Skyfear March Development Update

It’s been a very long two-month stretch since the last piece I wrote about Skyfear’s development. There’s been some significant updates, improvements, and changes, and also many decisions have been made about the future of the game. As we get closer and closer to a complete “loop” stage, we’re closing in on the amount of content and starting to laser in on the important stuff.

It’s long been a discussion — how many maps will the game have? I don’t like to give specifics this far from release. But I’ll say that since the beginning of development the number has rolled around between 6 and 12. The amount of maps, though, isn’t as important as the quality of these maps.

There has always needed to be a good variety of color, climate, space/size, aerial design, and cover. Many of the maps take on harsh extremes of unique biomes. With the final count of maps in the game, we’re implementing a few things to keep these experiences fresh and ever-changing upon new play sessions. These things include dynamic weather and variations in night/day. Each map will have one or more variants from its original (so maps can be played with a day or night time setting) and the dynamic weather occurs over the course of a match. The intention is that the variations in scene and weather will prompt new strategy and gameplay.

I’ve been doing a lot of experimenting with procedural foliage and scatter scripting as well. Nature is always a heavy influence of mine. And with a game that takes place in nature, I try to take as much care as I can to make it really feel that way.

Hand painting foliage is a skill in itself — procedural spawning is a plus in many ways. One being that it’s much less time consuming. The second being that seed-based spawning actually makes more natural-looking results than hand painting (by an unskilled painter).

In February, we had our first Closed Playtest session with about 15 players that consisted of offline-only play with 2 maps and 2 gametypes. The purpose of this was mainly to focus on AI (which has significantly improved since the tech demo), but in the larger picture, to get an updated response on the game’s overall handling. This was a very new experience for me, as I’ve normally just asked friends to download a build and play. Lots of things went unexpectedly, but the results allowed us a brand new list of the things we need to work on.

Video games have a much higher ceiling of involvement with the audience compared to other media which is maybe what allows a lot more room for criticism. As a developer, you never know what the players will do until you give it to them. It’s like watching a simulation.

An interactive media/experience is not easy to perfect. With any of that being said, testing is a large part of what makes media like this work, it’s always sobering and a good chance to learn. When the investment of the audience is entirely on their own part, you find which things really effect the overall experience.

After spending so much time refining, testing, and destroying gameplay and systems — I’ve wrapped that up to start stirring up more content. Of course, this far into development I’ve had a lot of the stuff in progress for a while, just hadn’t been focused on.

Until now, the present list of gametypes hasn’t been clearly confirmed. Currently in the game there is Carnage (6-player FFA), Factions (4v4 TDM), and the newest addition: Monarch (3 solo players fight over control of the Crown, only the player with the Crown earns points by killing). There are many other options being considered and experimented with.

Full Progress Log:

Lowered base damage from falling/collision, smoothed out RNG influence. Makes miscalculated flight more manageable.
Slight shrink on melee range, decreased time melee is allowed to init damage.
Added mechblock on melee; short duration is required before melee can be used again after use, prevents spam.
Increased overall flight acceleration and max speed.
Magic breath damager projectile given additional velocity, magic breath overall given more range.
Slight shrink on sensitivity exponent, control made sharper, less “sway”.
Dampened camera shakes.
Gamepad axis handling improved.
End of match ‘returning to lobby’ timer fixed to display proper integer.
End match result screen improved.
Added slowed time effect to end of match.
Leveling up events moved to happen upon returning to lobby/lair instead of happening in the middle of post-match display. Level up display updated as well.
Added procedural spawning of precious ‘stones’ to be collected by players, all 7 designed stones in-game.
Classes, emblem (changed to “Marking”), & apexus moved to new menu along with viewing stone collection and rewards.
Online matchmaking updated to handle advanced session tags. Specifying types and networks is more manageable. Revived old “player match” screen and updated.
Online chat updated.
Social menu updated. Now accessible wherever needed, can invite friends to session friend invite recent players.
Skirmish lobby “generate” function finished.
Title screen finished, moved savedata handling to there.
Added maps Dust, Hollow, and Spine into selection!
Added gametype Monarch into selection!
Fixed pawn visibility bug.
Genetics properly called upon returning to the Lair.
Input properly handled upon returning to the Lair.
Added new sensitivity settings, now options are between 1–10 and function on both mouse and gamepad.
Added new field of view options, 130 and 140.
Added custom class slots 4 and 5.
Player controls/preferences properly load on respawn (revert bug fixed).
“Hatchling” selection fail fixed — a silly fault.
Left/Right arrows on Spawning Class setup menu now trigger correct Up/Down corresponding events.
AI sensing range, FOV, and interval customized to intellegence and refined.
AI intelligence-accuracy given higher spread.
AI will “land” on damage of over certain instance, instead of every hit taken above certain health amount.
AI is more responsive up close, responds to taking any damage and redirects to new targets on the fly.
Clamped flight axis input; flight rotation can only go to a certain speed regardless of sensitivity setting, prevents unintended speeds and exploits.
Increase in speed when flying downward.
Finished Level up screen and rewards.
Match intro music added!!!
More advanced stone spawning and material settings finished.
System and social menus now working on class setup “spawn” screen.
Updated rank titles: Ambrux, Lucemus, Asvaroth, Tyranthian, Androuvius, Phenrexelius, Varlock (Max).
Updated AI to utilize all perks.
Perk value-changes adjusted, made more balanced.
Improved all LODs.
Improved overall sound mix, ambience is much more subtle, softened footsteps, music comes through more clearly, ect.
Wow. Didn’t realize how big that list was until I had to write this.

CONNECT WITH US!
In the next update I hope to write about custom matches, the online system, and new animation! You can join the discussion and get in on testing by joining our Discord server: https://discord.gg/VHnvf9B

Skyfear twitter: https://twitter.com/PlaySkyfear

My twitter: https://twitter.com/telekrex