FIGHT TIME

Brave Ones!

Maintenance has been completed and access to the game has been restored. We apologize for the temporary inconvenience.

Also, we are giving you a mysterious code for the inconvenience caused, hurry up and enter it in the bank: SERVERSORRYJULY2



Have a nice game!

Notice:
If you already progressing the story, to avoid game crashing or other problems please make sure to check the integrity files after the update is over. To make sure the files are corrected downloaded by STEAM.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=2037-QEUH-3335


Them and Us Update Patch Notes

1. We fixed the Steam Deck on DirectX 11 to not crash anymore the game when entering the Dark World after the boss fight.

2. We updated the game to support name change for the steam workshop characters, by adding a INI file.

Since the .ini file cannot be included in the game due to future updates, overwriting it you will have to firstly manually download this file and place it in the game config folder.

You can download this file by fallowing these steps.

1. Subscribe to this item and follow the instructions mentioned there.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3266532268

or

2. Manually download the file from our official steam workshop site:

And place it inside Steam\steamapps\common\Them & Us\UDKGame\Config


To edit the name of the costume you can open this ini file with Notepad and follow the instructions from there. More information about this have been added in the Steam Workshop Documentation.

After brainstorming and exploring for some time, we are presenting Desires Flowing DLC to you! We are creating this DLC not just to provide a new class option, but a new Follower gameplay, to explore more possibilities of deckbuilding gameplay.

Desires Flowing has a unique stand-alone gameplay, where the new class Puppeteers control followers and dead spirits to fight for them. Expanding from the core gameplay of roguelike deckbuilding, players need to choose and manage a team of followers that match their cards, so as to maximize the effects of both the follower abilities and the deck build.

As the 2nd DLC, Desires Flowing is a bolder attempt that reveals the dark side of Mekaa. We hope that it gives you a whole new experience different from the existing content.

• Puppeteer class and 3 new characters
  
• Follower gameplay
  
• 100+ Puppeteer cards
  
• 30 follower options each with unique abilities
  
• 13 new monsters
  
• Follower events and Puppeteer adventure stories
  
• Stories blended in the adventure mode and adjusted talents

Desires Flowing DLC page is now live! Add to wishlist to get notified upon launch!
There will be a 20% launch discount for early buyers so you don't want to miss it!
Right now we're still polishing the DLC content. More news will be coming - stay tuned!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3097790

Salute,
Fun Square

Hello,

We sincerely appreciate all the love and support you have shown for LOVE ON.

For our VR game and visual novel fans, we have maintained the "Early Access" price of USD $17.99 for about a month after the official launch.

Now, with the next patch, we will be updating the price to the official launch price of USD $19.99.

Until this weekend, we will maintain the current price of USD $17.99, so we encourage any interested users to take advantage of this final opportunity.

In addition to the price increase, the game has also been improved in the following areas:

1. NPC Detail Polishing
ㄴThe modeling, textures, materials, and animations of NPCs in Ch.02 Classroom, Ch.04 Beach, and Ch.05 Festival have been updated.
ㄴWe have significantly improved the previously rather flat NPCs.

2. Build and Resource Optimization
ㄴWe are continuously working to modify the game for a more stable gameplay experience. We appreciate your additional feedback!

3. Other Bug Fixes
ㄴWe have corrected issues that were affecting in-game cinematics and gameplay progression.

We are grateful for the diverse feedback and support. LOVE ON will continue to be updated and improved to satisfy our players.

Thank you.

LOVE ON DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/VEDQRDbxfk

本次更新主要内容：

　　1. 千卷平戎策，万里定江山！风林火山阴雷套系皮肤：量子博士-徐如林酷炫来袭！


　　- 同时或分批购买此套系中多款皮肤，均可尊享折上折。累计解锁此套系6款皮肤享最低价！5月31日-9月5日限时出售，不可错过！

　　- 收集风林火山阴雷套系皮肤达到要求，即可领取全新头像框、表情、守卫皮肤、传送特效、小兵皮肤！ 还可领取额外VIP经验奖励！

　　- 参与珍宝幸运领奖有机会获得量子博士-徐如林全新皮肤，幸运女神快降临！

　　2. 整理好妆容与旗袍，该享受时光了。7月19日-8月15日期间，神秘冒险家-秀雅如馨皮肤限时返场！


　　3. 副本翻牌活动开启，7月19日-7月25日期间参与试炼副本，翻牌即赠副本双倍卡，还可获得试炼秘宝券，不限量兑换Boss礼包。快来参与吧！

　　4. 世界首领补偿：因7月16日世界首领活动期间部分线路卡顿的问题，为表示歉意，2024年7月19日维护后，全区全服所有角色，登录游戏前往邮件处可领取1个【元素首领战利品】。

　　请大家互相转告，谢谢大家的支持，支持国产支持英魂！

• Fixed a rare crash when selecting a mission with modifiers.
• Fixed a rare crash when crafting a mission with modifiers.

• Tutorial - Confirm button only visible on final page rather than all pages.
• Tutorial - Slight improvement to Itemization page.

• Skill Tree Menu - If a player hasnt invested into the Skill Tree, the invest button will flash.
• Skill Tree Menu - If a skill on the Skill Tree hasnt met the Skill Tree Level requirement, it is darkened.
• Skill Tree Menu - Investing into a Skill will auto assign it to an open slot on the Action Bar.

• Sentry Skill: Changed base physical damage from 25% to 40%.
• Sentry Skill: Changed base max health from 25% to 35%.
• Sentry Skill: Changed Shoot Interval to Attacks per Second.
• Sentry Skill: Changed Energy Cost from 60 to 40.
• Sentry Skill: Changed Cooldown from 8 seconds to 6 seconds.
• Sentry Skill - Additional Sentry Node: Now grants +1 Sentry at level 1.

3 new weapons are now available in Arsenal Online!


SMG with a high rate of fire and an integral suppressor


Semi-automatic DMR with high damage


Bolt-action sniper rifle with very high damage and penetration

Remember to join the official Discord to suggest new weapons and game modes!