February 2018 (Week 2)

+ The great de-spaggeting is upon us, begging with the jank-ass player laser
+ added 3d stereo sound, witch configurable perimeters and an option for the old mono sound
+ Nerfed the stage 3 boss a bit
+ Added backed for difficulty stuff
+ BIG BUISNESSDEV
- Art is slow

+ Made new way of making blendable procedural poses
+ Altered animating runtime for some additional render options for batching and lighting
+ Finally fixed new chain dynamics and they work well despite having less configuration options
+ Updated most of boss animations except for hitboxes sync and particle effects
+ Made a few animations for another boss
+ Binded dash to crouch/slide button for further prototyping

+ minor visual tweaks
+ new tiles
+ shadow surface
- still need to decide on the artstyle so i can start animating

+ Made a building tileset.
+ Added a collider to the trees so the player can jump into trees. I'll probably put some hidden items in the trees like extra lives or access cards.

+ More animations
+ VFX for animations
+ Standardized some shaders so I can use material instances instead of an unnecessary amount of materials
+ Tested the basis of the new melee system, way more accurate and easy than the previous one
+ Melee hits now have special proprieties like breaking shields, knockback, and so on
+ Characters now recoil when knocked back
+ Might have found the right way to buffer attacks
+ Grunt behavior is mostly done, just need to change the way it moves around
+ Came up with an idea on how to do grouped attacks between different AI characters
+ Started blocking out a level
+ Have the concept and started modelling a new enemy (ranged support unit)
+ Fixed the game's overall blurryness caused by engine settings
+ Mechas now fully rotate towards each other instead of just rotating on pitch
- Can't find a way to limit the angle projectiles are being shot
- Forgot to take care of twitter/tumblr again
- Locking a character into an animation montage (for melee/recoil) is currently super wonky and probably has a lot of bugs
- Haven't found a way to standardize the way melee is written for the player, so I currently just have a bunch of spaghetti

+ Made and implemented models for various items and enemies.
- Getting distracted a lot.

+ Added a cool HUD
+ A lot of AI polish, ability to see again, pathfinding using map specific nav nodes
+ Better camera placement
- ...

+ Finished player sprites and implemented them
+ More work on the tileset done

+ New collision system basically done
+ First enemy attack states re-implemented
+ It's been one whole year of development on this game! Started with no coding knowledge and look where it is now.

+ Sorting Plugin finished and working!!
+ Map Item loot (Database) proto
+ Map Item loot (Items) proto
+ Upgrading Battle HuD
+ Starting Apps Upgrades proto
+ Icons and New Character
+ Will try releasing for Demo Day 19

+ Added "Cancelled" and "Abandoned" mission statuses
+ Added mission system tracking for kills and object uses
+ Fixed text formatting for plural mission targets
+ Fixed the player's camera being dragged away from the direction they're moving when holding a weapon
+ Tweaked how roads affect procedurally generated land mesh. They can now affect multiple meshes at the same time
+ Fixed arm length on player skeleton
+ Testing out a dynamic crosshair that follows where a held weapon is pointing
- Need to add edge vertex matching for adjacent land meshes

+ Implemented incremental sprite file loading
+ Implemented drawing of paletted textures
- Writing a thesis kills progress nearly as much as it kills the will to live

+ Lights are in once again, they look beautiful
+ Finished the save system. Creating folder, saving data in and out.
+ Played around with a letterbox. It makes the game look really rad, but it's kinda stupid since it removed a large portion of the screen, might use it for cutscenes though
- Haven't decided on what the sprite for the save point should be

+ Vlad rerigging continues as scheduled
+ Pixel concept is in progress, second iteration underway
+ Environment art testbed is in progress for Emerald Coast arena
+ Animation test bed has a lot more functionality and has shown some needed mods to the animators
- Minor issue with Vlad's texture clarity resulted in revisions
- Perforce license issue delayed bringing on new coder by a day or two

+ Fixed some reported issues in the demo
+ Started work on a custom editor for all the game data
+ Finished most of the story, maps, NPCs for World 1 (out of four worlds)
+ Testing new combat features

- still recovering from refactoring

+ Beetle joins the crew
+ Terrain and level design started
+ Main Character Ellie rigged and weighted for animation
+ Various concepts done for future progress
+ Settled on a shader for the time being
- Jiggle Physics for hair didn't go as intended, alternate means must be found
- Place holder textures, place holder textures everywhere

+ Got two varieties of flowers and part of a tree done
+ Added small animation on flowers so that they move when you run into them
- Nothing really

+ 7 more weapon pickups
+ greater attack variety - range, AoE patterns, charge-up & knockback effects
+ groundwork for auxiliary powerup slots
+ logic for status effects
+ enemies with ranged attacks
+ contact for music
- made the working title less goofy

+ New area is near completion
+ New enemy: candlebats
+ Organizing my final ideas/goals for this game
- Trying to learn GLSL ES, and most likely won't use much of my practice for this project
- Game still isn't pleasant to look at

+ AI fire multiple guns
+ AI basic pursuit + steer from close collision
+ Animate props

+ Add VR to game
+ Grabbing enemies turns them from 2D to 3D
+ Fire + grip weapon
+ Some environment models

+ redoing a old sprite sheet
- lack of planning

+ Worked on menu
+ Fixed some bugs
+ Remake the alchemy system, because how it worked before was clashing with the new level system
+ Added indicators of what have you equipped on alchemy slots, they are different for each material, and change real time when you center energy around a different material from the preferential one
+ Fixed tree physics
+ Started working on a new enemy( without art, currently just uses placeholder sprites )
+ Variable jump height ( before it was the same all the times )
- Didn't post any progress in the week on the threads
- Started college, so I now have less time to work on the game

+ Memory Board (customisation skill tree thingy) list for demo complete.
+ Quests and rewards for demo complete.

+ brushes to paint obstacles on the map work
+ test for placing obstacle sprites based on the tiles works
+ test for depth ordering works.
- object activating/deactivating behaving weird. can't tell if it's me or GM.
- art is pain. seriously though, intended to paint the tiles, don't wanna half-assedly go back to 3D, but maybe I'm being unrealistic.

+ changed name from Grotto to The Cavern
+ made starting area
+ started working on fire sub-zone
- was ill so missed monday recap
- probably shelving the ruins idea until I can get a style I like with it

+ Broke environment into a fine grid
+ Overhaul of enemies with more varied behaviors
- Still in placeholder art hell
- Another fucking year older

+ Destroyable cover/walls
+ Slightly smarter ai (SLIGHTLY)
+ Multiple weapons with different feels
- Still in placeholder art hell
- The gun shoots when you do a telekensis blast
- Ai is still dumb as rock if you hide behind something
- Another fucking year older (turn 24 today)

+ trying out new art style
+ new name
+ added watch
+ improved boat controller
+ new boat functionalities
+ character controller
- everything is buggy and will probably be rewritten in future