Kaiju Fishing
Dev Stream
Im experimenting with livestreaming while I work on Kaiju Fishing. Come join me or follow along on twitch to chat: https://www.twitch.tv/mutantstudios or hop on the Discord: https://discord.gg/tgr7JSYucW
Optimizatino and terrain
Hey everyone, since it's been a minute since my last update, buckle up for a longer than normal update on KF.
So as most of the main features are in playable states our next main task is to start putting all the pieces together to build the MVP (minimum viable product). This means we need to build out the starting HUB and first playable zone. I started with a simple block out in order to start gauging size/playtime/layout concepts. A block out is exactly as it sounds: gray boxes that serve as placeholders for art that will come later. When I dropped our current boat into the scene to start checking things out I noticed that our framerates were much lower than I anticipated. It wasn’t that it was super low (I was getting around 70-75 fps) but with so little geometry in the scene it was obvious that something wasn’t right. So that started a round of testing, basically looking into what could be the cause. Obviously it shouldn’t have been the boxes since they’re literally boxes with a default material. I quickly ruled that out, so that left me with only 2 other options. It was either our ocean shader (unlikely) or something on our boat was totally unoptimized. A quick check on the ocean confirmed that there was something wrong with the boat, which made sense.
The breakdown of boat checking was pretty straightforward but time consuming. Basically we had to turn off each individual component in the boat one by one to try and track down the culprit. Luckily Unity added a statistics checker to the Editor at some point in the last few years (I'm not sure when this was included, but boy did it turn out to be a time saver here). Previously we would have had an extra step of compiling and running the game then checking the profiler as we turned things off/on to look for large changes in frame rates.
The big offender turned out to be our tacklebox. The original plan for the bait crafting system was to allow players to use individual pieces of the bait in order to do some fancy component based crafting. This meant that our modeler needed to leave each small component of each bait object as a separate mesh/rig. Any of you that know anything about how a game engine draws things onto a screen can probably tell where things went wrong. In order to save some development time we had simplified the crafting system down to just set recipes, so the individual component pieces of a bait were no longer needed, but we neglected to combine the mesh components back up into single objects. So the tacklebox held a copy of each bait, which have many many individual meshes which was costing us many many more draw calls than were necessary.
Once we figured that out, the solution proved to be pretty simple. We could have cracked open Maya (the modeling software we use) and combined each bait into a single object there, but with our recent studio restructure we don’t currently have a dedicated modeler (I haven't touched a modeling program in at least 15 years). I did know however that there were several tools available on the Unity asset store that allow us to combine meshes inside the editor. So rather than re-teach myself Maya I grabbed one of the tools and got to work combining meshes.
I’m happy to report that after the completion of that task our framerates for the blockout scene are very high (I’m getting +/- around 270 pretty consistently). With that out of the way it was then time to start looking at how we wanted to build out the world.
The original plan for the world was a big open ocean with lots of little islands with secrets and fishing coves for you to explore. That’s still the plan, but without a modeler we need to get creative on how we’re going to bring that to life. Before she left, our awesome modeler who’s now over at WizKids made some starter islands for us. Which is what you’ve played around with in the demo. While these are great, without her around to make more, we’d be kind of limited to the environments you’d get to experience and I personally think that the world would get kind of stale pretty quickly. After a bit of brainstorming I settled on what I hope is a solution. Unity has a terrain system, which with a bit of tweaking I thought might work for us to unique/interesting islands out of.
So off I jumped into the “fun” world of Unity terrain. Yes I put quotes around fun on purpose. It’s… an interesting system to say the least. But after overcoming a bit of a steep learning curve, specifically dealing with keeping our new found gains in frame rate, I’m also happy to report that this is a solution that is working. My first few test islands are looking good. I’ve got a LOD system in and working, so now all the beautiful art that our modeler provided doesn’t slow our frame rate down to a crawl (that was an initial problem I had to work out).
So yeah, that’s where we’re at. Things are coming together. It’s a bit slower than I had hoped, but our progress continues. Thanks for keeping the faith. I know KF has taken longer than you or we want, but I’m grinding hard to land this beast.
Until next time.
Pivot!
We’ve got a lot of gameplay systems implemented so far (Small & Med sized fishing, Kaiju Fights, Bait Crafting, Collecting…) but if we were to lose the narrative focus, that means that there really wasn’t a reason for you (our players) to go fishing. Basically the narrative was going to be the glue that binds the game together, and with our new reduced focus on narrative that means something has to take its place. After a bit of brainstorming we think we’ve hit on a system that you’ll like.
Welcome to Upgrade city. Our new direction takes us back towards something Mutant is very familiar with: Upgrading (for you I Can’t Believe It’s Not Gambling fans, how fun was it upgrading your trash can to a shiny trash can! Then you got to put a hat on your shiny trash can!! Then you got to put a shiny hat on your shiny trash can!!!) Except now you’re going to be upgrading something that affects gameplay (sorry I Can’t Believe It’s Not Gambling marketing team): your Boat.
We’ve already whipped up design docs, and even have a prototype done. I would go into specifics about all the cool upgrades we’re working on, but it’s early yet, and I’d hate for anyone to get their heart set on one, only for us to find that it doesn’t work for our design. So I’ll leave that for another day.
So yeah, that’s the news. Kaiju Fishing is going to be much more mechanics based, and you’re going to be choosing to upgrade your boat with a wide variety of cool attachments (maybe even upgrading your boat to hold even more cool attachments).
Chompy and Sparky
CHOMPY
Hey Kaiju fans, this is just a short update to keep you all in the loop. We’re super hard at work on the Kaiju Fight right now. In fact we’re so dialed in, we sometimes forget to do updates (our bad, we know). We’re working on the structure of the fight (timing and flow, that kind of thing) and we think we’re on the right track. Stormcaller here will have a few different attack modes. One of which is a big old chomp attack seen here.
SPARKY
Another little thing we wanted to show off is some of the little touches we’re adding. Stormcaller here wields the power of lightning so we think it’s important for us to start nailing down some of the vfx you’ll be seeing in game. Here’s a sample of our recent work in that area
That’s all for now. Be sure to check out the Demo and share the game with your friends! Every little bit helps. You can also join our Discord if you want to share your best catches amongst our community and give us feedback. We love seeing all the new faces (well, usernames) who are playing the game and we can’t wait to give you more!
As always, thanks for reading! Stay safe out there. <3 If you want to stay up to date with KAIJU FISHING, you can Wishlist the game on Steam, join our Discord or follow us on Twitter @MutantStudios.
JANUARY DEV UPDATE - THERE'S A STORM BREWIN'!
Week of January 23,
Welcome back to another dev update of KAIJU FISHING. We hope you had a lovely holiday. We had a nice holiday (y'know, aside from our flights through a certain airlines) but we've been back to work for a while now with some ambitious goals for the new year. Last year, we laid the groundwork for most of the game's systems... now we build content. The first thing we want to do is get our boss fight into your hands. We’ve been hard at work animating and building the scene - so let’s just get right into it!
SCHOOLS OF SHARP FISH
Real quick, before we dive into a boss update, here’s a preview of another set of pointy fish you’ll find in the seas of Kaiju Fishing. Enjoy.
WATCH WHERE YOU’RE GOING
Our first boss has a couple of moves in store for you all, the latest in the works is this: a charge that you’ll need to lure into rocks to stun him. Here’s a quick look at the early stages of us breaking rocks.
CALL DOWN THE STORM!
The first Kaiju of the game features a familiar form that will call upon a dark and stormy night to fuel its power and to conceal itself further. On our end, that means we need a storm. Rain. Lightning. Thunder. The whole deal.
We’re still polishing up the effects and audio we want for it, but here’s a sneak peak of our early storm!
FOLLOW US FOR MORE
That’s all we got for ya this week. You might notice the change in title from "Weekly" to just updates. Our new goal is to get an update out juuuust about every other week, but sometimes we'll just be on the grind. We hope you'll stay tuned and stay excited for more KAIJU FISHING.
Be sure to check out the Demo and share the game with your friends! Every little bit helps. You can also join our Discord if you want to share your best catches amongst our community, give us feedback, and get access to the newest test builds. We love seeing all the new faces (well, usernames) who are playing the game and we can’t wait to give you more!
As always, thanks for reading! Stay safe out there. <3
If you want to stay up to date with KAIJU FISHING, you can Wishlist the game on Steam, join our Discord or follow us on Twitter @MutantStudios.
TURKEY TIME!
Week of November 21, 2022
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! (How is it already Thanksgiving?!) We’ve had an… interesting couple of weeks, so I’ll catch ya up to speed. We also have some fun art the team put together for the holiday, as well as some new crustaceans.
We’ll be taking most of the week off to spend time with our families and friends, but we’ll be right back to work next week. We hope you have a lovely Thanksgiving <3
WHAT. IS. HAPPENING.
So we had a fuuuuuun week. It was a comical string of problems - it started with minor Windows issues for one of us (Jeff), then escalated to major Windows problems… for a completely different person (me), and then some illness around the team. We fixed up our Windows crashes (which included buying a new SSD for me) and got rest to recover. Finally we were able to get back on track but it did eat up almost a full week for us.
But, thankfully, this was all capped off with a wedding! Zach’s the latest to enter this new stage of life and we wish him the best.
Fun fact: 75% of the Kaiju Fishing team had weddings in the last year.
CRAB RAVE
While the rest of the team was busy with Windows issues or getting married, Sarah stayed productive. Her week was spent on these lil guys.
These crabs are adorable and we love them. You'll find these fellas sunbathing around the rocks of Kaiju Fishing.
KAIJU HUNGRY, KAIJU EAAAT
To wrap up this holiday update, please enjoy these images that the team put together.
FOLLOW US FOR MORE
That’s all we got for ya this week. It’s time for turkey and Pokemon.
Be sure to check out the Demo and share the game with your friends! Every little bit helps. You can also join our Discord if you want to share your best catches amongst our community, give us feedback, and get access to the newest test builds. We love seeing all the new faces (well, usernames) who are playing the game and we can’t wait to give you more!
As always, thanks for reading! Stay safe out there. <3
If you want to stay up to date with KAIJU FISHING, you can Wishlist the game on Steam, join our Discord or follow us on Twitter @MutantStudios.
WELL THAT'S... KINDA GROSS
Week of October 17, 2022
Welcome back to another update for KAIJU FISHING. We’ve been busy. It won’t all be coming together right away, but we’ve been building more systems and mechanics that are going to be behind-the-scenes boons for our team.
So this week at Mutant, let’s take our first look at the corruption in KAIJU FISHING!
YOU SHOULD GET THAT LOOKED AT…
Just in time for spooky season, we've got our weirdest and grossest update. The world of KAIJU FISHING is being corrupted and the result is a lot of sick orbs that will afflict the creatures and environment. As you explore, you'll be uncovering the mysteries of the corruption and searching for it's cause.
You’ll of course have tools to help cleanse the creatures and environments, but first we have to bring the corruption to life!
And I can’t even begin to tell you how excited Sarah was to start on these Corruption points. She’s a big fan of getting to stretch her imagination and apply some weird and gross textures so this is right up her alley.
What this means for boss fights is you'll have to dodge attacks in order to drain these points on the behemoths in order to calm them.
LASERS ARE STILL FUN
We’re still deep in the testing phase of our Kaiju boss fight and that means a LOT of lasers. Here’s a fun clip of an attack in progress.
This is fine...
FOLLOW US FOR MORE
That’s all we got for ya this week. We'll have more on our lead boss fight and our Collector's role in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!
Be sure to check out the Demo and share the game with your friends! Every little bit helps. You can also join our Discord if you want to share your best catches amongst our community, give us feedback, and get access to the newest test builds. We love seeing all the new faces (well, usernames) who are playing the game and we can’t wait to give you more!
As always, thanks for reading! Stay safe out there. <3 If you want to stay up to date with KAIJU FISHING, you can Wishlist the game on Steam, join our Discord or follow us on Twitter @MutantStudios.
WE'RE A-FIRIN' OUR LAYZAH!!
Week of August 29, 2022
This week at Mutant, we’re a-firin’ our layzah!
Zach’s in full monster mode, ramping up our Kaiju fight systems and getting us ready to really show off what’s going to make Kaiju Fishing the most epic fishing experience you’ll ever have.
KAIJU FISHING BOSS FIGHTS
We’ve gone over the storyboards for the boss fight in previous weeklies and we’ve shown you the big guy in action in our trailers, but now it’s time to put it all together.
To recap: Kaiju Fishing boss fights are going to be broken into a few stages, with mechanics from our usual small and medium fishing as well as the need to use some new and wild tools.
- You gotta get its attention. This will be done with an ancient Summoning Bell (which you’ll charge up by catching other fish). Charging the bell for each area proves your angler skill and proves you’re ready to face the Kaiju. Ring the bell in the arena to call the boss to you.
- Hooking the monster. Easier said than done. This will be different from our usual fishing; it’d be a bit odd to see a Godzilla-sized creature nibble at a normal line, so instead you’ll need to get close and shoot your special plunger-fish at certain points on its body. The plunger fish is a sweet and magical little creature that Sarah concepted which will act as a sort of leech, “cleansing” the monster of the dark energy in it as you fight. (Maybe we'll show that little guy off next week!)
- The Kaiju won't be the biggest fan of you at this point. In fact, it’s gonna want to swat you like a mosquito. Now is when you need to dodge and dodge well. We’ve got a plethora of attacks for each monster - the one we showed off earlier in the summer was the tail slap but there are a few more tricks up our sleeve just for this fight.
- Keep going! If the monster breaks free, hook it again. If you get hit, learn from it and dodge the next. The boss fight itself is still being tuned, but we’re targeting three-ish major phases rotating through the different attacks we’ve got set up for you. Drain all the darkness from the mighty beast and you’ll be the victor.
And that’s it! Easy, right? (Not really, don’t get hit too many times or you’ll have to restart the fight.)
HYPER BEAMS ARE FUN
So I figured now is a good time to show you another sneak preview of one of our attacks - and this is one I hold very near and dear to my heart… the inspiration should be obvious!
Zach did an amazing job with the effect and we all can’t wait to keep pushing our visual effects, plus Sarah’s got the new Kaiju model just about ready to go… oh yeah, it’s all coming together. I hope you’re as excited about this as I am because I am so desperately looking forward to each playtest.
And this is where I’ll leave another reminder that we have a Discord… and it’s a Discord where playtests can and will happen… and you, yes you, will be able to play Kaiju fights early when we’re ready to test the fight… I’m just sayin’.
FOLLOW US FOR MORE
That’s all we got for ya this week.
Thanks for stopping by, have a great weekend!
Be sure to check out the Demo and share the game with your friends! Every little bit helps. You can also join our Discord if you want to share your best catches amongst our community, give us feedback, and get access to the newest test builds. We love seeing all the new faces (well, usernames) who are playing the game and we can’t wait to give you more!
As always, thanks for reading! Stay safe out there. <3 If you want to stay up to date with KAIJU FISHING, you can Wishlist the game on Steam, join our Discord or follow us on Twitter @MutantStudios.
Version 0.0.4.2
Kaiju Fishing Pre-Alpha Demo update 0.0.4.2
Fixed in 0.0.4.2:
- Demo Complete Screen will unfocus button selection - 100% reproduction rate
- Floating Test Plunger - 100% reproduction rate
- Bug Report/Feedback buttons don't let steam close the game - 100% repro - workaround: close the browser that opened up from Bug Report/Feedback buttons
- Tutorial Incorrectly labeled "Reeling" button (in 0.0.4.1 for keyboard/mouse reeling is W, not LMB) - 100% repro rate
- Mouse cursor lost if pausing in Crafting menu - 100% repro rate - workaround: use arrows/enter button to navigate/highlight buttons out of Crafting
- Several minor QoL updates (camera tweaks, better m/k <-> controller input context switching...)
Known Current Bugs:
- 21:9 screen ratio unsupported - 100% reproduction rate
- Medium Fishing plunger not attaching to fish - unable to repro - IF YOU FIND THIS PLEASE REPORT - workaround: restart the game
- Medium Fishing grab arm stuck deployed - unable to repro - IF YOU FIND THIS PLEASE REPORT - workaround: restart the game
- "Phantom" Up input in menus for dual flightsticks attached as input controllers - 100% repro - workaround: unplug all extra controllers
Big shout out to the Alpha Test crew! If you want sneak peeks at the new stuff coming join our Discord and ask for the AlphaTester role for access to the test builds.
Cheers,
Team Mutant
KAIJU USED TAIL WHIP! IT'S SUPER EFFECTIVE!
Week of July 18, 2022
This week at Mutant, let’s get you caught up on how our summer has been: Busy and hot. We’ve had multiple moves for I think everyone on the team this year, so it’s been a little stop and go.
But! We’re feeling inspired. We all took the time this week to watch Sea Beast on Netflix and it was a fun monster adventure. Always exciting when we get a new kaiju movie. I was actually already feeling spoiled for how many movies this last year have ended with a surprise "kaiju" fight, Turning Red being the most surprising.
Anyways, we each came away from Sea Beast with different ideas for our little project so we had a few meetings this week about it. If you haven’t watched it yet, I recommend it.
THE BIG ONE
Here’s a few images of our kaiju in progress. He’s needed a lot of special attention and detailing to be able to do the boss fight we’ve got cooking, so Sarah is updating his model and adjusting some details.
KAIJU USED TAIL WHIP, IT’S SUPER EFFECTIVE!
Oh, did I mention a boss fight? Guess I should show you something about that then, eh? How about a quick tease from some of our earlier work on him. We’re testing his moves with a test-dummy kaiju at the moment because our big boy is still in progress. Zach has been nailing the scale and movement so I'm stoked to show you more in the coming weeks.
This is just one of his attacks we’re testing and implementing: a massive tail slam! I would recommend: dodging.
The monster fight is also the culmination of our mechanics so we are finalizing a lot of tools (which I'll show you more of next week) and polishing our movement even more.
We've got plenty more to showcase with this behemoth and we're planning on having a test fight for him soon... I'm not saying you should join our Discord in case there's a playtest buuuuuuut... (you should join our Discord anyways!)
FOLLOW US FOR MORE
That’s all for this week. Thanks for stopping by, have a great weekend!
Be sure to check out the Demo and share the game with your friends! Every little bit helps. You can also join our Discord if you want to share your best catches amongst our community, give us feedback, and get access to the newest test builds. We love seeing all the new faces (well, usernames) who are playing the game and we can’t wait to give you more!
As always, thanks for reading! Stay safe out there. <3 If you want to stay up to date with KAIJU FISHING, you can Wishlist the game on Steam, join our Discord or follow us on Twitter @MutantStudios.