For video-based devlogs see my YouTube channel. The updates will also be published in written form here in Steam. These updates follow approximately every 4 weeks.
New Features
Camera Shake
First, I want to briefly cover what you may have already seen on my channel. I have implemented Camera Shake in the game. It's about the camera having a movement next to the character. The goal is to clarify the current animation or what is happening. If you are more interested, there is a detailed tutorial about it on my channel, which I have linked to you here.
Another completed theme is now Ryan's soul, which is his teacher in a separate world throughout the game. In the background you can see a rendering of him. He is tall and mysterious. By the way, this is the first character I've rigged with Auto-Rig Pro. I finally have a better basis for the animation than with Riggify, which I used before.
In the game, he appears in the small ruin for upgrades of the player and to learn on the battlefield. Currently, he still has purely idle animations, since the basis for special abilities has not yet been created. I also want to get better with state machines and the associated behavior trees.
NPC Lina
Besides Ryan's soul, I was able to complete a second NPC that is relevant to the game. It is Lina, Ryan's girlfriend. She is also a healer and will travel around the world in the game. She will play an important role in the treatment of the patients and will need Ryan's help to find an antidote against the disease.
Ryan reworked
Something that has bothered me for a while was the main character. He is now finally revised. Both his appearance and all animations. From the exterior he got new hair, a slightly revised torso and a cape. The cape should also have a purpose and should later replace the HUD if possible.
His 31 existing animations have been completely redone. You will notice this in this devlog and in following devlogs later. The base is now also good enough that I can quickly adjust existing animations if needed.
Soul Abilities
One of the most important features has been implemented. It is the soul abilities, which the player can unlock. They provide certain abilities. Currently planned are the following:
Create soul potion, with the ability similar to a fairy in Legend of Zelda.
The ability to exit a dungeon or building directly. But is also used to leave the shadow world
The ability to enter the shadow world
Enable switching between day and night. This is important for various missions
To strengthen yourself for a short time, where you receive less damage and deal more damage
Currently, the effect is still purely visual, but will be implemented time by time with the unlock.
Further
Further implementation of the Old Library Dungeon. Especially in the main mechanics
More 3D models are in the revision, currently the vegetation
More NPCs are currently created on the side
Upgrade up to Alpha 16
What are my plans for the coming weeks?
The following things are planned to be implemented in the coming weeks.
By means of tests try to replace the HUD with the cape
Continue to work on the Old Library Dungeon and its Boss
Continue to improve 3D models and create NPC
Insert first story elements
Development Update
For video-based devlogs see my YouTube channel. The updates will also be published in written form here in Steam. These updates follow approximately every 4 weeks.
New Features
Scene Manager
I have been working on a new system that helps me manage scenes. Automatically a loading screen is switched in between and the resources are loaded in the background. I had to search a bit to find out how to load stuff in the background in Godot 4, since it has changed from Godot 3.
Namely, I implemented three methods. The first and simple one is to switch from one scene to another. The second is that when switching to another scene, a cutscene is played in between. The third method is that a cutscene is played, the current scene is put into the background and after the cutscene it continues where you left off.
The technique implemented here is not to be confused with streaming 3D models. I would like to optimize this later in my case, but this does not work yet, because despite the data loading in the background lags occur.
Cutscenes
Already mentioned, there are now cutscenes in my game. It's implemented very simply, with the cutscene technically being a class with simple methods and signals for handling. For the cutscene itself I use an AnimationPlayer, which starts automatically. Once the animation has finished playing, or the cutscene is cancelled, the signal is triggered that the cutscene has finished. When I started this, I wanted to try it out with the intro of the game, which you can see in the background. If you are interested in the complete intro, you can find it in my videos, where I have uploaded it completely. For cutscenes in the game, I will prepare them mainly in Godot. Whereas I will do all animations in Blender.
Shadow World
In the background you can see a first version of the shadow world. It will be further revised. Also, I haven't gotten around to implementing Ryan's soul yet. The shadow world consists of three islands located in a sea of fog. They are connected by small wooden bridges. On the first island there is an area where Ryan's soul will teach him how to use his abilities properly. During the game Ryan will enter this world again and again to ask for a second chance after death or to learn new abilities. On the second island there is a small ruin. Here Ryan's soul is waiting to communicate with him. But it is also used for rituals. On the third and smallest island you will find a big tree. In front of the tree a special merchant. I will talk about this merchant and his offer as soon as it is relevant.
New tiling textures
As you might have already seen, not all textures are known anymore, which were used. I’ve been busy renewing my current tiling textures, which you can see in the background next to the old ones. On the left side the previous textures and on the right side the new textures. There are also a few new ones, which I need later. In my opinion, the new textures are more understandable and visually appealing. In contrast to the old textures, where I created them using Substance Painter, I created them procedurally with MaterialMaker.
Alpha 13 & Alpha 14
Godot has released two new alphas during the time since the last devlog. There are only a few new features coming out. They are mostly fixes and stabilizations for an upcoming beta.
Just to mention, Alpha 13 was very stable and pleasant to work with. Only Label3D elements were broken and the font had to be re-set. Alpha 14 on the other hand was more critical. OGG files for music had to be re-imported because the class name was slightly adjusted. But mostly it broke the shaders in the game for me. Some shader settings were completely reset. I assume this is related to the fact that the methods for handling shader parameters have been renamed. What we also noticed is that this version is much more unstable. Godot crashed on me a few times after playing audio files and when reimporting images. Mainly EXR files, which I use partly for roughness textures and normal maps.
While we are talking about changes to Godot, I would like to mention that some important people from the community have created a commercial company W4 Games. This, according to my understanding, is for Godot to continue to grow up. It provides a company for support for large companies. Also, later on, they offer the possibility that we can publish our games on consoles more easily. Godot itself could never do this, because of the open source strategy. As a first act, they provided Direct3D 12 as an alternative to Vulkan. This is needed for the export to XBOX. As of now, this change still needs to be merged into the branch for Godot.
Further
Still briefly mentioned, since I can not show these things:
Final concepts of the boss for Old Library Dungeon
Course taken to make better animations
Several things are revised besides the shown new textures
What are my plans for the coming weeks?
The following things are planned to be implemented in the coming weeks.
Finish the shadow world
Finish Ryan's soul
Continue to work on the Old Library Dungeon and its Boss
Continue to improve 3D models with new know-how
Integrate soul abilities into the game
Development Update
For video-based devlogs see my YouTube channel. The updates will also be published in written form here in Steam. These updates follow approximately every 4 weeks.
New Features
Old Library Dungeon
I have been actively working on the dungeon since the last devlog. From the planning the dungeon is finished and I started with the effective implementation.
As you can see in the background, I started with all the details and the implementation of the concepts. It is planned that except for the main room and the entrance, the complete layout of the dungeon can be changed by the player. The player is also given the opportunity to activate and deactivate energy fields using special crystals. This gives the opportunity to explore new areas. The boss of the dungeon is roughly sketched, but not yet final. What do you think could be a typical boss for the dungeon?
I can't and don't want to spoiler more at this point. This is because I still want to give you the opportunity to explore this dungeon for yourself later, once the game is released.
Damage Indicator
From a comment from a colleague, I improved the visual feedback when an opponent is hit.
Since I don't want to show blood in my game, I decided to make the enemy flash red briefly when damaged. This is visually very recognizable. I think at a later stage when I make the combat system more complex, I will add some additional effects. Furthermore, the shader for this representation is designed so open that I can also change the colors and intensity so that I can also represent poisoning or burns visually better.
NPC Concepts
What has been missing from the worlds so far are NPC's. They are essential not only to liven up the world, but also to get quests or to create a certain bond between player and NPC. Therefore I have created various concepts of NPC's. Important here was for me that these are very individual and playful. This is something that always excites me in Legend of Zelda, anime or JRPGs. Still briefly in advance I would like to mention that these are only concepts. I deliberately decided against designing the face or adding colors. I do this so that I can freely express myself in 3D modeling according to my abilities and imagination.
Now let's take a look at the concepts.
As you can see, all NPCs have their own traits and characteristics, which makes them special. However, I would only like to go into detail about the last concept: Ryan's soul. As already mentioned, there will be a more complex combat system later on. It is important to note that not all abilities are available at the beginning. This is where Ryan's soul comes into play, which is supposed to teach and unlock these abilities.
That's why the soul also has its own sword, which is important. This is similar to Twilight Princess, where you are also trained in a separate world by the Hero's Spirit. Since it is the representation of the soul and therefore does not fit directly into the main world, it is only visible in the shadow world. Additionally, the soul is Ryan's companion, similar to Navi, Fi or Ezlo from Legend of Zelda. However, I don't want to make him as intrusive as the mentioned companions. It is only necessary to learn the skills with him. Otherwise, it is up to the player to decide how often he wants to receive tips.
Alpha 11 & Alpha 12
As we already know, new alphas of Godot keep coming out. This time it was Alpha 11 and Alpha 12, both of which are very important and bring us closer and closer to a beta.
Let's take a look at Alpha 11 first. This one had problems again and showed me a blank page with errors on startup. After browsing the files, I found that a lot of the UI was corrupted. Godot changed the hierarchy to a flat one and gave me strange names. I was then allowed to redo the complete UI based on the previous alpha and the state in GIT. Still, this alpha brought many fixes and a cool new movie maker mode. I used it directly for the recording in the dungeon. This is not recommended for live gameplay, because it is very laggy even in lower resolution and you have no sound during playback. This is of course in the video then no problem, there you have the set FPS and audio.
An Alpha 12 has also been out for a few days now. This has changed the way fonts are handled. Therefore I had to re-import my fonts. After that I had to reimport them into my theme. Unfortunately it kicked out the theme everywhere in the UI, so I had to go through all the elements with UI and relink the theme. Starting the game was not possible before and there was no error message. According to the news from Godot, we are getting closer and closer to a beta. This also means that we are getting closer to a feature freeze. So it is then also clear that all features are added and you can work with them. Since more developers will then try out the engine, it can be assumed that afterwards mainly bug fixes and optimizations will come.
New “Rework 3D” series
Further I would like to announce here a new series with the name "Rework 3D". Namely, I have taken the approach to improve the game visually again and again with the current know-how of me. Also there are currently some placeholders, which are not really nice to look at. For example all the vegetation, chairs, benches, tables, houses and NPC's. Instead of doing this secretly, I would like to document this on YouTube as well. I think it will be mainly uncommented videos, where in faster playback time the 3D models are created or revised. I will also try not to include spoilers here. Due to transparency, I would then always briefly show at the end in the devlogs which 3D models were changed.
What are my plans for the coming weeks?
The following things are planned to be implemented in the coming weeks.
Continue with the Library Dungeon
Implement the shadow world with Ryan's soul. Both for cutscenes and a learning area where you can later learn the new skills.
Create possibility to load scenes in the background
Implement cutscenes, which can be loaded dynamically
Development Update
For video-based devlogs see my YouTube channel. The updates will also be published in written form here in Steam. These updates follow approximately every 4 weeks.
[h1New Features]
Old Library Dungeon
I continued to work on the second dungeon. Unfortunately, I didn’t get as far as I wanted because I had to implement some important things you can see that later.
But I made good progress with the concept of the dungeon, which plays with magic and has many special puzzles. In addition to the fact that some things can be shown and hidden, a very large part of the dungeon can also be influenced. Despite the fact that the concept of the dungeon "only" has 4 levels, but actually plays in a large tower, it has the feeling of being in a tower through the many stairs.
With the dungeon item, you will be able to unlock even more special puzzles. I got a lot of inspiration from Ocarina of Time and the Zelda games on handheld consoles.
Originally I had the idea to work with pictures, similar to Super Mario 64. You should then walk around in a 2D world and change the structure of the dungeon in there. Unfortunately, however, this is too complex and I did not come up with any ideas how I should contribute this meaningfully. To use pictures simply as teleport I found too boring, although I wanted to describe the story of the world. But since it is a library, there are enough ways to explore the history of this world.
Music
A very important element in games is the music, besides sound effects it is another element that gets very little attention. Although a game without music seems very boring.
I have implemented this with areas, which as soon as the player enters an environment, passes this event to a singleton. In my example you can see three areas, which play different music depending on how you enter. I have now distributed these in the actual game world, so that you always get the correct music played.
New Species (Concept)
An exciting and unique element for me in the Legend of Zelda games are the different species you interact with in the world. This does not mean opponents, but friendly people. This is something I absolutely want to have in my game.
So I made concepts for two species that I want to share with you.
I want to start with the snow folk, which can be found mainly in the north. The Snow Folk is based on the eurasian eagle owl, which for me is a very intelligent and mysterious animal. These qualities, I have incorporated into my concept, so the owls are an intelligent and knowledge-hungry folk. Therefore, they live for science and also have points of contact with magic. They don’t let everyone into their territory. One must first prove to them that one is worthy to move and act in their territory. For outsiders, this first seems like a cult, but it’s a kind of defense that you only recognize once you can explore more of it.
The other species is the water folk. They like to live near water and there are rumors about a small village in the sea. The species is based on ferrets, which are very playful animals. So I also wanted to transfer these characteristics, so the species is creative and playful. They are distributed as loners in different places in the world and like to get involved in the places. But you have to be careful, because they like to defend themselves with traps, which are not always so obvious.
Point of Interest
In order to better understand some puzzles and interactions, I decided to implement the point of interest.
The character therefore looks for exciting points, which is special to look at. To make it look realistic, I have oriented myself on how we humans deal with such points. Although we often have several points in our field of vision, we concentrate on one. If something new comes into our field of vision, we orient ourselves to it, as it could possibly be a danger. But if we focus heavily on something, for example in a fight, you don’t change the focus away from the target.
Lock on Target
Another topic I had to tackle was the implementation of the Lock on Target concept. It is now possible for the player to focus on a target and the camera is focused on the target. This makes it easier for the player to move in a fight and to fight more accurately.
The idea is from a comment from a devlog, which makes me very happy. Implemented it is a bit different than with Point of Interest. As soon as the player wants to focus, it is analyzed which targets are in a defined area.
After that, these targets are sorted by distance and the focus is placed on the target that is closest to the player.
If the player presses the button to change the target, the same logic is applied, where the second target is selected after sorting by distance.
If the button is pressed again to change the target, the target closest to the player is selected again.
Bow
The next item of the second dungeon is already known from various sources, it is the bow. This is not only interesting for combat, but is also well usable for various puzzles. The bow makes heavy use of the lock on target, otherwise it is not useful.
As in other games, the bow will also play a big role here. As you could already guess in the inventory, there will be three types of arrows, with the bow unlocking the standard arrows. The two other types can later be unlocked in other ways.
Soul Guard
In the trailer, a new creature is visible, the Soul Guard. He is the source of why the chaos broke out in the game world and the ten dungeons were created.
He wears a hoodie and hides his face, his pure existence driven by the power of souls. How it came about, what drives him and how he can be fought, you can find out yourself in the game.
Alpha 9 & 10
Finally, I would like to mention that two wonderful alphas of the Godot engine were released during development.
What exactly has changed, I do not want to go into detail.I have packed the links to the news of both alphas in the description.
But I would like to mention that in the alpha 9 the names in the shader have changed slightly in the definition, which has destroyed some shaders.
One positive thing is that in the Alpha 10 a script has been added for the first time, which allows projects created in Godot 3 to be ported to the Godot 4. So if you have a project that you want to port, this should now be much easier.
What are my plans for the coming weeks?
Continue with the Library Dungeon
Creating concepts for NPCs
Add a damage indicator for better visual feedback
Development Update
For video-based devlogs see my YouTube channel. The updates will also be published in written form here in Steam. These updates follow approximately every 4 weeks.
New Features
Main Island
The main island of the game is created, it is the largest island the game will have. It will be a hub of the game, as many activities are linked here. As you can see, the Great Tower is the library, the second dungeon in the game with a cool new item. Why this library is so important is due to the history of the game world. You can experience them in the game and I will not reveal them during the devlogs. In the game, some characters are robbed of their souls, which has demanded that both a hospital and, unfortunately, a graveyard must be available. This is also the reason why some things are not available at the beginning. As a player, you gain the power to heal individuals, which unlocks further activities. The main island has besides the already mentioned a shop, a temple, a museum, two mini-games and much more. I also made many new textures that can be reused. They are not perfect yet, but they help to have sharper textures and I am able to create buildings faster.
Day Night cycle
In the video you have seen that now also a day-night cycle is available. I found a cool shader on the internet, modified it for my purposes and integrated it. This is also linked in the description. This cycle also includes various events to react to and eight moon phases. Over time, I want to expand this feature further, so that various weather conditions can be mapped. Some things in the game can only be done at certain times. What these are must be found out in the game by talking to NPC or by treasure maps. I was inspired to do this at the very beginning of the project.. In Legend of Zelda Wind Waker, this is also an important part of the game. I found this cool, but still expandable. In order not to have to wait several cycles, there will be the possibility later to enforce certain conditions.
Sound Effects
Since last time I started to add sound effects, it’s mostly done, but there are still a few missing. I completely underestimated the effect of these sounds, these effects make the world much more alive. Therefore, I will install them directly in the future, as far as possible. During development, I added over 100 effects. Music is not yet built into the game, but I want to tackle it in the near future. So if you’re making a game yourself, incorporate sound effects as early as possible, even if you’re initially just using placeholders.
Further
I also added some more little things, which I prepared for you in a short version:
First plans for the second dungeon have been made, I have some ideas for the dungeon and I am looking forward to your reaction. Since we are here in a library, a core element of the puzzle will be these stories.
Models with emissions had memory problems that are now fixed. The textures were installed twice, because I did not know that GLTF are now exported cleanly with emissions.
The start screen has been reworked and now shows the progress of the game visually.
If you know Legend of Zelda, you know that we not only have humans there but also other species, which I want to incorporate into my game. Currently I plan two special species: one for the snow area and one for water and forest areas.
Planned features until the next devlog
Continue with the Library Dungeon
Integrate music into the game, which changes depending on the environment
Develop concepts of the two species addressed
Possibly start to integrate in-game cutscenes
Development Update
Devlog and current status
For video-based devlogs see my YouTube channel. The updates will also be published in written form from now on here in Steam. These updates follow approximately every 4 weeks.
Current status
All these features have been implemented so far:
Starter Island
Soul Hunter Island
Mine Dungeon
Sky Dungeon Statue
Main Character
9 enemies (4 fully completed)
1 Boss
A large number of assets, some of them decorative and others interactive
The journey with the ship
Full UI including settings, inventory, map and tasks
Full controller and keyboard support
Some helper classes like State Machines, Hitboxes or Loottables
