SSH #26 — Setting Boundaries

Hello! It's Saturday! That means it's time for your regularly scheduled news about MEANWHILE IN SECTOR 80.

Actually, it isn't Saturday anymore in this timezone. I lied. Stop reading at once.

Last week, there was Mac support, a new floating level, and BISON.

This week, there's some creative work in the realms of scanning, shielding, and writing.

Scanner Updates— Rasmus

The scanner has been a forgotten child for a bit but I gave it some attention. It is now useful for finding salvageable parts among the rubble of destroyed enemies. Trash is not being lit up and the color makes it easy to see what parts can be used right away and which parts can be used after repairing them.

New Shield Concepts— Laura, Harry

Speaking of forgotten children, it's time our shields got a bit of a polish!

Shields have existed in some form or another for months now, but they've been in a very rough-and-ready state purely to test out their effect on gameplay. We're certain we want shields as a lootable part in MEANWHILE IN SECTOR 80, but are playing around with their shapes and sizes.

The goal is to have two kinds of shields — one that faces mostly one direction, while another covers the entire surface of a target, wrapping around their body in a tighter protective forcefield frame.

You'll notice there are hexagons. Hexagons are cool! They're a sci-fi shape!

It also turns out there's no way to mathematically construct a 'sphere' out of hexagons. You need to sneak a few pentagons in there too. You learn something new every week at Second Half!

Friday Wrap-up— Harry

Hello, featherless bipeds of the Second Half Games Newsletter!

Friday! Again! You're never that far away from a Friday, even if it feels like it never arrives soon enough.

That's how it works. That's the law. I don't make the rules.

It's been a pretty balanced week at Second Half for me. We had a big writing meeting. We have a graph now! Or maybe it's a chart? I'm not really sure what the distinction is. I thought about posting a screenshot of it here for your viewing pleasure, but decided against it.

Watch this clip of Dr Strangelove instead. Unrelated.

But we also have a story! Terry Pratchett described his writing process as a 'valley full of clouds', where you come down from a mountain and maybe can just about see the next mountain in the distance, but otherwise have to feel your way from tree to tree.

We have a valley now, and we can confirm it's full of clouds. It's a little less cloudy than it was.

We watched Pacific Rim for our team Play and Watch session today! That film is wild! Maybe the big problem we're facing in the development of MEANWHILE IN SECTOR 80 is that our robot protagonist isn't 250 feet tall.

I asked the team afterwards if that was the problem. Turns out that's not the problem. We aren't changing the game's scale after all. Sorry mecha anime heads. I tried. Sometimes you have to fight and lose.

Chainswords and nuclear reactors though. Now that's two things I think everyone's life could do with a little more of.

Egg and tomato stir fried noodles for dinner.

Be good!

Looking Ahead

It's time for another internal playtest next week! The top goal, as ever, is a more fleshed-out version of our floating level's initial warehouse combat encounter, followed by some prototyping of the level's 'phase 2.' Work also continues on concepting the follow-up level to this, as well as combat tweaks here and there.