I want to take sometime to tell you about my plans to update the game.
The development is taking a really long time, so I thought about a new way to update the game while developing it.
The new playable version will be released in early 2018.
The way the game will be updated is through gameplay.
I won't be making the game anymore, because the game will be making itself.
This is an advanced AI machine, that will be creating the game from here on out. So if you have any hate for the development taking too long blame the AI, not me.(I'm just joking of course i'm making the game)
You will be able to leave feedback through the game itself.
Anyways let me know in the comments if you're excited to see the game updated or if i should just go fuck myself for taking too long.
You'll also get to walk inside a brain, pretty cool if you ask me.
I know most of you don't care about VR and you just want to play the vanilla game, but both the VR and non VR games have to be designed in parallel. The VR version won't be just a port of the non VR version, I want both versions to use the medium to it's full extent.
Progress report [Birthday Edition]
Today is my birthday and to celebrate this incredible achievement of surviving for so many years, I thought I'd update all of you with what I'm working on.
I spent the main bulk of my time since the last update making the high polycount character models into optimized game ready assets. I had to retopologize the models to a lower polycount (each character is only about 8000 tris), then I had to bake the normal and diffuse maps for each character. So in the past month it was 12 models from scratch, each of those models now has 4 textures (diffuse, normal, skin mask,emission) so that's 48 textures in total which may seem like a lot, but the performance of the game is still great since every character has a single material so that makes one draw call per character. While working on all of the models I'm trying to keep it as optimized as possible.
To make the dismemberment possible on the characters, every mesh had to be split into seperate parts.
These are all seperate meshes weighted to the same skeleton, so certain parts can be hidden and other parts revealed during runtime.
So just to make the dismemberment gameplay mechanic possible I have to make 216 meshes in total for the 12 characters.
Right now 3 characters are fully done and on the 9 left I only have to rig them to the skeleton and split the meshes.
Once that is done the last thing left to do on the models is to add shape keys for the facial expressions. I think about 80 percent of the work on the characters is done.
Once the characters are done I'll be working on the environment.
New environment
Another quick update on what I'm currently working on.
I am reworking the environment to match the visual softness of the characters, since the low poly models really didn't fit in with all of the sharp edges. Another bonus of these new models is much better performance than the old version.
Also animated the main character arms.
I'll continue to show what I'm working on, so be sure to check the announcements.
New character design
Note: I'll be updating this post with new characters as I make them, so be sure to check this post later.
One major issue with the visual design of Garbage Day is the lifeless characters. I want the story of the game to be dialogue and character oriented and that'd pretty difficult to achieve with a character that has no face. So I have been experimenting with a few visual styles and I found one that I'm happy with.
Another reason for choosing this style is to keep the game more lighthearted, so that the violence and dark humor in the game wouldn't be taken as seriously.
The player arms also needed an update.
These next images are to show how expressive the face animations can get.
Also the dismemberment isn't going anywhere with this new art style.
Let me know how you feel about this style in the comments and I'm open to any suggestions.
I'll do my best to show you what I'm working on during development.
Kept you waiting huh?
Let me preface this anouncement by saying that instead of pointless apologies I want to offer instead my honesty which I think is more valuable.
Theres a few names to a state I've been experiencing, names such as "burning out" or "writers block". I could go into depth analyzing how and why this happened, but that wouldn't achieve anything except perpetuate this creative block by making me identify with it.
After this setback I am in a state in which I can continue working on the development.
With that being said, the game will be released when its time. All that I can say for sure is that I am working on it.
I hope you can understand and I want to thank you for sticking with me.
Upcoming updates
Hello,
I wanted to talk about a few concerns people had about the game.
This is a question I have been getting the most. "You have been working on this game for a long time now, why is there so little content?"
The game has a lot more content, but almost all of it is in the story mode and many of the features are now removed due to containing spoilers (dialogues, missions). What I want to do with this game is to release the story mode as a whole, so you could experience it as intended, if I added chunks of the story to the game while it's in early access that wouldn't be a good experience. Launching the game on early access was a risky move and it probably isn't the best place for a game like this.
The sandbox mode currently is just kinda a "tech demo" for you to get a feel of the game.
The sandbox mode will of course get updates to fix bugs,crashes and to add content.
The 15 dollar price tag is in no way justified right now, but this is a way for you to support the development.
I hope you guys understand and thank you for your support!
