DevBlog #58

This month I mainly worked on the climbing features for the hypsilophodon and herrerasaurus. The former will be able to latch on to walls and jump around, but not climb around freely like the herrerasaurus. It will also be able to use the spit ability while latched and use it to knock down other climbing dinosaurs. I also had to make some changes in the background for the charged jump to work together with the aimed jump using RMB. As for the herrerasaurus it’s getting some visual flair, latching on to walls on its side will first put it into a horizontal orientation, from where it can transition into the normal climbing mode. This should help make it not suddenly snap into the latched pose after some jumps.

As usual there were also various bug fixes and improvements too. I fixed some issues related to the ceratopsians’ thrash changes and also made some changes to the stagger mechanic because the triceratops was taking very long to recover. I’ve also seen some photos of very impressive construction work involving hypsilophodon nests, but I’m sorry to say that they will no longer be possible. We also have some balance changes in progress for the ceratosaurus’s bacteria that I should get to the end of soon.

This month I’ve been getting through a lot of triceratops’ vocal sounds and have completed the design for a majority of the adult sounds. Ranging from basic idle and generic vocal sounds used for mechanics such as the sniff and resting. From completing the pain sounds, making subtler vocalisations like eating and drinking, to longer and more complex designs such as its courting vocalisations (among many others). The designs are focused on conveying the size and mass of this creature whilst expanding on the sound palette established from the calls and attacks designed previously. With just a couple of the base mechanics left to design for, as well as any bespoke sounds needed for Triceratops’ sparring, the adult vocalisations are nearly rounded out.

I also had another look at the setup for the foliage sounds, making improvements to scaling between both size ranges and the varying speeds, adjusting volume and pitch modulation, the sounds used and the attenuation ranges that dynamically change based on those parameters to have a more audibly distinct differentiation.

This month has primarily revolved around building the labs, which will soon be featured in the game. It contains a wide variety of areas to explore, from the armory, to various offices, testing rooms and much more. I won’t go too much into detail, instead I’ll show you.

This is just a small glimpse as the area is fully finished and ready to be implemented once the time comes. Here you can see an image of a top down layout showing the highest floor, but it also gives you an idea about the size of the facility.

Alongside the labs I’ve also been working on some other additions to the tunnels, a bunch of minor fixes and the infirmary section which will be revealed in due time.

That’s pretty much it, see you next month!

Watching grass grow is boring, but you might find it a tad unnerving when watching these plants grow.

This month I’ve been very focused on drawing up the concepts for strain plants. So far there’s the Metallivore. Conceptualized to break down (As the name suggests) the less organic things you’d find around the island. I played with a few different styles of branch and grippers for the plant, some skeletal-like with filaments that corrode what they’re attached to, some a little more subtly armoured with adhesive grips

The one we wound up going with was a segmented ‘Strangler fig’ inspired “ivy”. Something that could crawl along the ground, burrow and reemerge to wrap around metallic objects, break them down and leave a frame of what once there. Creating a kind of plant ghost of modern structures or objects.

The other plant is a little more devious. This is the Mendys. A sneaky carnivorous thing that’s helpful one moment and dangerous the next if you’re not careful. With that in mind the design needed to be somewhat inconspicuous. The leaves were to be reminiscent of our ivy that’s going to be used on buildings and such in the future, but the flowers and the grippers are where the strangeness begins. ‘Cat’s claw creeper’ was used as inspiration for the hunting mechanism of the plant. Little claws that would run along the nodes of the Mendy’s vine turning it into living barbed wire ready to wrap around any animals that’s gotten too comfortable around it. The only indicator of the plant’s intentions is the strange flower that changes colour when it’s about to strike.

Marty and I have been quietly cranking out skin patterns for many of our playable animals for the last few months. Many hours going into rigorous details in order to get them to feel real and believable while looking interesting and fun. From old faces to brand new ones, we’re hard at work bringing them that much closer to you to be able to tinker and create interesting skins.

For now I’ll only show a few, and I’ll let you all have fun figuring out what the sneak peeks are of:

For me, most of this month has been lots of little things going on. I’ve been working with the Austroraptor, getting it sorted out for implementation and doing some Kentrosaurus locomotion.

We want Kentrosaurus to be in a good spot speed-wise, so it’s a little bit faster than the Stegosaurus because we know how you Stegosaurus players are.

I’ve also been working on Elder morphs for all our current roster as well as all the upcoming beasties who have been rigged.

That and crab walkies.

We’re now on the verge of releasing our latest build to the hordetest for the Triceratops – this will be the last patch for Triceratops before we move onto the Tyrannosaurus testing, which I know you are all eagerly waiting for.

Over the past month QA has been finding all manner of bugs within the hordetest, from simple issues such as finding holes in the map that players have been getting stuck in, people being knocked off by bushes when latching with a pounce, fish not spawning in certain areas of the map, to some attacks dealing knockdowns but no damage at all! Rest assured, the patch we will be releasing within the next few days will be rectifying a lot of those issues and bringing some much-needed performance improvements.

Tyrannosaurus is coming along very well now and will be ready for testing publicly very soon. It has an ambush speed mechanic, similar to the one present in legacy, without the need to crouch first. It gives the character increased sprint speed at the cost of a higher stamina drain, perfect for catching those that you have been able to sneak up on. Coupling this with its crush ability makes for a deadly combination.

The Tyrannosaurs’ crush ability responds differently to its target, depending on their weight. If a creature is small enough, such as a Dryosaurus, the ability will grab and pick them up, allowing the Tyrannosaurus to thrash them against the ground, instantly killing the target. Those that are killed this way will see their bodies being slammed into the ground, which makes for a brutal display of the character’s strength. These execution-style kills are something that we’ve talked about potentially extending to other species as well.

When knocking down a medium-sized creature, such as the Ceratosaurus, the crush will knock them down to the ground, allowing the Tyrannosaurus to maul them. This does a tremendous amount of damage and more often than not, will kill the target or leave it with critically low health.
Hitting a larger creature will result in the crush ability either staggering the target or, if too large simply, dealing damage.

Those that have been setup to interact with sparring will instead enter that state with the Tyrannosaurus, such as a Triceratops locking its horns within its jaws, making the players enter push/pull interaction. As you’ll see in the following video… It might need some more time in the oven.

Gonna keep this one kinda short as there’s much to do. This month has been a lot of tweaks made all around. We’re still hammering away on the issues presented on the hordetest. Animation changes, map changes, balance changes, optimization changes, AI changes and many others. So, while that’s being a lengthy cook, we’re working on other things which, is customary.

The austroraptor is looking pretty sleek. Definitely has a different look and feel to it compared to the others on the roster in my opinion. We did have to correct a hierarchy issue that was fairly annoying but we knocked it out pretty quickly when it came into focus. Mostly just reexporting and reimporting. But tedium consumes time all the same. Anyway, it’s a very lithe animal so I’m curious to see how it measures up. Especially in your hands.

I was able to get some more work in on the hypsilophodon. Not only can it climb but it can also spit while latched. Which makes them even more annoying than they already are. But more than that, it assists the hypsilophodon in defense of its treetop nests. Which may be of interest to other island inhabitants.

The pteranodon is still in the works. Additional aerial animations to help gameplay feel more alive when you’re flying as well as terrestrial characterization, movement and attacks, to help players feel more comfortable and capable on the ground.

Kentrosaurus is wandering around in its holding pen awaiting release on the island. That will transpire once some of the other new additions have a firm footing. Herrera is getting some latch adjustments to make place to place traversal more dynamic when on the go. To make leaping from tree to tree a swifter experience if your timing and aim are good.

Baryonyx is well on its way to being animation complete. Just another set or two and we’ll be in a nice position. Of the 3 spinosaurids we have, it’s the most agile and flexible. Able to do things the others may not excel at in the same fashion. Each should feel unique to one another despite overlapping territories.

Also more work on humans. Really looking forward to giving them the full focus they need as I’ve mentioned before. Pleased with the results thus far though. There’s also more work on elders, skins, environment models and more. Till next time, take care.