This week, the team at Depths of Erendorn has been hard at work, driving forward the development of the game across multiple fronts. From refining core gameplay elements to enhancing the visual and auditory experience, each department has made significant strides. The client team focused on crucial fixes and improvements to animations and movement, ensuring a more seamless and responsive player experience. Simultaneously, the server team tackled vital infrastructure upgrades and resolved key issues to bolster the game's backend stability. The sound team brought new life to the Black Bear Slam ability, while the animation team continued perfecting player locomotion for different character types. The VFX team introduced a compelling array of enemy effects, adding depth and clarity to combat encounters. Meanwhile, the set piece design team enriched the game’s environments with new decorative elements that enhance storytelling and world-building. Together, these efforts contribute to a more immersive and polished experience in the evolving world of Depths of Erendorn. As always, join us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit for daily updates on Depths of Erendorn. Alternatively, join our Discord for all the latest! - now let’s get into it!
Set Piece Design
This week, the set piece design team at Depths of Erendorn focused on enriching the interiors of settlement buildings with new decorative elements. Several wall hangings were created, each adorned with skulls to showcase the hunting prowess of their owners. These trophies, remnants of past adventures, now serve as a visual testament to the stories and achievements of the NPCs inhabiting the world. These additions contribute to a richer, more detailed environment that reflects the history and culture of Erendorn’s inhabitants. An examples of the work completed by the team can be seen below.
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Programming
Client
This week, the client team at Depths of Erendorn made significant progress in refining and expanding the game's functionality. Efforts were concentrated on fixing animations within the dry test environment, successfully identifying and resolving the issue causing hit reactions to fail during basic attacks. With this issue addressed, the team then focused on implementing player movement within the dry test environment. This task required adjustments to the core code, ensuring the system could handle the necessary data structures for movement and updating the manual log entry setup accordingly. Further changes to the core system are anticipated, but the team remains optimistic that full functionality will be achieved in the coming week. Additionally, work continued on the map panel, enhancing its interactive capabilities by enabling positioning, panning, and the addition of markers for party members, fast travel points, and interactable elements, further enriching the player’s navigational experience. Additional work completed by the client team can be seen below.
- Explored methods for implementing the ability to scroll in two dimensions.
- Added markers for Entities, Fast Travel Points and Interactables.
- Added the ability to focus map markers.
- Added controls for map panel alpha and marker scale.
- Removed more outdated assets that were being loaded on login.
Server
Last week, the server team at Depths of Erendorn focused on resolving several critical issues and advancing the infrastructure that underpins the game. Key tasks included addressing inventory creation problems on new characters and fixing a server crash caused by invalid or mismatched navigation data. Additionally, the team worked on updating mapping functions to resolve issues introduced by an auto-save feature designed to reduce RAM usage when mapping large areas. This feature, while effective at unloading chunks from memory, inadvertently led to data loss when chunks were resaved without the node map, an issue that was subsequently fixed. Furthermore, the team initiated an upgrade to client-server communication, aiming to offload tasks related to player connections and data compression. This upgrade not only enhances server performance by freeing up resources for game logic but also adds a layer of protection by concealing the IP addresses of the servers running the game logic from clients. These improvements are vital steps toward a more robust and efficient backend for Depths of Erendorn.
Sound Design
This week, the sound team at Depths of Erendorn completed the final stages of the Black Bear Slam ability by implementing the activation stage, which includes the charge-up sound effects. Additionally, the team reworked various vocal elements for the Black Bear, refining the attack, hit-react, and death sounds to enhance the creature's audio presence in the game. The slash sound of the melee attack was also reworked to provide a more impactful auditory experience during combat. These updates contribute to a more dynamic and engaging atmosphere within the game. Examples of the teams work throughout the week can be seen below.
Animation
This week, the animation team at Depths of Erendorn continued refining player locomotion, focusing on addressing issues and making adjustments to enhance the overall feel of movement for the user. Significant progress was made with the Human Knight, whose animations have reached a satisfying level of fluidity and responsiveness. However, the team is still working on improving the locomotion for the Elf and Dwarf characters, aiming to achieve a similarly polished experience. The ultimate goal is to ensure that player movement feels as natural and fluid as possible across all character types, contributing to a seamless and engaging gameplay experience. Examples of the work completed by the team can be seen below.
Visual Effects
This week, the VFX team at Depths of Erendorn completed the first batch of enemy effects, adding a diverse range of visual feedback for players during combat. The newly created effects include Gathering Storm, Spitting Venom, Binding Roots, Chain Lightning, Icy Spiderwebs, as well as Poison and Disease Arrows. Each of these abilities has been given a distinct and unique visual style, ensuring that players can quickly recognise and react to the various threats posed by enemies. These enhancements are designed to make battles more engaging, as players can now visually interpret the abilities being cast against them in the heat of combat. Examples of the effects created through the week can be seen below.
That’s it for this weeks devlog, but have you seen our monthly roundup of July yet?!
