sgthale

Untitled Project Part 13 - Bugfixing and Christmas

The game will have a simple objective of capture the flag. I am in the process of preparing for release however the build will not be ready until after new years (due to vacation).The flag is automatically picked up when you come in contact with it and then a point is scored.I've been busy bugfixing lots of stuff and making sure everything is in order for a Patreon exclusive release.Stay tuned but also Merry Christmas!

Untitled Project Part 12 - Finished Grenade AI

AI can now throw grenades at enemies! First some superficial improvements.Player models now have improved visuals and look far less flat:They now have a thin outline so that they can be better seen from a distance. This was very useful for snipers or when looking at a distance:And now, grenades.Here's how the grenade AI works:Once an AI controlled player sees an enemy, he will take out a grenade if available and try to find an arc that does not collide with the world:This arc (green lines), can vary in height since world obstacles might be ...

Untitled Project Part 11 - Finished Rifle AI

The AI is now complete for the rifle and came out really well! Using the take cover algorithm from the previous development post, the AI players can now shoot and take cover behind the nearest wall. I tested the result by pitting 10 AI vs 10 AI, team red vs blue.Each AI targets the nearest visible enemy and seem to pop their head out of the terrain to simulate returning fire and taking cover, it is very effective.There were a couple really cool emergent behaviors that I saw. Emergent behaviors are secondary self replicating behaviors arising fr...

Untitled Project Part 10 - AI improvements

Hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving. Recently I added the ability for the AI to take cover. This can be a complex topic but I found a simple solution.First, defining our goal, what is taking cover?Taking cover is simply finding the best place for you to hide behind, preferably close to you. Additionally, you are trying to hide yourself from being seen by a certain point. With this in mind I began by casting rays from the target that the AI is trying to hide from. In this case, a white sphere:The rays extend out in an almost 180 degree fashion so ...

Untitled Project Part 9 - AI and Tesselation!

Huge improvements and additions to the game today.First off, the voxel engine now uses tessellation for much much higher quality surfaces.Generated surfaces no longer look blocky and have smooth curves. The map generation at the moment is still blocky but that's just the generation, the voxels now support the mentioned smooth meshes.There were some additional problems when I first implemented this. Like Minecraft, the game uses chunks to separate groups of voxels for performance. When mesh smoothing was applied (tessellation), there were di...

Untitled Project Part 8

Shovels! Is the latest tool for this game.Shovels can be used to dig obviously. But they will be very useful when trying to reach a certain area or to break up trenches.I'll be adding some effects to make it easier to see the changing terrain. This game is kinda shaping up to be like the old Ace of Spades game but with a modern tinge of realism.You can dig as deep as the map allows you to (about 100 meters).I'm unsure how to handle building as I'd like to keep the map simple for making barricades and what not. But I'll see how i...

Untitled Project Part 7

I want to develop this game FAST. I want to make sure that alongside the creation of this new game, that developer tools are available for users so that they can make their own maps. The problem is that development tools can take a while to make. That's why I'm trying to be smart and make use of existing tools and simply making my game compatible with said tools.As an example, there is now a pipeline from Blender to Unity (as an fbx), that allows one to sculpt, paint, and export a file that can be read by my voxelizer.That brings me to ...

Untitled Project Part 6

Fun goodies this devpost.To start slow, the world data was optimized to increase the map size. I was able to half the memory used for each chunk which allows me to double the map size. Originally the map for the following size used about 211MB of data:But now it uses up to 100MB.With a bigger map comes other challenges as the bottleneck for performance has now been shifted from memory to churning out compute shaders. Some technical details:Before the optimization, each chunk had a 16x16x16 array of infos for each voxel. Each voxel info was a Ve...

Untitled Project Part 5

A ton of work has been complete for the untitled voxel shooter. To start, I picked out some nice textures and added procedural grass on all surfaces of the voxels, giving it a slight cartoony look.As for gameplay, I have decided to go for unique realism. For instance, you can now throw your protective helmet at other players. This exposes your head to one shot kills:However your helmet also provides a 2~3 second stumble against the enemy you throw it at. It's a bit difficult to land a shot so I added a tiny bit of handicap to better guide t...

Untitled Project Part 4

Network syncing is complete! This is really cool because multiplayer pairs really well with a destructible environment game.You can now destroy and physically topple physics voxel objects in the map with other people over the network!The effects are all still a work in progress but it's always fun seeing stuff falling apart and being destroyed. This ties in with the direction I'd like to initially take this game to, a kind of trench warfare game. Specifically, carving out holes in the floor to protect yourself as you try to reach the en...

Untitled Project Part 3

The past few days I've been mostly working on networking. Specifically syncing all things happening in the client and making sure other players can see it.Multiplayer networking is a very complex problem. It's not just a matter of sending the positions and rotations of objects over the network. It is also about figuring out ways to smooth out unreliable highly variable changes due to latency. In shooters this is very important. There are also many props and objects that need to spawn whenever someone shoots. For example the dust, the mu...

Untitled Project Part 2

So, I am slowly starting to piece together how the voxel shooter will play out. It's important you read part 1 so you understand what this is. It should be below this devpost.Anyways, now that I had the tech to build a destructible environment, I decided to move ahead and start the character game development.First I hopped onto Blender and made a very basic rigged dummy:The actual detailed design is totally up in the air but I settled on this as it is easy to modify later. Then what I did is I went to Mixamo and grabbed some animations so t...

Untitled Project

Liminal according to stats is a somewhat difficult. Only about a 3% success rate from the playthroughs though it could be including different playthroughs with the same character.Anyways, for after Halloween I wanted to choose a project that I could really sink my teeth in. I've always been a fan of procedural generation and I wanted to also go back to doing AI like the original Viva project. I stumbled on a voxel youtube video and I asked "Why aren't there many truly destructible environment shooters" out there?The answer is, b...

Story Update Review

Currently I am working to do some small bugfixing for the Halloween public release. So far the game has had 34 unique players. Only 5 people have completed the story so far.In other news, I will be showing the development of the next game in the next devpost.Stay tuned!

Story Mode Update v0.2 Release!

It's here! Game comes with its dedicated launcher that updates the game automatically for bugfixes. Currently the entire game is online and for Supporters only so if you want you can share the launcher link to play with some buddies of yours. Game comes with instructions within but to reiterate:>WASD Movement>E Interact>F Use item>Ctrl CrouchAny bugs, issues, or concerns post them below!The game will release to the public on October for Halloween on 10/16/2022DOWNLOAD: https://sgthale.com/launcher/Releases/LauncherSetup.exe

Story Mode Update Part 13

Almost release day! There have been some superficial changes done to the game.Hints and instructions for when you first jump in have been added.Also, the colors and variation of the rooms now change depending on what zone you are in. Different zones feature different things.There is one new entity. These are called tulip nests and they ████████████. However they have █████ that can be ███████ to prevent ██████████. Could be useful on your quest to escape.Also, graphical issues ...

Story Mode Update Part 12

Final release for the game is September 20th! It will be Supporter exclusive for a few weeks and then a global release will ensue.Today I'll be talking about a cool effect I developed for the game. It's a noisy blurry render effect and it is used by yet another new entity. Image below shows the effect applied to the player (purely demonstration purposes):This effect is used to give the appearance of a shadow and to make it hard to discern what the object is, it works very well in dark places and can be exposed using flashlights. The set...

Story Mode Update Part 11

The core game loop for release is finished. Basically, there are concentric circles around spawn which have something that prevent you from passing unless you have the correct █████.Additionally, entities and general difficulty increases the farther you are from spawn.One new item is the gas mask which can be acquired ██████████ for ███████. It comes with a nice screen effect and muffled sound filters so it feels like you are wearing a mask.Overall the game at some points felt like playing SCP.Stay tu...

August Progress Video

I will be bettering the development blog starting today with the addition of monthly development videos to showcase some of the things that were done. The usual written development blogs will continue. This is just an addition. They are tier 3 only and will become public in a month.Video can be seen [HERE]The game requires one month more to release. So the scheduled release is late September.Stay tuned!

Story Mode Update Part 10

Today's devpost is short as it has mostly been backend work and fixes. But before I get to it I wanted to formally announce the Backrooms photo competition. It's going on at the [Discord]. The winner will receive a camera!All kinds of photography experience are welcomed. You can use your phone or whatever you deem best.As for the game, it has mostly been backend clean up and server maintenance. The game is really shaping up. I want to work towards a release trailer that highlights how much stuff has been added. The game has gotten a kin...

Story Mode Update Part 9

Short devpost today but the game has had a lot of new content added. There are plenty of new items and scenarios. The game is expanding to have a proper mission oriented goal system and the entities are being revamped.Meet the cupcake. The cupcake is a great item that can be found in █████████ or ████████. It provides some health in case it falls.There have been some new effects added for the screen for whenever you suffer an injury. Injuries can slow you down so having a cupcake is handy.Stay tuned!

Story Mode Update Part 8

The past few days I have been finishing textures for new items and working on a new entity.I feel like the game I am making is starting to take shape. Originally I started as a horror multiplayer game, but I have liked the progression it has gone into becoming a horror multiplayer puzzle game.First, I am ensuring the game forms an economy, reasons to revisit areas, reasons for players to trade. This means that every entity, despite being dangerous in some way, will always provide a secondary purpose that will incentivize players to come back to...

Story Mode Update Part 7

Today I am teasing 2 new things and blogging about the compass.First up, the compass.The compass will be used to help you navigate around the map. By combining it with many objects such as ████████, ████████, and ███████, the compass will █████████ ████████ ██████████.No matter where you are it will find the nearest object it is searching for and point you in a direction. It was an interesting problem to solve because the world map is very big an...

Story Mode Update Part 6

Past few days I have been finalizing the design of the launcher. It will be similar to Viva's launcher in which a password will be required to access and play the game.Here is the first rough draft:It was ugly but it had an idea that I was playing with, a hole representing the entrance to the game. In the end, I decided to scrap the idea since entering the backrooms is canonically done by noclipping and representing noclipping in an image is difficult. So I opted for a simpler design that was more relevant for the upcoming story update:The ...

Story Mode Update Part 5

The winner of the poll was the left blurry entity. This was the wall clown! This is a passive entity that does a lot of things. I will only expose a few details about this entity.The wall clown can be found in very rare random locations and appear embedded into walls of the backrooms. These entities are rusty toys that drip blood where they connect to the wall.Wall clowns allow you to stick your hand in its mouth and █████ ███ ████████ alternatively if you have a ███████ ██████ ███...

Which new entity to showcase? Left or right?

Story Mode Update Part 4

Today I am partially showcasing one new item and just talking about some back end work I did.First up, the compass. It's functionality will be kept mostly under wraps but it is a very useful item to help you navigate around the backrooms. It is not a normal compass!In other boring news, I have been working on backend functionality for the inventory. Much of that work was server side but it does allow us to properly share, store, and drop items.In other news, there are 2 new entities complete. One of them is a passive entity and the other is...

Story Mode Update Part 3

Slight change to the release schedule. It will be kept as a Supporter only release for 1 more month as I'd like to release it publicly with the Story Mode Update.Anyways these past few days I worked on the inventory. Big devpost today!So one of the first things I wanted to do with the inventory is to have some kind of item management kind of like how you play inventory tetris in some games, like Resident Evil, etc. However, I wanted to make sure that my game does something novel, just because I had an itch to try something new.This lead to ...

Story Mode Update Part 2

There are at the moment 6 completed story line voiced lines and a simple dialog tree to ask and answer questions. That means that there is now 1 canon storyline character. This character will be pivotal to helping you through the Backrooms and maybe uncover some truths.Additionally this means that there is now a working dialog system already implemented. Here is a sneak peek!I bought some assets to speed up the workflow but I also painted and modeled a small radio for the game:Also, there are 2 new entities in the works. No spoilers on the 2nd ...

Story Mode Update Part 1

The first big update for Liminal will be Story Mode. It will include a proper story quest line that can be completed in a coop fashion, among other things. The central focus will be a new level, the pool backrooms! More on this later.A quick word on the currently released version of Liminal, I've received feedback! And it feels like it is going in the right direction. I had fun jumping in with a group of 4 people and it was fun to see their reactions as they tried to figure out how to navigate through the backrooms. I've aligned my sigh...