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[Greipur]

Hello all. Need your help once again, we're redesigning the city overlay to make it less cluttered. We're moving parts of the interface to a superimposed state in the HUD instead. Here's some mockups Christoffer did. Feel free to suggest which one you prefer.

If you don't like any of them we're open to other suggestions as well!

[JobLeonard]

2 or 3. I like the layout of 3 better, but I don't like the colored numbers - some of them are low-contrast and that reduces legibility. Color coding could work if it doesn't come at the expense of contrast.

[whistlerat]

Agreed on 2 or 3. 3 is very neat and easy to read, and feels similar to what I've seen in other games, which is a good thing. It also gives a little more space for the tab part below.

[dancinLion]

Disclaimer: This is the first time I had a look into this thread so I do not know much about the game yet.

I prefer option 2, but I'm not quite sure what's up with some of the information being missing on some of the screens. For example the "i" indicator is not seen on screen 4.

Some suggestions, in case you want to reduce noise/clutter a little bit:
Resources: Get rid of the background, instead group the numbers and their respective icons by moving them closer together. You could then also increase their size, which in most cases should be a good thing.

Expertise: Instead of the 2 differently coloured backgrounds just grey out the elements of the one that is not currently active.

Cool low poly art and gameplay ideas, similar to some I've been tinkering around for a while. I'm really looking forward to play your game.

[Greipur]

Thank you all for the great feedback, we'll be thinking about this in the coming days.

[Greipur]

Yesterday we unearthed a new language in Crest, no idea what it says.

I'm pretty sure that it's the FPS counter we use in the editor that decided to speak in tongues, or write in tongues (that doesn't make much sense). Anyway...


I'm currently working on the new resources, and reworking the old. They follow a lode system that will generate resources into different areas, which Tomas has worked on.

Resources can also get overgrown if they are situated in the jungle or savannah, they will then be harder to work on (takes more stamina). The followers can use their (upcoming) terraforming ability to cut down vegetation in order to work more effectively. But destroying their habitat has consequences.

Josefine is currently animating the whale, here's a WIP of that.

Oh, and I might have forgot to tell you that we've expanded the world now, the game now generates 3 islands by default.

[Greipur]

You can here see the embryo for our island navigation system Johannes is working on, the white circles are islands. He tells me that this system can handle an infinite amount of islands, hypothetically.

Emelie is currently improving upon the faith-commandment-association loop, basically we want to create a system with more clear cut consequence. We're currently thinking of having faith as a resource where the player can spend it to implement new commandments. You can make comparisons to Democracy 3's "political capital" resource.

And I'm building mines! Thankfully I can use a form of "kitbashing", reusing the old mines.

Perhaps calling them "mines" is a little rich, but the scaffolding is meant to illustrate that extraction is taking place here.

[JobLeonard]

Why do the blue lines split in two?

Also, do I understand that diagram correctly in that mutation rate is linked to how high or how low local faith is?

[nathy after dark]

This is the first time I'm seeing this. Based on my brief scan, it sounds amazing—so I'm gonna follow, and also catch myself up on the development so far, when I get a chance! 

[Greipur]

Why do the blue lines split in two?

The navigation system calculates the travel there and the round-trip as well. So they are simply overlapping, when the lines update they split slightly.

Also, do I understand that diagram correctly in that mutation rate is linked to how high or how low local faith is?

Yep, we're still thinking about it though. Associations is a core feature of the aesthetics we want to convey, so making them sort of optional if the player plays their cards right doesn't sit well with us. We'll see how it develops.

This is the first time I'm seeing this. Based on my brief scan, it sounds amazing—so I'm gonna follow, and also catch myself up on the development so far, when I get a chance!  

Thanks!



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Edit: Nautical adventures are coming to Crest - these are boats for fishing, settling, exploration and trade.

[Greipur]

Checkit, non-extinct whales in Crest! These are just filler or decorations, but we think they'll make the water more alive.

And here's Johannes' pathfinding system implemented inside of the game, still WIP but it's getting there. In this case the pathfinding used the bounding box of the islands to calculate the path.

[Zireael]

Really nice whale! I'm liking the visuals overall.

Also lol at "speaking in tongues" pic. Was that a bug or something deliberate? Fake languages/scrambling is something I have been researching for a long time and I'm definitely going to make use of it in my own game...

[Greipur]

Really nice whale! I'm liking the visuals overall.

Also lol at "speaking in tongues" pic. Was that a bug or something deliberate? Fake languages/scrambling is something I have been researching for a long time and I'm definitely going to make use of it in my own game...

Thanks! I'm honest, truly. I asked the lead programmer but he had no idea, but I think the fps counter plugin we use had a hickup when I switched from the game window to edit in Unity.

[TheWanderingBen]

I've been silent for a while on here, but I'm loving all the updates. Great seeing the progress of Whale Animation and Island Navigation continue from post to post. Good stuff 

[Greipur]

I've been silent for a while on here, but I'm loving all the updates. Great seeing the progress of Whale Animation and Island Navigation continue from post to post. Good stuff 

Thanks Ben! We'll probably have more to show soon.


Currently working on the fisher class in Crest.

[JobLeonard]

Looks great!

[Greipur]

Thanks!


Here's a WIP of when a follower destroys fish schools.

As you can see the boats doesn't ignore the water shader, either we've to redesign the boats, or make it so that the shader ignores the inside of boats. At the moment it's not a priority, but depending on if we've the time we'll solve it with the shader. Suggestions are welcome.




Example from Dishonored 2:
https://twitter.com/rotational/status/797461728640593920

[JobLeonard]

It just so happens that Simon Schreibt's last blog entry was about how Assassin's Creed: Black Flag deals with this!

https://simonschreibt.de/gat/black-flag-waterplane/

In general that's a really cool blog to follow, maybe fun to read through in a lazy afternoon?

[Greipur]

It just so happens that Simon Schreibt's last blog entry was about how Assassin's Creed: Black Flag deals with this!

https://simonschreibt.de/gat/black-flag-waterplane/

In general that's a really cool blog to follow, maybe fun to read through in a lazy afternoon?

Thanks for the link, Johannes (our lead programmer) tells me he knows of the blog and is one of the resources he wants to use (I had no idea). Great read for me as well! I'm not as well-versed in the technical details.



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Josefine has built modular rocks for our coasts, to create more variety. We looked at tileable and modular rock sets and made our own that the programmers can then mix and match. These are all screenshots from Blender's viewport, that's why the shading is rudimentary.

With these rocks we will make three general variations - A, B and C.

[Greipur]

Here's one of the new tracks for Crest. We have a new composer called Tuomas Nikkinen who've taken the reigns after Roland. Some of you might remember parts of the track - it's based on "Plenty" but made into a full-length song.