Light Repair Team #4
Dev Blog #4 - PAX East!
We've had a bit of a crazy weekend, so I apologize in advance for any mistakes in this blog post.
As mentioned in Dev Blog #3, we were going to be at PAX East this past weekend. Originally, we were planning to go as normal expo-goers; waiting in lines to play demos, swag bag hunting, etc. We thought it was going to be a nice, quiet vacation. On Wednesday however, we got word that CybertronPC needed a last-second VR game for one of their booths. I tweeted out to the person asking for the game, and mentioned Light Repair Team #4. At first we were told the space was filled, but a few hours later (just as we were getting ready to unwind after a long day of moving furniture and boxes around for a family member) we were told that they'd like to use Light Repair Team #4 in their 10x10 booth. We were super-excited about this opportunity (well, about as excited as you could be after working out all day), and accepted the spot. Admittedly, we were a little sad that our vacation turned into a business trip, but this wasn't an opportunity to turn down. In the end, it was a good decision and we're very happy we did it.
Within 24 hours of getting the news, we had arrived in Boston. Almost immediately we went to the convention center and started helping build the CybertronPC satellite booth. If you were at PAX East, the booth was over by the LAN area, right behind the Discord and HTC Vive booths. Being behind the HTC Vive booth was both awesome and extremely terrifying. We were worried that the Vive demo line would cap very quickly (which it did in like 20 minutes) and then the remaining 300 people in line (no joke) would all come over to us, a number we couldn't handle. This didn't happen, but we were constantly demoing from show open time to well after closing. It was a fantastic experience. Tiring, but fantastic.
We'd like to thank everyone who came to the booth, whether it was to try the game or just because we had (probably) the shortest VR game line at PAX (it was still an average of an hour wait). We heard nothing but positive reactions and are super glad that you enjoyed the game. If you didn't enjoy the game, we hope that you at least enjoyed the VR experience. Probably 95% of our demo users had never used VR before us. We're extremely honored to be their first leap into VR. Thank you to everyone who asked questions, came back to try the game a second or third time, and/or provided any form of feedback.
Finally, we'd like to give a massively huge thanks to CybertronPC. Since minute 1, they were absolutely stellar in their support, answering questions and more. They're a very passionate group and we couldn't have asked for a better group of people to work with. We're extremely grateful that they let lil' ol' us use their small booth this past weekend and we'll happily work with them in the future. If you haven't heard of CybertronPC before, check out their website here.
As a side note, the next patch is still coming! This weekend put a bit of a longer delay on launching it, as we found some bugs that we'll need to replicate, isolate and fix. Specifically, prisms seem to acting funny, and there's some crashing bugs that we want to squish. We also need to actually sleep and maybe eat something.
Nom nom.
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If you want to make sure you're one of the first people to know about upcoming features, changes and content to the game, be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter (@EeriebearGames).
Dev Blog #3 - "Oops"
We were hoping to have the new patch that we talked about in Dev Blog #2, available for everyone this week. Unfortunately, we forgot to check on our dev server, and hit an issue where we ran out of space for commits. Oops. Being unable to share files between us, this set us back two or three days while the server was getting a big makeover to free up space. Ontop of that, this patch would be bring a full remake of the backend code, meaning there was a lot of bugs. Some of which, we thought we had nailed down and fixed, but didn't. Oops. This setback pushed the patch launch back just enough that it won't be happening this week, most likely. Starting Weds, we'll be starting to make our way up to Boston to PAX East. Obviously, we can't really work on the game while there, so the patch will come after that. Also, because of this trip, Dev Blog #4 will be delayed.
That all being said, I thought I'd give a bit of an update on whats been done, and a bit more depth on whats included and where we're going.
The controllers: The controllers are now smoothed out. They are still 1:1 motion, but now they're smoothed, so it's less jolty and easier to hit targets at longer distances. Like, it's a LOT easier. Some people have approached me on reddit asking if this is permanent. It's permanent as a feature, but it may not be your only option. One of the upcoming patches will include a new proper intractable menu where you can adjust multiple parts of the game, choose levels and more. We may be able to include the option to toggle this on or off in the new options. We'll touch on that more, later.
The backend code: The game runs a lot smoother now with this code. Noah's done a fantastic job on turning my spaghetti Blueprint code into proper, stable, solid C++ code. With this new code backend, we're able to add new mechanics, features and functionality to the game far more easier than the old backend. You'll also notice the colors of the receivers and lasers are different. If you feel they are worse than originally, let us know.
Visuals:Visually, the game is a bit more receptive. When you successfully connect a beam to its receiver, the receiver now glows brighter than it did before, along with the previous sparking animation. Beams additionally wont judder or shift when theres a dropped frame, or you turn your head too much.
Co-Op puzzles: We've begun the process of looking into what will be needed for LRT4 Co-Op.
Oh, Did I say that out loud? Oops.
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If you want to make sure you're one of the first people to know about upcoming features, changes and content to the game, be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter (@EeriebearGames).
Collect Trading Cards for Light Repair Team #4!
Hey everyone!
As promised in Dev Blog #2, trading cards, profile backgrounds, badges, and emoticons are now available for Light Repair Team #4.
Trading Cards:
As you play your way through the repair jobs of New Corona, you will start to find trading cards of some of the districts and regions of the city appear in your inventory. Each card gives a little bit of story to each of the areas they are representing.
Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges!
Actually, we need badges. They're a requirement to have emoticons. As you collect complete sets of trading cards, you'll be able to turn them in for badges, just like any other steam trading card system.
Rewards!
Completing a badge will earn you special profile backgrounds and emoticons that you can use in any chat. These emoticons were made special so that you can build your own city buildings in any steam chat windows. City building in Steam Chat! Now, why you would need a 15 story building, we don't know. Maybe Frank the Spooky Skeleton needs a home for when he's not spooking the Steam Workshops.
:ledgewindowon::ledgewindowoff::ledgewindowoff:
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We're still working on the next patch, which should coming very soon. You can see more on that over here.
Enjoy everyone!
Dev Blog #2 - The upcoming patch changes and more!
Another development update for stuff coming very soon! We've been mostly taking a short/light break, cooling off after launch. Playing some other VR games, getting caught up on paperwork and answering emails. You know, that kind of dull stuff. That being said, we do have some changes coming to the game within the next week or so, barring any crazy issues that pop up.
- We've updated the tracked motion controllers to be smoother, and shake less. Light Repair Team #4 isn't just a 3D puzzle game, it's also part accuracy game. Noah's implemented some logic (thanks Nathan for that!*) on the controllers that will now smooth out any shaking that people might have, making it far easier for you to hit distant, smaller targets. We like this because it's not really an 'aim assist' system, were the game snaps the beam of light to the target object when it's close, but it's an assist system for people who have hands that might not be the steadiest. We'll be evaluating how people respond to this over the coming weeks.
- Additionally, we've put out the first part of the backend code rewrite. All emitters, receivers, mirrors, lenses and prisms now have had their code rewritten. Fun fact! LRT4 was made almost entirely with Unreal Engine 4's Blueprint system! Blueprints are awesome, but can get extremely large, messy, and slow to iterate/expand on. This new code pass (written by Noah) will allow us to easily add new puzzle mechanics to the game, without all the messiness of spaghetti blueprints. It's not really a visual change, and you shouldn't notice many changes at all, if everything was done right. Naturally, this rewrite opens up the floodgates to new bugs, so if you find them, please report them to the bug thread!
- We noticed that a lot of people were confusing the yellow and orange receiver because they were too similar in color. I've fixed that for the next patch. We've changed the first lens tutorial to combine Red and Yellow, rather than Red and Blue. Additionally, we've added an extra Red receiver and Yellow Receiver, to the level so that the player is forced to see the comparison between all three colors. Hopefully this will help prevent any confusion with seeing the difference between Yellow and Orange receivers. We'll be working on the colors as needed.
- You'll probably also see trading cards, badges, emoticons for Light Repair Team #4 appear very soon (might not be patch day).
These will be just like every other games trading card system. Play to gain cards, trade with friends, buy them off the market, etc. Emoticons and profile backgrounds are included!
Thats it for now. Full patch notes will be included with the patch, when it drops.
Enjoy!
- Eerie Bear Games
If you want to make sure you're one of the first people to know about upcoming features, changes and content to the game, be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter (@EeriebearGames).
*Nathan is the creator of SculptrVR, check it out!
Link to last weeks blog post: The present and the future plans!
Dev Blog #1 - The Present and Future plans for Light Repair Team #4!
First off, thanks for taking the time to read this! If you're reading this AND you've bought the game, thank you even more! We really hope that you enjoy Light Repair Team #4. We've had a lot of fun making it, and we're excited to start talking about some stuff that we're working on right now that will be coming soon. These are our plans, they're subject to change based on what this games landscape, and the VR landscape as a whole is like in the coming months. There's no one in the world right now who knows how VR will work out. As a VR developer, we will need to do a lot of adapting, and thus, our plans will adapt too.
If you want to make sure you're one of the first people to know about upcoming features, changes and content to the game, be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter (@EeriebearGames).
Everything listed, unless mentioned otherwise, are things we're LOOKING at doing, not promises that they will be added to the game. Additionally, nothing here is final until it's in the patch notes!
To start off, here's some things that we're working on right now, and will most likely be coming at some point in the near future.
Roomscale Size!: Right now, we have a roomscale minimum size requirement of 2m by 2m. That's almost close enough to be the minimum size allowed for roomscale. Many of the puzzles are designed in such a way that you can play on small scale, and still get the full gameplay effect, but it's kind of difficult. We'll be looking at properly setting worldscale limits so all roomsizes get approximately the same experience! (Additionally, we're looking into seated scale. This is farther off though, as there is a lot of work needed for that!)
RGB Mode: Currently, Light Repair Team #4 uses RYB additive mixing for its lights. As many people have pointed out during development, lights in the real world use subtractive mixing. We chose RYB because we felt that for the general population, RYB was more intuitive for gameplay. That being said, we want to make sure that everyone who wants to play using RGB, can, so we'll be looking into adding the ability to swap between RYB or RGB mode. In both cases, all three lights will mix into the color while.
Colorblind mode: We want to make sure that we're as accessible to as many people as possible, this is the first step. We are not sure how colorblind mode will manifest itself, but it is something that we are planning to include.
The backend code: To make RYB/RGB mode swapping and colorblind mode possible, we have to rewrite a lot of the backend code. This will take some time to do, but is overall a net positive! It will allow us to polish the feel and visuals of all the puzzle mechanics, along with easily being able to add and implement new, deeper puzzle mechanics.
Content!: Also, when these updates come out, there will be additional puzzles for everyone to try. These puzzles will most likely be harder than the later game puzzles, but we'll see.
You!: Additionally, we'll be looking and responding to all the feedback that we hear from everyone who plays! If you have feedback, of any sorts (positive or negative, we love both!) post it in this forum. We at Eerie Bear Games believe in the idea of a more open type of development. We'll keep some things secret, so we don't ruin it for you, but if we're working on something, you'll know why. If we're working on something and realize it sucks, we'll tell you why. We think it's really silly to not do this, you guys want to know whats going on behind the scenes, so we'll keep the blinds open so you can peek in.
Ontop of EVERYTHING ELSE, there is more that we are looking at for the future: new modes, new puzzles, new quality of life features, stories, environments, cities and more. In the coming future, you'll start to hear some of the ideas that we have for content in the future. Let us know what you think!
Enjoy everyone!
- Eerie Bear Games