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[Alain]

- another small neat feature is adjusting screen text color intensity to ambient light intensity. 2D texts are of course not part of shading model, so I use just approximation. In real world, screen is emitter, so it's not even physically correct, but it was not pleasant to eyes to have full intensity terminal text color in dark levels. So it's like sort of eye-saver being implemented in all terminals in this strange world.

Interesting, I never thought about that. Seems like you found a solution that's pleasant to the eye though!

[JobLeonard]

Just for the record, as a red-green colorblind person: please don't really too strongly on color changes only! Especially in the red-brown-green range of things, that affects the vast majority among all forms of colorblindness. Maybe you can give them slightly different textures or other visual features too?

Also, this is just a personal thing, but I'm glad to hear you're not going with 4th wall breaking. Meta-stories are a bit overdone IMO, it's nice when stories just trust their own in-universe world building once in a while.

[vdapps]

Just for the record, as a red-green colorblind person: please don't really too strongly on color changes only! Especially in the red-brown-green range of things, that affects the vast majority among all forms of colorblindness. Maybe you can give them slightly different textures or other visual features too?

Also, this is just a personal thing, but I'm glad to hear you're not going with 4th wall breaking. Meta-stories are a bit overdone IMO, it's nice when stories just trust their own in-universe world building once in a while.

Thx for suggestion! In fact, you motivated me earlier in development to not rely on colors too much for puzzles, exactly for this reason. To not destroy gameplay for people with colour-blindness (as initially I wanted some colour based puzzles). I rejected such puzzles and I'm happy because this led mi to figure out light-shooters and gravity inverters as replacements, which I like even more.

Currently, colour changes are purely deco. In case of specific terminals (which I distinguish by color), you just figure out what's terminal type when you access it anyway. Also in main hub, I'll use typical red-orange-green for state of tiers (not finished, opened-and-ready-to-play, and finished), but it's again just deco, it does not affect gameplay. I can still play with color intensities for main hub level though, to distinguish it even more. Red tiers with lowest intensity, and finished tiers - green with highest intensities. It has sense also from other perspective. More tiers you finish, brighter the room will be.

[JobLeonard]

Sounds fair, I'd open every terminal I would come across anyway

[vdapps]

-= Devlog #25 =-

(RTG is in version 0.5.3)

'Story in Terminals, Part 3'

Hi Everyone!

New RTG devlog here.

Main effort between v0.5 and v0.6 is to distribute story throughout levels so this devlog is in line with that. This time, I was solely focusing on main 'central hub' level, where player, among other things, can unlock progress to upcoming tiers. Main part of this level is 'central terminal'.

This terminal serves 2 purposes. You can unlock next tier of your 'training' there and you can view there various documents related to story. To have better sense of progress, lot of documents will be initially missing or locked. Plus, terminal will appear as 'hacked, meddled with', something is not in order with it (like with everything in this strange world). It's with game progress (or 'training progress' in story's sense), you will unlock more documents, so by returning to that terminal later there will be more and more to read and learn about what's happening and where you are.

So one big thing implemented is that 'central terminal'. I wanted to make it different from regular levels terminals, so screen is bigger and split into 2 parts. Left side for browsing and right side for accompanying status texts plus documents contents will be displayed there as well. Also fancy lights are added to that terminal. Apart of texture change on "blinking" animation, those lights are real light sources, which are animated as well. It's subtle but it's there.

Another "big thing" in this version is not directly visible. I made some substantial optimizations in algorithm. First optimization is related to lights. Specifically, support for lights clusters, and naturally, central terminal blinking lights is example of such cluster. Another optimization is just in RT algorithm itself. I found some extra perf in already tight algorithm by changing order of some computations. Most notable optimization by doing RT in several threads is still lying on the table. I want to make whole game performing okayish in single thread, and then, later, when adding multi-thread rendering, it should just boost to smooth rates 100%. But currently it's not priority.

And as always, I'm attaching animation. In animation you can see player's first visit to this 'central level' and first encounter with 'central terminal'. By browsing it a little you can find that files are missing, documents are locked and something which appears as 'your training' (which you don't recall), was meddled with and reset. You can unlock there first tier of this mysterious 'training' and continue. I want to add, that there will be much more menu items in that terminal even on first visit. When I'll write various documents related to story later in development, they'll be added there. They'll be locked initially and you will unlock them by playing. Purpose of this version was just to implement this terminal and central hub level.

Cheers!

Main hub with 'central' terminal

[JobLeonard]

Looking great!

And optimizing on a "hampered" system before adding full optimizations sounds like a good way to keep the system requirements down

[Alain]

Awesome, great progress! The central terminal has a nice old school hacking vibe.

[Ramos]

Very immersive introduction, I like it. + 100 points to atmospheric value

 

[vdapps]

Thank you all!

@JobLeonard: yes, low requirements is must for me, despite of doing ray-tracing on CPU. If I'll add MT rendering as last, I'll secure this way, that I'll not need to edit levels themselves for optimization. Also I'm thinking about making RTG as benchmarking tool as well. One menu item where you go to some benchmarking only heavier level(s) with pre-defined camera path. As algo is CPU only it can be useful as CPU benchmark tool possibly (in contrary to most of games which are useful just for GPU benchmarking).

@Alain: Thanks, I'm happy that it gives such vibes, as it means that I met my goal. I was also careful with font colors selection (using old school orange/amber or green) as such colours were used in first IBM PC-s monochrome monitors in early 80-s (those which used MDA adapter, not CGA).

@Ramos: Thanks for appreciation. In fact, I never wrote or introduced story before. So always when I'm writing story pieces and distributing them to terminals (so player uncover step-by-step), I can't stop thinking even for a second.. will it be good? will be players intrigued? That is million dollar question for me and I'm doing as much as possible to make it intriguing enough. I have to say, the fact that I played lot of sci-fi games with deep story (SS2, Deus Ex, SOMA, Portal, Talos Principle, Subnautica, etc, etc..) is helping me a lot. When I played them I not realized that someday I'll be writing story myself.

[Alain]

@Alain: Thanks, I'm happy that it gives such vibes, as it means that I met my goal. I was also careful with font colors selection (using old school orange/amber or green) as such colours were used in first IBM PC-s monochrome monitors in early 80-s (those which used MDA adapter, not CGA).

The first monitor I had actually was an IBM and it was an amber monitor. It was quite dated even when I got it and so happy to replace it with one that could show colors. Now I wish I would have kept it :D

[marcgfx]

I like the terminal!

Watching the webp (first time I've seen someone else using this!!) I was looking for things that I don't like (I do that all the time for my own stuff). What stands out most to me is that the player character does not stand out at all. I might have mentioned this before, not sure. it would be kind of cool if the player character was special in some way, maybe self illuminating (hard to do), or had a spherical reflective head. Maybe even a female character with a sphere head and cone body? Guess this would also work for a male character, just with an upside down cone. I just really like these smooth geometric objects with reflections and lighting.

Another thing I noticed is that the buttons seem to be a texture? Zooming in makes them look rather pixelated. Is this an optimization and quicker than raytracing actual buttons? Is the texture just a background and you positioned light sources over the texture?

[oahda]

Nice to see all the full game elements coming along besides the core platforming and RC tech

[vdapps]

Ahh, sorry you all for late reply. After prev version devlog, I delved again to neverending whirlwind of life. Little time I had left, I dedicated to move slowly but steadily with RTG. As I'm logged in here after a while it means, new devlog is imminent.

I like the terminal!

Watching the webp (first time I've seen someone else using this!!) I was looking for things that I don't like (I do that all the time for my own stuff). What stands out most to me is that the player character does not stand out at all. I might have mentioned this before, not sure. it would be kind of cool if the player character was special in some way, maybe self illuminating (hard to do), or had a spherical reflective head. Maybe even a female character with a sphere head and cone body? Guess this would also work for a male character, just with an upside down cone. I just really like these smooth geometric objects with reflections and lighting.

Another thing I noticed is that the buttons seem to be a texture? Zooming in makes them look rather pixelated. Is this an optimization and quicker than raytracing actual buttons? Is the texture just a background and you positioned light sources over the texture?

Thanks for suggestions!

Regarding character, it's "first plan" from prototype, but I like it quite a lot. There is also plot reason why character is simple geometric shape, plus I like style of "Thomas was alone", which made a break with even simpler character (2d rectangle). But there are also game design restrictions which need character to be symmetric. E.g. in gravity inverter levels, I really don't care where is up part and where down part of character. So such character simplify a lot for me.

Regarding terminal, yes, you noticed well, there is texture, and in front are real light sources.

Nice to see all the full game elements coming along besides the core platforming and RC tech

Thanks, really appreciated!

[vdapps]

-= Devlog #26 =-

(RTG is in version 0.5.4)

'Main hub, 2nd visit'

Hi Everyone!

After one month, new RTG devlog here.

Not much 'new' to show, as main effort is still story-writing and distributing pieces of story into level terminals. That said, more than 25% of levels are now filled with story. Initial pace of story-writing was slower, because apart from writing, I had to program support for game story (e.g. browsing terminals, parametrized main level hub, etc..). Once such things are programmed, story will be written and distributed to terminals at faster pace.

Apart from story being written for more levels, I parametrized more main level hub in order to support game progress. What you can see in animation is 2nd visit to hub level (after completing Tier 1). In terminal, player can now find document, which is unlocked as 'reward' for completing Tier 1. New unlocked items are marked with '*' character (until player open such item).

Just to make things a bit more interesting (as animation is very similar to previous devlog), I recorded Spanish version of it. I'm sure I have lot of grammar/stylistic errors there as I'm not native Spanish speaker and I take writing Spanish texts as personal challenge. I plan to have English/Spanish texts in game revised by pro/native speakers in last stages of RTG development.

And I'm sorry for choppy animation. 60fps MP4 to animated WEBP conversion is always pain in order to keep animated WEBP size in check (this WEBP has 13MB, while 60fps MP4 has 2MB). Hopefully, soon I'll switch to animated AVIF (AFAIK only Edge browser remains to support it right now!).

Hope you like new stuff at least a bit and new devlog is coming again in few weeks.

Regards!

Second visit to main hub with central terminal

[JobLeonard]

You're struggling with Spanish localizations? I'm afraid I'll have to link this bit of Dutch culture then:





The good news is that your writing will undoubtedly be more correct and make more sense than these nonsense lyrics 

Seriously though, looks good! And probably good practice for your own Spanish.

I'm more and more looking forward to playing this. In English though 

[vdapps]

yeah, indeed my Spanish should be better.

And thanks for your curiosity to play the game. I'm myself curious to see, if my story-telling will be any good (how much % of players/reviewers will delve and appreciate also story, and how much % will be interested only in puzzles).

The problem with such writing of amateur like me, is that from my POV, I can't even say, if story will be good, cheesy, cringy. If dialogs / personal logs are written well and it's intriguing, or it's lame. IDK. This will be big revelation for me, once it will go public or when I'll show it to first beta testers. I personally hope it will be perceived as at least a bit solid B-class plot.

Even Uwe Boll (I bet you know the guy), he thought his movies are great and epic, but people think something else. So I hope, I will not have my Uwe Boll moment.

[JobLeonard]

I mean, Uwe Boll probably intentionally makes terrible films so that they flop as a way to help people avoid taxes, so I doubt you'll ever risk being that horrible.

[Alain]

I am surprised that there will be so much story in your game, I was not expecting that a few months ago! I'm sure you will do fine, don't worry about it too much. I am curious: What tone are you going for? Your world and character is quite abstract, will it be the same with the story?

[Ramos]

I am surprised that there will be so much story in your game, I was not expecting that a few months ago! I'm sure you will do fine, don't worry about it too much. I am curious: What tone are you going for? Your world and character is quite abstract, will it be the same with the story?

I bump what Alain said because I share the same opinion

Man I am waiting for you to unveil the story plot like I was waiting for new episodes of game of Thrones ahahahah.


 

[JobLeonard]

Man I am waiting for you to unveil the story plot like I was waiting for new episodes of game of Thrones ahahahah.

Speaking of writing and points of comparison where I'm confident that vdapps will be more successful at sticking the landing...