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[Araph]

PC Version
Mac Version

Game in about an hour, then another game three hours after that.

[GentlemanRaptor]

Teamspeak channel is up, under "Other".

[My Name is Immaterial]

A. What's the Teamspeak address? Figured it out.
B. Is there still a game later tonight? Nevermind, is stupid.

[Araph]

Okay, we're actually gonna just leave it at that. That is, no second game today.

[Aseaheru]

Awww...

[Tilla]

Should throw some screens in the OP for those who are too busy or mobile to video. I tend to prefer to check screens to vids myself even though I'm at my desktop. Still going to check it out mind  but something to think about

[Criptfeind]

It's not much, but here are a few screenshots I took a few games ago when I was dead and in observer mode.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

He's a shot from the viewpoint of a warden hiding in the ruins from the monster. The monster just ducked behind one of those walls.


This one is from the monsters point of view as it sneaks up on a warden. It also teaches us all a important lession about how just because you are standing in shadow, you might still be visible because of your silhouette.



This is again from the wardens prospective and he hides and keeps a wary eye out for monsters.



In a much better hiding spot, the warden relaxes for a moment as he watches the sea.

Edit: I've resized the images to make them easier to see all at once. I think if you click them they will blow back up to normal size.

[Araph]

It's not much, but here are a few screenshots I took a few games ago when I was dead and in observer mode.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

He's a shot from the viewpoint of a warden hiding in the ruins from the monster. The monster just ducked behind one of those walls.


This one is from the monsters point of view as it sneaks up on a warden. It also teaches us all a important lession about how just because you are standing in shadow, you might still be visible because of your silhouette.



This is again from the wardens prospective and he hides and keeps a wary eye out for monsters.



In a much better hiding spot, the warden relaxes for a moment as he watches the sea.

Edit: I've resized the images to make them easier to see all at once. I think if you click them they will blow back up to normal size.

That's fantastic! Do you mind if I link those in the OP?

Also, game news that will seem very minor but could turn into something awesome. This...



...is a bump.

Spoiler: Dear God. (click to show/hide)

There's more.

Specifically, it's a procedurally generated starting area with three smoothing passes. This is the first time I've looked into procedurally generated terrain, but a few of the players at the last testing session pointed out that the map is too easily memorized, and asked whether I had considered procedural generation. I hadn't put much thought into it, given how inexperienced I was earlier in the development cycle, but at this point I decided that I'm competent enough to pull it off.

So this morning I started working on terrain generation. I hadn't done anything besides use Unity's in-editor terrain system, but I have a simple terrain creation system set up already. It can take 'rooms' (areas, either outside or inside) and project them onto a terrain mesh.

While it currently only has the one predefined starting area, my task now is to work out a simple logical process to grow areas off of that; for example, it starts with a random number of exits from the starting area, determines biomes of sorts (not necessarily biomes, but they can be defined as hills, valleys, forests, ruins, etc.) that can logically connect to the current area, and repeat until the map is filled.

Where is the system at now? It can read room data, display it on a terrain, and smooth sharp edges. Beyond that, it will need to be able to create paths (smoothing specific areas so players can walk up and down them), apply textures (I have an idea for using the slope normals and path data for that), and create rooms. Rooms need to be able to place prefabs (boulders, cliffsides, trees, etc.) in logical spots, but that's a problem for a later date. Not much later, but at least a few days from now.

Will this work? Who knows! Let's find out.

[My Name is Immaterial]

That sounds awesome!

[Facekillz058]

This does indeed, very awesome.
Also, a list of suggestions for possible future monsters:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A gargoyle type monster that can possible glide off of cliffs and hills, doing extra damage if attacking while actually gliding. Possibly slow enough to easily outrun on the ground. (I think full blown flight would be a bit overpowered in a game like this.)
A monster than can turn players around, like, instantly 360 degrees at close range, bringing the player face to face with the monster, applying many shits into many pants.
A banshee type that can possibly switch between different types of wails, such as one that can slow, add insanity to, or damage the wardens if within range.
Perhaps something that can run up walls? A giant spider or something. Perhaps with a poison bite that can disorient Wardens, and see in the dark by default, because 8 eyes, but because of that, even higher vulnerability to blindness. (I'm arachnophobic, make it happen)
Some sort of tentacle creature with mid-ranged attacks.

Also, as to the hot-cold system for the monsters, maybe it could vary by monster?
Like, what if Banshee had echolocation, that returned a sound with varying noise and direction based on the nearest warden.
Gargoyle could have some kind of heat vision, but it would only show wardens that were far away, that way Wardens could still actually hide from the monster.
The Cat could have some kind of scent system, perhaps Wardens would leave a trail for a little bit after casting a spell or while sprinting?
Spider could leave webs that trigger some sort of alarm when they get walked into.
Specter could have that frosty screen border thing someone suggested, given I see specters as a sort of ice-cold thing.
Prop hunt could perhaps leave bells around that make noise when run into?
Tentacle Monster might just have to wing it, I don't know what that could have.

EDIT: ALSO: Creepy ambiance.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Banshee, I would assume, would take the form of a ghostly floating bloody woman, maybe holding a baby or something? It could make a super creepy crying sound, but after a wail, perhaps the baby would start crying for a little while too?
Spider could have the typical movie sounds for spiders, clicking and clacking and all that.
Gargoyle could possibly have a sound it makes when, like the sound something big makes when it flies through the air really fast.
Cat could growl whenever it was near a Warden, (Perhaps that could be it's hot-cold variant?)

Also, perhaps could we rebind our keys eventually? F is kinda weird as the attack button for monsters.

[Criptfeind]

Good luck! It seems like a fairly large thing to do, but if it works out it could be really cool.

That's fantastic! Do you mind if I link those in the OP?

Sure, feel free to do as you wish.

[Araph]

Okay, I've made it so that rooms are randomly sized and shaped, avoid overlapping rooms that were generated before them, and avoid the edges of the map. Next up is getting points on room borders to create adjacent rooms from and automatically painting textures based on terrain normals. However, as I've spent the past five and a half hours working on this brain-frying puzzle, I think I'm just gonna spend the rest of the day playing vidya games.

[Araph]

Day 2 of procedural generation:



You can see four distinct rooms. Smoothing was turned off to make it easy to tell them apart, and heights are completely randomized right now; in the future, elevation will be based off of the adjacent rooms with some randomization (to contrast between cliffs and hills). Textures are applied based on the ground's slope.

The rooms often overlap, but I'm working the kinks out of the system today. It'll reliably create independent rooms soon enough, but at least it no longer breaks itself by trying to create rooms outside of the terrain's area.

EDIT: I think, given time constraints (i.e. the fact that a robust enough procedural generation system is a whole project on its own) I'm going to, at the very least, set aside procedural content for now. It's been interesting puzzling out the logic of the system, but I'm going to take a different approach to the replayability problems: letting players create their own maps. One of the first projects I ever worked on in Unity was a virtual tabletop that allowed DMs to create their own maps in 3D space and sync them with the client players. At least with this approach, I know I can recreate a similar system within a relatively short time.

Also, now I know how to edit terrain with scripts, which means people can create their own terrains in-game and add props to them! Learnin' something new everyday.

[BadLemonsXI]

Woohoo keep up the good work. Looking forward to play testing it with you guys again.

[Aseaheru]

The TS is down for a while, so where are we gonna go and talk?