Dereliction 2022, December progress update:

Hello everyone, I have been working hard on a whole bunch of stuff for Dereliction. Here is a quick preview of what’s new, and what will be in the next demo update.

So I have went over nearly all of the existing art currently in game. I started with the most seen, most used, and most needed art. I redid textures mostly, made sure all their channels are displaying and set up correctly.

I have also been fleshing out the rooms, adding new art pieces to them, and aiming to give each one a purpose or theme. It has been interesting, I am past the point of the rooms are just to walk in, to walk through. I'm not sure what's next for them but I do know what I need to think of as I create more room variations.

I have been adding, removing, and modifying a lot of visual polish. For example, walking, idle animations for the player. Better gun recoil. As well as tweaking the post processing stuff to get the most out of it without it taking too much system to run.

The end results turned out well, and I’m happy with how everything is now in game.

I also have been fixing up the first person animations, especially for the melee. They were not matching up quite right, and while it isn’t done, they’re a lot better.

There are a few interesting scenarios and such already in the game. I have put focus on emphasizing the important ones. For example, did you know you can shoot the explosive barrels in the corridors. This explodes, lights on fire. Fire also causes the bugs to flee.

For better or worse, I have a lot left to do. What I have done so far is a solid start, and I need to polish up what’s there first. Once I am able to get all that’s there done, then I will have a demo.  And, if I make everything in there good, it will be a good demo. I know it’s a little weird saying it like this, but, in my opinion the demo isn’t good, yet. So, I will keep working on it until it is. 

What’s left for demo:

Finish optimizing all rooms - Optimize the meshes for fewer batch calls.

New Rooms - Add a few more rooms for each of the level theme. 

finish up UI - I have a whole character sheet with all the player's stats. I just need to set up the values to display.

Just a whole lot of testing - This is going to take the most time. Hopefully I wont find too much more to add to this list.

To do:

Fix swarm combat - Slowly the bugs are becoming a threat again, I just need to keep at it.

Add back in different bug types - after the swarms are 100% I can reimplement any variations to enemies & add more

Add more weapons - Lots of art required, But I have quite a few unique weapons planned already

Add more items - different grenades, more

Start on objectives & story arches - The game loop will be more than keycards and elevators, I am just still working on those. More to come

Working on Dereliction is full time, holiday seasons or otherwise. I need to get it ready, I need to get it done. Which is fine, since I am getting it ready. I am getting it done.

Expect more soon, Cheers

~SALT_