Hello everyone, I apologize for the lack of updates on Sundowner. I understand that it may seem like the game doesn't even exist, but I am still working on it. Balancing school and this project have been a challenge, especially as a solo developer with limited funds. Last year felt like a huge waste, as my life was very turbulent.
What's New?
Although progress may be slow, I have been making improvements to the procedural generation. One of the recent tasks I have tackled is creating a system where structures can flatten the ground around them to avoid clipping with the terrain. While this may result in some jarring effects on the terrain near hills or mountains, it improves the overall placement of structures in the game. Here are a few pictures of it in effect, along with a few pictures of it not working.
First, it made a huge cylinder.
Then, it was in the center but still too tall.
Lastly, everything was just right.
This is the biggest reason for this, as it is impossible to procedurally place landmarks without flattening the ground.
While yes, this game is the VR version of Rust like how Pavlov is the VR version of Counter-Strike, I do not plan on having the same style of monuments (and I want this to be my own game). While there are going to be procedurally placed landmarks, they will be modeled after a more rural area, with likely the "monuments" being either campsites, fake abandoned player buildings, small towns, or homestead-like landmarks.
Logo changes
I am really bad at logo design. But I have made changes to the logo for the third time now. I think the style is really improving though. The biggest reason I changed the logo is that I am likely going to start a Kickstarter once I have a vertical slice demo thingy, and I want a good one.
"Sundowner Sun logo"
"Sundowner Badge logo"
The badge is mainly for use when putting the logo over screenshots, and I think it would also look better on clothing and merch if I make some. Though it does remind me a bit too much of supreme.
Social Media...
I am going to try to actually develop some sort of social media presence so that people actually know about the game... Probably short-form content videos and Twitter...
While progress may be slow, I am still working on the game and making improvements where I can. Thank you for your patience to the 200+ wishlisters.
Postponed!
Hi everyone.
I have decided to take a break from development for a while. The past few weeks I haven't had much motivation to continue as I am busy with life, and it's dragging me down. If I wasn't a solo developer, it would be easier to continue, but I need a break from this game for now. VR is very tedious to work on alone. If work is continued, it will be in a month or so.
March Devblog (Procedural Gen Devblog)
Welcome back!
Not many people looked at the last devblog, but if you are reading this, you likely read the previous one. Doesn't really matter, I like not having much attention because it allows me to do various changes without worrying about community impact. Though it can hurt because I don't have an external voice telling me if something I am doing is wrong. Anyways! Updates!
Failed gun demo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bs4HE73AaVA
I tried making some sort of video for the steam page. Sadly, after editing I noticed the cursor was in the middle of the screen, meaning I have to remake it. I am fine putting it here, but there was no way I was gonna put that on the steam page. There are also other various errors, such as the bullets in the mag not rendering properly, or how weird the IK on the arms seem to be. I will make a better one sometime this weekend.
Procedural!
I started this game last June in 2021. It started off not the prettiest. Here is the earliest screenshot I have of the generation. Basically is just spawned one of many natural objects on each vertex of the map mesh. And the map looked like this:
Afterward, I changed up the shaders to give a more toon look, along with that low poly triangle shading, as shown
Then I updated the trees that are placed with an asset pack I had bought, along with adding far more variation to the procedural resources and nature that spawned.
But after polishing with better textures, shaders, new nature, and many new things, it is way better looking!
Without the nature
With it
Grass
As you could see in older pictures, the grass was probably weird-looking. This is because they were objects, and therefore placed like they were a tree, a building, etc. That isn't too efficient. Like this:
So I tried using a geometry shader.
The only issue is that I couldn't control where it was. And then when I could, it was very slow when dense, which if the grass is spare, doesn't look too good. Even when I introduced a draw distance, it still didn't seem to help with the issue. Turns out, the issue was that even though the grass wasn't being rendered, the mesh was still being tessellated, which is the main thing causing issues. With that discovered, now it could run fast!
This scene would've run at 30-60fps, in the editor, without VR turned on. Now in the same conditions, it runs at 500fps!
Procedural Buildings
Before I thought it would've been incredibly hard to place buildings and other various things. But after I changed up the procedural object spawner, it was actually way easier. These were the first two I have made, and more will be made. They will likely be similar to buildings players can build, but they will have features to make them be different.
In the future, I hope to be able to bake some sort of mask to prevent the grass from spawning under buildings.
That is all for now
I think that is all I have to share, for now, there might be more updates as I get into the habit of working more, it just has been hard being a solo developer.
An update for once!
Radio silence has been broken
Not much has really been said really. I know I should keep up with posting updates and all but I kinda didn't even realize there were more than a hundred wishlists out there in the wild. But I am here posting this update because there are like no videos, no updates, no devlog posts, so I feel like I owe it to some people to actually give a damn update once in a while.
So.... the release date has changed?
Yeah.... I kinda moved the release date. Games are hard. They are even harder to make alone. I'll probably make a team if I make some money from Sundowner, but right now I'm just a college kid working a part-time job trying to meet the rent each month. Mixing that with the fact that I'm pretty ADHD and get distracted easily, it makes solo dev a little harder. So at first, the expected release date was the end of last year, but then I moved it to March, and now it is September to actually give me some time to at least get what counts as an early access game on Steam. I want to have the game be fun and enjoyable and working before I open up the purchasing flood gates, as I don't want to be labeled as another shitty early access survival game (Am I even allowed cuss in these posts?).
How much will it cost?
Currently, I plan on a $9.99 release price. It will probably go up after early access is over, but until then I don't think people should risk so much money on an EA title. Cheap for a VR title to be honest, but I don't want players forking up $20-$30 for a low poly survival game they might hate and refund.
Where can I find updates on work?
This is the hardest part, to be honest, doing content creation and updates. You get so caught up in work and then people are left in the dark and become uninterested. If there is anyone reading this and there haven't been any updates in a while, annoy me through email or the comment section. I am currently building a website that will be hosted on Github, and it will host the devblog updates as well. I'll try my best to give updates as much as I can, maybe every 1-2 weeks, but I know I might falter a bit on that. So far I have only really made the front page. I am new to front-end website development, as I mostly have done game development most of my life, but it isn't that bad. There is also a Twitter that never gets posted to despite how much I should post to it: https://twitter.com/SundownerGame
Wasn't there a playtest announcement??
Hahahaha, yeah... well about that. The game wasn't really too ready and I forgot I even said that. Doesn't help that I tried turning the game into VR tarkov no even thinking about the troubles that would come from that, thankfully I've brought the game direction back to what I promised on the steam page, though it did kinda waste a bit of time, though it did help me create the weapon system for the game at the very least. There might be a playtest coming in maybe a couple of months.
That is all for now
If there are any questions please feel free to ask them, and if anyone really wants any builds I could always set up a place to test early builds, probably on Github, but once I release the playtest the GitHub will go away, especially once released.
