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SSH #17 — A Jolt to the System

Harry

Happy Saturday! It's time. It's always time. But now, specifically, it's time for your weekly news on MEANWHILE IN SECTOR 80!

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Last time, Lucien highlighted recent work on combat feedback, elevators and a stadium level.

This week, we have new physics!

Jolt Physics— Lucien

We had an internal playtest this Friday, with one of the oh-so-exciting headline features being the port to Jolt Physics. It's taken ages and has sucked butt to work on — but the results are worth it! All of our physics run more than twice as fast, you don't get stuck inside stuff anymore.

There's this sick toggle to switch physics engines at runtime, which is totally unique as far as game engines go and also not that useful.

The good, the bad, and the ugly — all available at the click of a button.
The good, the bad, and the ugly — all available at the click of a button.

Drop Pod Detail— Laura, Harry

Laura is still chipping away at the drop-pod slab, creating a detailed model to replace our current greybox asset. Soon the player will be travelling (read: hurtling down onto planets at high speed) in style!

We've moved on from the greybox pods we stole from that man in Kellogg, Idaho.
We've moved on from the greybox pods we stole from that man in Kellogg, Idaho.

Physics, Lasers and Turtles— Harry

Hello, mechanical minions of the Second Half Games Newsletter!

It's Friday! PLAYTEST DAY TODAY.

This time, WE ARE USING A NEW PHYSICS ENGINE — JOLT! The game runs significantly smoother as a result. We can build bigger levels and fill them with even more enemies and loot before the CPU starts to scream from all the physics calculations. And the player doesn't keep getting stuck in walls and floors!

There has been a worrying increase in instances of the player getting stuck on their back like a turtle though. Nothing a little on-the-fly dismantling can't fix.

They sat like this for three hours before a rescue team arrived and towed them away.
They sat like this for three hours before a rescue team arrived and towed them away.

Lucien's spent some time this week making enemies function a little more like the player. This means the gimbles that evil crab droids use to target you can be looted and added to your player. You can then equip and aim them yourself - potentially tripling your laser output!

Killer robot in mirror is closer (and faster) than they appear.

I filled 'the Stadium' with enemies and terrain too, hoping to create an open environment that needed you to balance a jumping puzzle with loot choices and long ranged combat. I didn't really account for all the weight of the components on the player though, so it's back to the drawing board.

Take that, evil shapes!
Take that, evil shapes!

Burgers for dinner.

Be good!

Looking Ahead

We're all enjoying a wave of relief after the move onto Jolt Physics. The next big thing for us is to start working on our first real gameplay environment. We've begun conceptual work for the very first section of the game, figuring out how to onboard new players to MEANWHILE IN SECTOR 80.

Lucien also has an absolute mountain of notes after our internal playtest. Naturally, the shift from one physics engine to another has brought a few bugs that need to be fixed, but so far nothing too major.

In the last few weeks we've also put a lot of thought into ways to improve combat, and it's time to give the player some more loot variety.