To continue last weeks push towards the whole “lore” and story implementation, this week I worked on introducing datacards which the player can find at random spots and once picked up they will provide the player with some information snippets. I still have to work on all the actual story parts and how/what to implement – I’ll have to do some research on this and see how other games handle it.. I’m not a story writer, and have no idea how you split up a bigger story in interesting smaller bits and pieces.. but I’m sure the interwebs have answers somewhere, or I’ll just come up something !

This week I also put a bunch of time into interface fixes and especially gamepad support. The onscreen instructions should now all be correct and show the correct button labels (or at least for all the xbox-gamepads and clones, and now also for playstation gamepads.. which I guess covers about 99.999991% of the PC gamers).

The rest of the week was cleaning up a lot of stuff all over the code. This means removing code-area’s that weren’t needed anymore, or in some cases removing duplicate code (doing the same thing but in different parts of the code).. and while cleaning up, I also came to the conclusion that certain things I added to the game at some point, weren’t actually IN the game anymore!  The little ooze-spitting creatures you see in that GIF up there is one example.  It’s spawning code was a bit messy and that caused this creature to never ever appear in any game – doh!  – now you’ll find them hoovering everywhere in the gameworld, along with a few other things that accidentally got disabled!

All this clean up is in order for me to move towards adding some actual save-game functionality!

Yesterdays devlog is all about the new console I introduced in last weeks update and the graphics and code that went into that magical event! So make sure to check it out:

Full changes list:

• added: mining resources will take longer if resources come from “deeper” down
• added: Datacards (containing info and lore from Ancients)
• added: Datacard interface screen
• added: improved gamepad instructions
• added: mining devices can now mine as deep as the bottom of the planet (less moving them around required)
• added: extra effects to hologram-speech
• added: more procedural variables to Nature (foliageRate, waterFallRate,waterFallSplitRate, waterPoolRate)
• added: Techdrones (actually just activated their code! – oops)
• added: hot-plugging support for gamepads (pc)
• fixed: possible level generator bug at top level of the world
• fixed: printer device has no “delay” time and shoots out item too fast
• fixed: made visual wind twirls, less visible (declutter the screen)
• fixed: replaced message shown near consoles (didn’t correspond to actions anymore)
• fixed: Field-generator instructions now force-overwrite previous PDB message – for smoother start
• fixed: Tech-generated Ooze now only bubbles on the surface (less clutter in graphics)
• fixed: Tech pillars might not be on 2 solid tiles making it look like it’s hovering weirdly
• fixed: caught-fish couldn’t be grabbed when under water
• fixed: Gamepad movement issues
• fixed: bug causing certain entities/objects to be misplaced at start of game
• fixed: updated and improved Key + Gamepad setup screens
• fixed: more “spit” plants, now using new spawning mechanism
• fixed: cleaned up interface all over
• fixed: cleaned up deprecated and duplicated code