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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsSensorium - first-person puzzle/adventure game
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RbdJellyfish
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« Reply #40 on: December 24, 2017, 10:05:11 AM »

Update 13 (12/24/17): Reached My Goal!

Hello!

I managed to reach my end-year goal of getting Sensorium "minimum gameplay complete", meaning I can start a new game and play all the way to the end. "Complete" is a bit of a misnomer, as there's still a lot of placeholder stuff and some gameplay to polish up. But yeah, I was pretty excited when I was able to speedrun the game all the way to the end.

I'm still a ways away from being done though. Here's some high level stuff on the todo list:

1. Get a menu into the game and finish up the save system. These are important for playtesting purposes, so I can start sending the game to people without expecting them to have to start the entire game over every time they close it.

2. Improve some puzzles. I felt like the touch area was really long relative to the other areas, so I've already started cutting out unnecessary stuff there. I also want to redesign one of the mazes in the hearing area because it kinda feels messy.

3. Secrets. I've got a few in the game already, but there are also some empty corners of the world that I want to fill out.

4. Art/audio pass. I'm still not 100% sure which direction I want to go here, especially in terms of world/lore-building, so this will take a lot of time/thought.

5. Bug fixes etc., the usual.

That's it for now. Happy holidays!
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Thaumaturge
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« Reply #41 on: December 26, 2017, 08:34:17 AM »

Congratulations on meeting that milestone, and well done! ^_^

Good luck with the list that you gave above--I hope that it goes well.

And "Happy Holidays" to you, too. ^_^
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RbdJellyfish
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« Reply #42 on: February 26, 2018, 06:03:02 PM »

Update 14 (2/26/18)

I've been away from game dev for a couple months because of some big life changes (new job, new home, etc.). Now that the hectic move/onboarding process is nearing completion, I just wanted to give a quick update since I've gotten back into game dev. I started working on the menus and save system, and it's pretty much functional now! There's a main menu, a "pause" menu ("pause" being in quotes, because the game doesn't actually pause when you open it, but I like it that way), a new/load save slot screen, and an empty options menu. There are 4 slots you can save your game to, and at the moment the game saves whenever you open the "pause" menu, but in the future I'm planning on making it more frequent; it'll probably continue saving on pause menu open, as well as on important interactions + every X seconds, in case the game crashes or someone doesn't exit the game in a clean way.

Menu visuals are super bare-bone, but I may end up mostly keeping them that way. It fits the style of the rest of the game, and the menus aren't exactly central to the main experience. I'm sure I'll revisit them in the future though. I also haven't tested very heavily for bugs yet, so I'm sure there are a ton of save/load problems (I just found one where if you save/load underneath an open door, you clip through the ground sometimes Undecided).

So yeah. Up next I'll probably be filling out the options menu, or moving back to gameplay improvements/secrets. Or I might even link up the ending to some credits since I have a UI setup now... would make the game feel *even more* complete.
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« Reply #43 on: February 27, 2018, 09:38:52 AM »

First of all, congratulations on the new job and home! I hope that they both treat you well! ^_^

As to the game, that sounds like good progress, given the above-mentioned life-changes. Saving-and-loading in particular is something that can be quite important to have, I feel--and I like that you intend frequent auto-saves--and something that I've found can also be useful for development purposes, too.
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RbdJellyfish
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« Reply #44 on: April 23, 2018, 08:52:09 PM »

Update 15 (4/24/18)

I did some random assorted progress over the past couple months.

1. Added some chewing sounds to the taste mechanic, and some inhale/exhale sounds to the smell effects in the game to help tie the abstract visuals to the senses they're representing. I think it definitely helps; haven't tested it with other people yet, but I feel the sounds definitely improve the mechanics quite a bit. This sorta made me realize I should focus more on the sounds in the game, start replacing some of the temporary stuff with higher quality sounds and add music, and the game will start to feel a lot closer to being done and less like the pre-alpha it's been for the past 2 years.

2. Did a small gameplay pass in a couple areas. I cut/rearranged some touch puzzles, improved one of the hearing mazes, and adjusted the terrain around the taste area to make the world a bit less flat.

3. Started adding some secrets. Secrets have been fun to design, because I feel like I can kinda go nuts without worrying about people finding them too difficult. There are one or two I'm almost expecting no one to figure out... Smiley

4. Revisited a couple optional areas and designed/redesigned the puzzles in them. One of them went from this mess:


to this:


Believe it or not, they're still basically the same puzzle in spirit; the second is just much easier on the eyes.

See you in another month. Or two? idk
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Mark Mayers
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« Reply #45 on: April 24, 2018, 09:11:22 AM »

Looks interesting, if you want to send a build over for some constructive feedback I'll be happy to play it!
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Desolus Twitter: @DesolusDev Website: http://www.desolus.com DevLog: On TIG!
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« Reply #46 on: April 24, 2018, 09:34:12 AM »

Sound can make an impressive difference, I've found.

As to that puzzle, I do indeed find it hard to credit that those two puzzles are similar, even if only in spirit! 0_0

As to secrets, those can indeed be fun! I hope that you have some interesting ones in mind. ^_^

If I may ask, will solving the secrets provide any reward beyond the satisfaction of solving them, and if so, what?
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RbdJellyfish
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« Reply #47 on: April 24, 2018, 02:35:47 PM »

Looks interesting, if you want to send a build over for some constructive feedback I'll be happy to play it!

I remember playing Desolus at Magfest 2016 (?) and giving some feedback, I guess it'd only be fair to let you roast my game. Smiley There are some things I want to fix first, though; the save/load system is super unstable right now, and I really need to add some options like mouse sensitivity. But I'll keep you in mind until I do that.

If I may ask, will solving the secrets provide any reward beyond the satisfaction of solving them

For most of them, yes. Others are just little easter eggs.

and if so, what?

It's a secret :^)

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« Reply #48 on: April 25, 2018, 09:34:26 AM »

It's a secret :^)

Hahah, fair enough! At any rate, I'm glad to read that the secrets do provide additional rewards, even if just in the form of easter eggs. ^_^
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« Reply #49 on: May 27, 2018, 08:09:28 PM »

Update 16 (5/27/18)

Bugs

As I've been developing this game, I've been focusing on getting features done quickly so I could make sure ideas were fun before fully committing to them. However, with that attitude, I haven't been very careful, which means the game accumulated quite a few bugs in development. Most of them haven't been super game-breaking, though, so I kinda just let them be while I focused on other things. Well, in the past few weeks I finally decided to clean up that bug list so future me doesn't have to be overwhelmed. I didn't keep track too well, but I'd estimate I removed 40-50 bugs from the todo list in the past 3 weekends or so.

Some were quite small, didn't take much effort to fix, and usually just involved minor level/blueprint changes. These were along the lines of:
- Ramp in **** area doesn't extend all the way to the floor
- When you leave an area and re-enter the area, a bunch of sounds play when the level gets streamed back in because sounds auto-play by default
- You can softlock in **** area by clicking a button and quickly running through the door before it closes
- etc.

Some were a bit more complicated and had me scratching my head for a bit. A big problem I fought with involved one elevator in the game that travels pretty fast. I realized when I saved/loaded the game while standing on the elevator, I'd end up clipping through the elevator and falling through the floor below. After trying a bunch of things, I stumbled upon a solution that seems to work:
- When saving while standing on an elevator, the save file will also store the name of the elevator the player is standing on. That way, when the game is loaded, the player won't just load into the position they saved in; they'll actually make sure they load *above* the elevator they're supposed to be standing on as a safeguard.
- I realized part of the problem was that the player position was loaded in first, but physics would simulate and the player would fall slightly before the elevator was loaded, causing it to not catch the player. So I added some flags to keep objects frozen until *everything* is loaded from the save file, and not to simulate physics while things are still being loaded in.
- I also extended the elevator's mesh downward, hoping the player wouldn't clip beneath the elevator and instead would clip inside it, which would cause the physics engine to correctly resolve the player position and push them back up onto it.

In retrospect, since I sort of just kept trying things until they worked, I could probably remove those fixes one by one to figure out the redundancies and keep things clean. Then again, I realllly don't want people clipping through elevators, so maybe the extra safety is fine (if not just for my own sanity).

Options

I also filled out the options menu. It's got basic video options (resolution, windowed/fullscreen, anti-aliasing, vsync, field of view, motion blur, possibly something else I'm forgetting), controls (look sensitivity, invert Y controls, custom keybinds for movement+jumping), and audio volume controls. I was on the fence about adding audio controls considering how audio-heavy parts of the game are, but I decided to just add a little warning above the volume sliders stating that there are game-mechanics that rely on audio. I think it's better to give people the option to mute the game if they've played it before or something (thinking of speedrunners who may just want to listen to their own music while replaying the game).

Secret thing

I started adding a secret area. That is all.

The end, see you later.
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« Reply #50 on: May 28, 2018, 08:54:39 AM »

Bugs and options may not be fun elements--they can be a nuisance, I've found--but they can also be important. I'm glad that you seem to have resolved so many of them! ^_^
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RbdJellyfish
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« Reply #51 on: July 10, 2018, 06:21:15 PM »

Update 17 (7/10/18)

Beta soon?

I'm rolling up to another big milestone again, which is that I'm hoping to get a closed beta out to some people to get some long overdue design feedback. I've finished getting all the major secrets and gameplay elements into the game, all the placeholder gameplay has been updated, and I've fixed almost as many bugs as I could find. What's left is figuring out whether I should wait a bit and get some music into the game before the beta (since I imagine it'll drastically improve the mood), and figure out how I'm going to distribute it, whether it's setting up the Steam page/doing a beta through there, or just uploading the build to some filesharing site and keeping the link private (since I'm only going to be sending this to people I know won't share it without my permission). So that's making me a bit nervous, but it'll be an exciting (yet possibly soul-crushing) experience when it happens.

In other news...

I came up with some story details that I'm happy with, finally. Almost none of them are in the game yet, but they won't affect gameplay too much; the story is going to be very subtle and told almost entirely through the environment, so it'll probably be one of those things that people won't realize is there unless they actively look for it.

I also started the art pass. Read as: I replaced some gray boxes with rocks.





I made the rocks all by myself. I'm a proud little programmer. Seriously though, I'm a bit worried about how things will turn out when I try to make more complicated things, since I'm completely new to 3D art. And I'm not the type of person to use the asset store...
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« Reply #52 on: July 11, 2018, 09:30:33 AM »

Good luck with the beta! I hope that it goes well. ^_^

You mentioned Steam and file-sharing sites; have you looked into itch.io? I don't know whether they support closed betas, but it might be worth finding out.'

Similarly, good luck with your forays into 3D art! ^_^
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RbdJellyfish
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« Reply #53 on: September 02, 2018, 03:42:51 PM »

Update 18 (9/2/18)

Hello, it's been close to 2 months and I've been forgetting to update, but I remembered now so here I am.

The art pass is progressing. I've made a few assets and replaced pretty much all of the old dark gray boxes with rocks. Some areas of the game are actually "screenshot-able" now and almost represent how the final game will look.







I'm thinking about keeping all of the buildings/artificial structures blocky and simplistic, while filling out the rest of the world with more natural, chaotic looking things like trees, grass, rocks, etc. In making things look nicer, I still need to be careful not to make the scenery too busy and distract from the things people can actually interact with, and I think keeping the artificial stuff blocky will help contrast it with everything else.

In other news, I've still been putting off the beta I mentioned in my previous post. I want to get more music into the game to establish the mood before I have people play it on their own. That said, I have been going to a game dev meetup in Brooklyn every/every other week to get some playtest feedback. Despite the game not really being geared towards everyone, the response has been really positive so far, and the changes that have been suggested so far were all just very small level design details and quick QoL changes. A bunch of people seem really excited about it (one even said it was the best game he'd seen at the playtest session in the few years he'd been going there), and another person played for close to an hour straight, which is a lot for a playtest session like that. So that was really motivating... yet also kind of stressful. I'm at a point where I feel like I definitely have something good going, but I need to not screw up the rest. i.e. I need to start thinking about marketing so I don't end up making a good game that no one notices when it's done (I hate marketing and am not excited for this part).

Anyway, here are some other misc things I've worked on in the past couple months:
- Roughed out an intro cutscene that plays when you hit "new game". It looks awful right now so no screenshot yet, but the tech for it is there.
- Finished adding controller support (Although I'm debating whether or not I should put forth the effort of adding custom controls to the options menu for controllers (only works for keyboard right now))
- Despite not having music yet, I programmed the music system. Music fades in and out when you walk between different areas in the world. Also when you experience smells in the game, I also apply a neat low-pass filter. UE4 makes that super easy though so I guess that's not anything to brag about
- I changed the hearing area to not be 100% pitch-based anymore (now there are volume/timbre-based puzzles as well as pitch-based puzzles, and I think the variety is nice).

So yeah see you in another month or two, I'm going to click "Post" now without proofreading because I'm professional I promise
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« Reply #54 on: September 03, 2018, 10:03:54 AM »

Wow, it sounds as though things are going really well--I'm glad to read it! ^_^ (And I do like those rocks that you've modelled.)

As to the marketing issue, have you considered looking for an indie-publisher? There's a cost incurred, of course, but such a company might be able to lift some of the weight of marketing from your hands.
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RbdJellyfish
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« Reply #55 on: September 05, 2018, 04:03:08 PM »

As to the marketing issue, have you considered looking for an indie-publisher?

It's something I've thought about, but haven't done any research past the initial thought. And I don't think I'd mind a reasonable price to avoid doing something I wouldn't enjoy, considering I do this on the side; money has never been what this game is about. I have to make sure I don't get taken advantage of, or don't get pressured into releasing the game too early, since I'm very much enjoying being able to work on my own schedule. But the extra help would be nice.
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« Reply #56 on: September 07, 2018, 11:54:45 AM »

I'm in a somewhat similar position myself, in that I haven't yet done a lot of research, and don't want to end up with a bad deal. One piece of advice that I think that I've been given is to get a lawyer to look over any potential contract. They don't have to be looking to gain any advantage for you, but just checking for anything in the contract that might be problematic.

I did recently see this list of "16 Indie-Friendly Indie Game Publishers"--posted elsewhere on this forum, I think. I haven't looked through it yet, and am not in a position to speak to whether it's any good, but it might be a place to start. I've also been keeping my eyes open for references to publishers that might be interested in a game such as mine, which might be useful in your case, too.
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« Reply #57 on: April 03, 2020, 02:57:17 PM »

Long Overdue Update 19 (4/3/20)

I have been neglecting this dev log *hard*, but I've been neglecting Sensorium just a little less hard. Dreams came out and as a hobby game dev, I've been enjoying it way too much, and UE4 feels clunky in comparison to Dreams' streamlined UI, so I've been lacking motivation to work on it. But I digress. This whole quarantine situation has gotten me motivated enough to revisit Sensorium after a bunch of month-long breaks in the past year or so and knock a significant chunk of material off the to-do list. So, since the last post, here's what I've done.

- Finished the main menu, intro, and ending. Makes the game feel pretty complete now. There may be some tweaks remaining to ensure the controller UX is good.

- Finished putting music in the game. Every area now has the appropriate music (or intentional silence). I still have a few sound effects left to work on though.

- Shipped that beta I was talking about to around 20-30 people. The game felt pretty polished leading into this, but it still led to around 100 bug reports/instances of design feedback for me to tackle. I fixed or otherwise addressed every single point of feedback I got. Some of the fun bugs included:
    - standing underneath a door while it slides shut and jumping at the right time launched you a million feet into the air
    - breaking out of bounds and hitting the default death barrier that I didn't even realize existed
    - saving your game and quitting at just the right time led to certain elevators' circuitry messing up, breaking the elevators, and preventing further progress
    - certain game mechanics working fine in the editor, but not in the release build (still dunno why this happened, only able to fix with an engine upgrade)
Overall though, the feedback was positive. Most people seemed to really enjoy the game.

- Finished putting all the secrets in the game, and added a few subtle lore bits in various places. I might add some last-minute secrets closer to release if I can think of any cool ones Smiley

- Haven't set up a steam page yet, but I implemented steam achievements.

- Made significant progress on the art pass. Here are some screenshots.











I still have one or two areas to do an art pass on, and 2 assets in particular that I need to make less rectangular. But everything else is in a state I'm happy with.

All in all, the to-do list is getting pretty short. I think I can safely say the game is in the final 10% stretch (but we all know how big that last 10% really is). Here are the main things I have left to do:
- Setting up that steam page and making sure achievements + cloud saving actually, like, works
- Finishing the art pass in those last couple areas
- Finishing the 8 or 9 sfx I have left that I need to create
- Create a trailer
- Lots of playtesting; I'll potentially ship another beta to find any last bugs that may have slipped past me since the last beta
- Find a publisher and do some tryhard marketing? Question mark here because I've been so inconsistent with this project that I might not have any energy left to market it. I care mainly about just finishing and releasing it at this point, having been 4 years since I started development (still working full time somewhere else, so financial success is still not my goal).

Anyway. Thank you for reading. Next time you hear from me, whenever that may be, the game could be done! (or extremely close to it) and I may have some marketing updates :D
« Last Edit: April 03, 2020, 08:45:39 PM by RbdJellyfish » Logged

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« Reply #58 on: April 04, 2020, 09:17:03 AM »

Oh wow, it's been a long time since last I heard of this game! And it seems that it's progressed quite a bit in that time, I'm glad to read! And indeed, it's good to hear of this game again!:D

I'm glad to hear that tester feedback was overall positive, and that you have entered that final ten-percent of development. Good luck with that final stretch, and with marketing, whether you do the latter yourself or with a publisher! ^_^
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« Reply #59 on: August 09, 2020, 09:44:35 PM »

Approaching the Finish Line (8/10/20)

Hello all! Just a very quick update. The game is *basically* done, and it will release on August 28 on steam and itch.io! :D Here's a the trailer:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=LZvQrK2GjJg

You can wishlist it on Steam here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1307870/Sensorium/

I decided to go with the self-publishing option. I know that means the game won't get much attention, but at this point I'm just happy to have finished it. My life now is so different from when I had started the game, and I'm really glad to be able to move on to other things without Sensorium being at the back of my head all the time.

In addition to the things I mentioned in my last post, I made the game less CPU intensive by sleeping the tick function in a bunch of objects I had lazily overlooked when the player wasn't interacting with it (which was satisfying; the game went from ~70 fps to a rock solid  120 fps in editor).

I also decided last-minute to add some accessibility options. There's now a color-blind mode, which enables symbolic representation of colors in certain puzzles, as well as a tone-deaf mode, which gives all the pitch-based sound puzzles alternate sounds or solutions!



Thanks for following the dev log, and look forward to the release in a couple weeks Smiley Here's one last screenshot.



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