The MiniLog: Interaction, Combat & Upcoming Customization

Interaction Updates

Combat Changes & Additions

Miscellaneous Changes & Fixes

• Fixed Egg scaling for Large and XL eggs.
• Added training dummy to our de-facto training yard. This will become a more useful once I add damage numbers and weapon stats. Its intended use is for testing weapons and attacks.
• Added camera controls to the controls page.
• Fixed issue where enemy hit-flash was not triggering for every valid hit.

And Now For Something Completely Different

The MiniLog: Our Solemn Golem

• Download Arkavite [0.13.1-A]

They can be found waddling around grassy areas of the map. It has a simple attack. First it spins up, and then it throws its hands at you.

As has been done in other games, this could work well as an ambush type which pretends to be a regular rock until approached. That is one method, but it’s also cute to see them stomping about so maybe I’ll do a little of both.

Character Creator

Some changes to the character creator which are of note -- Boon, Bane, Item & Race scrolling are no longer linked. The system will now scroll back to where you were in these menus when you switch between them. These scrollable menus differed from the others, in that they are actually a single menu running off the CYOA system, hence a little extra code was necessary.

Now for something a little more interesting! Players may now export and share their trait loadouts with others. I’ve added this “Build String” system which is accessible from the pause menu. All you have to do is copy the output build string and share. Then someone can take this string, input it into the “Input Build String” field, and hit “Load Input Build String”. 

I’d love to see the challenge builds people create and share once the game is a little more fleshed out.

TLoH

Load ‘er Up Some More

Additional Fixes

Coming Up

The next update is due next weekend. We’re going to check off the UX focused combat, interaction and dungeon changes which didn’t make it in these last few weeks. Something i'd also like to try implementing is a soft lock-on system. Essentially, the player would snap to face the closest enemy they could lock onto when performing melee but not locked on anything. It’s a light change which should make landing hits just a little more intuitive (like the proximity pickup system). Another desperate change we could do with are in place sword attack animations. This would at the very least apply to the first swing in the chain.

Very soon I'd like to introduce equipment stats. This applies to both weapons and armor. As discussed in previous logs, the new weapons were introduced in anticipation of this, but before we get into the thick of it, I'd like to introduce some new outfit sets as well. There is just one minor obstacle. Before we can move forward with the new outfits, there are some outstanding changes to the player body which have to be made.

Since the last big beautiful body update I've received a tonne of feedback for areas where you'd like to see more customization and an improvement in quality. Things like body textures, an improved thigh gap for larger hips, a resolution to the same face syndrome our poor characters currently suffer from.

In general, my goal with this new body is to:

1. Simplify outfit creation and body modularity (to avoid clipping) by splitting the body into well-defined parts. I’ve been experimenting with this these past few months, but the body regions hadn’t been properly formalized until now. 
2. Improve the shape of the body and introduce more morph options, (including face morphs for expressions and body morphs for pregnancy/inflation). Larger more expressive eyes. I also want to address the unattractive thigh gap issue present in the current player model and improve the range of sexual dimorphism.
3. Implement new tech. Ear jiggle, clothing physics, better booba jiggle and tail physical animations. Bring back peen physics add clit models and improve how these modelled members fit onto the body as it oftentimes looks like they’re floating. 

The MiniLog: Load 'er Up, Slice 'em Down

• Download Arkavite [0.13.0-A]

Pickups & Drops

Up until this point, it's been the case that players drop their weapons on ragdoll. This little mechanic was primarily intended to arise in combat when facing certain kinds of attacks. For instance, the player could ragdoll if hit by a boulder, or high energy electric blast. Something you’d expect would cause you to drop what you're holding.

I understand many have taken issue with dropping their weapons on fall, so in order to balance out this little mechanic I’ve checked off yet another long overdue objective. Weapons will now be sheathed/holstered and attached directly to your person while out of combat. You can only drop something while it's being held in your hands.

In addition to this, I’ve introduced the proximity pickup system. In simple terms, the game tracks items in a cone from the player position in the forward vector of the camera, and the closest item in that cone in line of sight of the player (not behind a wall) is made intractable. It's a pretty straightforward change and should make picking up items a heck of a lot easier. 

Feeling Animated~

Spears glorious spears! I've added a custom animation set for spear attacks. As the spear is a two handed weapon, the spear specific animations will only play when you have no gun in your offhand. Spear-like weapons (e.g. polearms, brooms, and staffs) will use the same animation set as spears. I am planning on adding heavy weapon animations for the greatswords and sledgehammer. I would also like to add throwing animations so I can implement weapon throwing, and possibly later, potion throwing.

I've added a simple in-air sword slash for when the player jumps and attacks. Gravity still applies to the player when they're attacking in air, but I may look into changing that so we can have chained in-air attacks. It’s not all that realistic, but it would be pretty thematic. It may also become another platforming adjacent mechanic with wider reaching uses. Something for me to think about.

Also in the news, torches are now treated like torches. They have their own “held in hand” animations for when the player is walking and aiming. The flame effect has been updated to look less like a choo choo train and more like a fire burning in a torch. Torches still use the same attack animations as short swords, however, they will now deal damage to enemies.

Dungeon Lurkers & Weapon Changes

Upcoming

The MiniLog: A Land of Many Languages

• Added: Translation backend
• Added: 2 new slime types. A hardy pink slime, and a splitter slime.
• Added: 3 new randomized weapon racks to the dungeon which can spawn at set locations.
• Added: Korean language support to the game. TLoH should now be able to support KR projects. 
• Change: Weapons will now equip directly to the hand on pickup if no other weapon is currently equipped to the weapons given slot.
• Change: Converted settings data and save/load backend to C++. Note old settings data will be reset.
• Change: Character creator environment buttons now highlight on hover
• Change: Weapon equip anchoring. Weapons should now sit in the player hands better.
• Fix: Issue where returning to main menu after death and then going straight back to the sandbox from the main menu would result in a softlock. Issue caused by player HP not being reset on sandbox startup via main menu.
• Fix: Mislabelled header on Settings>Controls page. Section was labelled "Combat" when it should have been "Dialog".
• Fix: Issue where settings dropdown menus were not highlighting on select
• Fix: Issue where the transition triangles would rarely get stuck if the game window was not focused. I've added a fallback check so it should complete the transition even when the window is not focused.
• Fix: Issue where odyssey audio tracks were named incorrectly in the Audio compendium
• Fix: Issue where equipping an item will unequip the current equip but won't actually equip your selected item until the item currently slotted is unequipped, forcing you to have to click on the item you want to equip twice.
• Fix: Issue where the lock on marker was not appearing when hovering over enemies.
• Fix: Issue where TLoH projects would not load.

Translation Support

If you know a second language or are interested in translating the game to your mother tongue, let me know over on the discord. We have a little channel where translators are hanging out, and we’d love to have you!

Combat News

Upcoming Changes

And So It Continues

These are just the major priorities. I’ll be checking off other objectives in the background in as we move forward, (such as save slots, enemy drops, enemy spawns in dungeons, trait development, crafting system prep, e.t.c). Projecting a little father, after I’ve improved sword play, we will be getting some spells.

That’s all from me for now. I hope to be back here soon. Thank you all for following along. Please be sure to let me know your thoughts, or if you have any comments and questions.

Till next time~

The MicroLog - Glorious Goals & New Sights

• New weapons (axes, staff, spear, swords, sledgehammer, daggers -- placeholder descriptions and stats for the time being)
• New materials (gold, arka crystals)
• New and reworked dungeon rooms
• A dungeon “Goal” room which will teleport you to the start of a new dungeon
• Unified and cleaned up dungeon aesthetic
• Controls page (note, rebinding will be saved for later)
• Item framework rewrite (note, hot swapping items is a little weird right now. I will be correcting this in the next patch)
• Lootable gold and coin piles
• General dungeon optimisations

It’s The Little Things – Areas To Improve

Onwards & Upwards