Lacuna Passage - Devlog #65 - WayStats, Habitats, and Survival Events

I'll have plenty for you to read about this month, but let's start out with a video instead. We've been working on our survival sandbox randomization features and that includes the random placement of 16 different Waypoint Stations around the map. Check out the video below for more info.

Having these early randomization features in feels great, but we have more than just WayStats being randomized. We recently completed an early test for full habitat randomization, including exterior/interior transitions which you can see in another video below.

Last month we gave some details about how these habitat locations are randomized, but now we actually have them physically represented on the map along with loading transitions to randomized interiors. This is a big step towards being able to test our new "Survival Event" system.

Survival Events

"Events" will form the backbone of our survival sandbox game mode for Steam Early Access. We've shown how the physical components of the map can be randomized and remixed for each playthrough, but with our events we will be able to randomize the gameplay as well and keep the player on their toes.

Those of you who have read or watched The Martian will know where we are trying to go with this system. The intent is to surprise the player with many "mini-disasters", but to hopefully make the player feel like they have just the resources they need to solve the problem if they think quickly.

If you watched our previous devlog video about crafting items then you will have a better understanding of how these events will be "fixed". Similar to how you might craft items, the survival equipment in the game may have components that break and need to be replaced. Some materials might be useful for crafting and for equipment repairs, so you will need to ration your supplies carefully and choose which items might need to be broken down for their component parts.

Space is an unforgiving place, so you will have to face increasingly difficult challenges the longer you survive. If you haven't had a chance yet, you can check out our previous art devlog to see some of the equipment that you might be tasked with repairing.

Thanks again for following along with us on our blog. Come back in a few weeks for more progress!

Lacuna Passage - Devlog #64 - Solar Panels and Exterior Modules

Last time we had a chance to show off the RTG, or Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator, and we discussed how it could be used to power some of the life support systems at Foundation Base.  Here's a look at the completed RTG on the charging platform:

 We now have most of the other components complete as well, including power switches, solar panels, and the bulk of the heater, oxygenator, and water reclaimer.

The heater, oxygenator, and water reclaimer (above) are the three main life support systems at Foundation Base that will require monitoring and occasional maintenance in order to survive.  These exterior modules run heat, oxygen, and water through buried lines back to the Habitat.  The modules themselves are separated from the Habitat, each with individual power sources to prevent full power loss to the most vital survival components.  The separation of these units ensures that any explosions or overheating that may occur in these machines will not affect the safety of the Hab.

The machines themselves are unfinished, but we have been working hard to make each one seem unique while utilizing parts from other assets.  It's important for us to consider buying some assets from third parties for Lacuna Passage in order to quickly generate content.  In the case of these exterior modules, we purchased an asset known as the "Compressor" from Turbosquid.com, and primarily used it's pieces to create 3 unique machines.  Here’s the original compressor model for you to compared with the units above:

There are a few different ways to power these machines, and monitoring their power sources will become just as important as making sure the machines themselves are running properly.  Currently, we have three types of solar panels that are the most common source of power to the exterior modules.  The larger solar panels require more materials and time to craft, but offer greater power efficiency.

Solar panels can be easily covered in sand or damaged after a storm, so you will need to dust these panels often in order to produce adequate power.  Here you can see the different levels of sand covering a large solar panel:

Each bank of solar panels will be positioned near a switch that controls the flow of electricity generated from the panels to their corresponding machine.  Color coded flags mark the path to the machine being powered.

The power switch is needed to perform maintenance on the machine.  If something needs repair, you may be required to shut off the power source using this switch and then replace a part on the machine before turning the power back on.  We are excited about the many variations of repair work that will be necessary with these new modules in place.

Next we are working to create a hub attached to each module that can be opened like the hood of a car to perform part replacements for the fuses, pumps, and other inner workings of these machines.

Feel free to comment below!

Lacuna Passage - Devlog #63 - Survival Sandbox and New Interior Lightmapping

Sorry for posting this a day late, but the wonderful and confusing tradition of the Iowa Caucuses put a wrench in my plans to post yesterday. This month we have been adding some crucial features to our Survival Sandbox mode, including the brand new unique map.

We wanted the Survival Sandbox mode to stand on its own with a different map built specifically to maximize replayability. Most importantly that meant creating a map that has entirely unique terrain formations. We are happy to say that this map is nearly complete. We still plan on adding more large rock formations that are not pulled from the NASA satellite data. Generally we like to lean more towards realism, but many of our sourced heightmaps are fairly sparse. Mars is incredibly geologically diverse on a macro scale, but on the micro scale it is mostly flat and empty. So while the following screenshots do have a decent amount of variation we will still add lots of cliffs and larger formations to fill in the gaps.

We are happy to say that this new map is exactly the same scale as the one we will eventually be using for the story mode. Nearly 25 square miles. This gives us a ton of room to work with for some randomization features that will be largely unique to the Survival Sandbox.

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Above you can see a top down view of the entire Survival Sandbox map. The frame labeled "All Map Points" shows you all of our possible points of interest that can be randomized during each play through. Without giving away too many surprises for when we launch on Early Access, here are some basics of how the randomization works:

  • The Pink labeled dots are potential habitat locations, nine in total. Every time you play you will start near a different habitat around the outer edge of the map. There will be three habitats spawned for each playthrough, but we use an algorithm to ensure that they always form a natural "path" across roughly one third of the total map area. In Survival Sandbox mode it is likely that you will need to make your way from one habitat to the next after you run out of supplies, so this placement algorithm should help keep the same map feeling fresh with a different path every play through.
  • The Red labeled dots are our Waypoint Stations, 16 in total for each playthrough. These are important navigational checkpoints that help you in many ways we will be detailing later, but as you can see in the sample randomizations above they don't always appear in the same locations.
  • The Dark Blue labeled dots are currently referred to as our "Primary Objectives". Each objective will be unique, but they all function as a sort of "oasis" in the vast Mars desert. They are carefully positioned hubs that can expand your overall search radius when found. One example might be a broken down rover that contains an oxygen refill tank and a battery for recharging your suit. As you can see above, we use another algorithm here to ensure varied placement of Primary Objectives.
  • The Light Blue labeled dots are what we call our more general "Points of Interest". These will be our most heavily randomized objectives on the map. They are smaller and less important than Primary Objectives, but the more you find the more likely you are to maintain your extended survival on the red planet. These might be emergency food storage caches, downed weather balloons, geological research plots, or any number of other mission-related sites.

In general, the quantity and frequency of the sandbox map objectives may be greater than what you might expect in a real Mars mission, but we feel very good about the variety this adds to the gameplay and the real sense of discovery you get when stumbling upon these locations.

As you can see, our Survival Sandbox mode is not entirely procedural, nor is it entirely static. We are using light randomization features to add variety for replayability. We are applying this method with our habitat interiors as well. There will be nine possible habitat interiors to match our nine possible habitat spawn locations. So, even if you happen to spawn at the same habitat location on the map, the interior of that habitat may not be the same as it was before. Since each of these nine interiors are still designed by hand it allows us to have a higher fidelity for the art and especially the lighting. We have reintroduced the use of lightmapping to have the most realistic rendering possible. Below you will see our first pass at using our new lightmapping and reflection probe setup. You might also notice a few shots where we have managed to swap the lightmaps to simulate a power outage which you may encounter on your mission simulation.

Next month I hope to be able to share some details about our "survival event" system which will effectively serve as your primary antagonist for the Survival Sandbox mode. We really want you to feel like Mark Watney dodging curve balls left and right that might drastically impact your chances of survival on Mars. Creative problem solving and resource management will be key to overcoming the odds.

If you have any questions let us know in the comments!

Lacuna Passage - Devlog #62 - Inventory Storage and the RTG

The last major component of the interior Habitat, the Inventory Storage module, is complete.  The final third of this module holds the Consumables portion of your inventory.  Just like the other parts of the Storage unit, the items shown here are a visual representation of the amount of food you have stashed.

With the Habitat interior finalized, we only have a few other major art-related tasks for the survival mode left.  Our next highest priority assets are the external maintenance units at Foundation Base.  These include anything outside of the Habitat that you may have to repair such as the Water Reclaimer, Re-oxygenator, and Heater.  Most of these machines will be detached from the Habitat, with buried lines that connect them to structures.

From a game design perspective, this allows us to create some interesting maintenance and upkeep EVA’s where the player can choose to do routine inspections or risk waiting until something fails.  We want these units to have multiple problems that can arise randomly, and also force players to make choices of how to utilize the resources available to them.

For example, each of these units will require a power source.  Solar panels will serve as a common source of power in most cases, but they require dusting regularly and can be at risk during electrical storms.  Another power source that will be available is the RTG, or Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator.  Here’s a quick look at the work-in-progress model we will use for the RTG in-game.

The RTG is basically a vessel that contains a naturally decaying plutonium core.  Plutonium-238 creates heat as it decays, which the vessel uses to convert into electricity.  It can last for over a decade and is a very practical way to power something on Mars.  For Lacuna Passage, the RTG will serve as the sustainable and low-maintenance alternative to solar energy.  It will be a rare find that the player will have to decide carefully what to power with it.

The RTG is something we are very excited to implement because it expands our options for survival elements by drawing from real-world inspirations.  NASA actually uses a RTG on the Curiosity rover.

Feel free to comment below!

Lacuna Passage - Devlog #61 - Terrain Updates, Inventory, and More

The holidays have been a busy time for us and our families, but we've still made a good deal of progress this last month. As we move closer and closer to an eventual Early Access release for our survival sandbox mode we have been evaluating every aspect of the game that we think is necessary to make a good first impression.

Terrain Updates

Even with Early Access we will really only get one chance to show the potential of the full game, so we decided that the terrain was such a large part of what we are trying to do that it needed to be at a higher level of quality. To do that we have officially transitioned to using the new terrain shader that we mentioned last month. And as an added bonus, the new terrain shader has allowed us to increase the fog distance so that there is even more visible terrain while exploring.

We still need to randomly place our new rock models and modular cliffs, but the setup of the textures and shaders was more than half the battle. We can now quickly iterate on the general topography of the map and all of our settings for texture coverage can be regenerated based on our complicated ruleset in World Machine which you can see below.

It's not a simple process, but it is streamlined and optimized to allow us the most flexibility when prototyping new terrain features. We will be shooting for a terrain equal in size to what will comprise the final game map for the story mode (roughly 20 square miles of explorable terrain), but this will be a distinct and separate map with the potential for multiple maps after release.

Inventory Additions

Over the holidays we also worked on expanding our internal inventory database that will dictate what kinds of items you can expect to collect, craft, and consume during the course of the game. That list is now well over 100 items long with many more additions yet to come. Some mechanical changes have also been prototyped, including nutritional differences between ingesting raw food packets versus prepared food packets. Here is a tease of our spreadsheet for managing these items and the impact they will have on your gameplay.

New Unity Asset Packs

Last month we posted about how we began selling our own cliff and rock models on the Unity Asset Store. This month we started posting some supplemental music content to the Asset Store that will eventually be promoted as part of our Song Seed music plugin for Unity. Our composer, Clark Aboud, has been working on some amazing music unrelated to Lacuna Passage and we thought we would try to sell some of that music to help support him and our continued development. We have now released two dynamic loop packs that can be used with any game, but will work particularly well with Song Seed when it is eventually released. As a demonstration of how these loop packs can be used, you can play the tracks below which are complete songs composed entirely of these perfectly looping clips.

A preview of the loops that can be found in the Action Loop Pack designed for use with the Song Seed Unity Plugin

A preview of the loops that can be found in the Epic Fantasy Loop Pack designed for use with the Song Seed Unity Plugin

If you are a game developer, or know someone who might be interested in these loop packs, you can visit our Unity Asset Store publisher page which has links to purchase either pack.

TIMEframe Holiday Sale

As the holiday season comes to a close we did want to remind you all that our other game TIMEframe is still currently on sale for our lowest price since launch. Of course, if you were a Lacuna Passage Kickstarter backer you should already have your free copy, but perhaps you would like to buy another copy for a friend or just to support us as we continue to work on Lacuna Passage. We are quite proud of our 86% positive review average on Steam. If you have already played the game we would love to hear what you think. Visit our store page and leave your own review. Every little thing you can do to spread the word about our projects helps immensely. And for those of you who have already left a review, thank you!

Game with the Devs - Play Heroes of the Storm with us!

Spencer and I are working very hard to bring you Lacuna Passage, but we still take time here and there to relax and unwind a little. Over the last few months we have been enjoying Blizzard's MOBA, Heroes of the Storm, during our lunch breaks. We are big fans of the game now and we thought it might be fun to bring fans of TIMEframe and Lacuna Passage into the mix. It doesn't matter if you are a DOTA2 or LoL grizzled veteran, or if you don't even know what a MOBA game is. We would love to have you join us for an occasional match and if you are new we can help show you the ropes. We are by no means professionals, but when you work from home with a very small dev team it helps to be reminded of the people you are making games for and interact with them on a more regular basis. I just recently upgraded my internet connection (I live in the middle of a nature preserve) so hopefully we can even stream the games and participate with Twitch chat too. Come play with us! You can use our referral links below to get started with the game and we will announce our play sessions over Twitter with info on how to join us.

Spencer's Heroes of the Storm Referral Link

Tyler's Heroes of the Storm Referral Link

That's it for this devlog. Thanks for reading. We've got lots to do!

Lacuna Passage - Devlog #60 - Inventory Storage

One of the last major pieces we are working on for the Habitat is the inventory storage modules.  The items in your inventory will be split into three categories: materials, equipment, and consumables.  Likewise, the storage unit will be divided into those same three categories to visually represent the items you have stored away.  Here a few pictures of how the inventory storage area looks right now:

As you can see, the crafting materials and equipment sections are complete and feature many different items you may find as you explore drill sites, supply caches, or other Habitats.  For the most part, we simply use crates or boxes to represent the number of items stored in the materials section.  The module has five variations, from empty to full, and as you store items you will see it change to represent its contents.

The equipment section is a little more complex.  The most important pieces of equipment are visualized individually for quick identification.  This is because we want players to choose what pieces of equipment they can take out on EVA’s, leaving behind potentially important or useful tools that they have to keep track of.  Your inventory will fill up quickly with heavy tools, so it's important to only take what you think you need on long trips.  Here’s a closer look at all the equipment stored away:

Each piece of equipment has it's purpose, and knowing when to use them will be important.  Some are easily identifiable with unique models, but some others are only shown stored in a case.  This was intentional to reduce modeling and allow placeholder art for pieces of equipment that may be added in the future.  Currently our Haz-Mat Kit, First Aid Kit, Soldering Kit, and Wiring Kit all share this model:

You will notice that the only difference is the diffuse texture that is applied to each.  We feel that paint color and labels are enough to differentiate these pieces of equipment.  Sharing textures and models between assets is important to reduce load times and file sizes.  As we approach the release of our early access, we will be taking many steps like this to future-proof our game.  Share your thoughts in the comments below.

 

Lacuna Passage - Devlog #59 - New Cliffs and Rocks for Terrain

Normally our devlog posts at the beginning of the month are reserved for general development progress and gameplay systems, but Spencer and I wear many hats here at Random Seed Games and I've actually been working on some art related stuff over the last few weeks in preparation for our first survival sandbox map design.

We want to make the survival mode a unique experience from the story mode that will come later. So that means a unique map on release, and hopefully multiple unique maps over time. I decided that this would be a perfect time to revisit one of the most criticised aspects of our terrain... the rocks and cliffs.

The NASA data that we use for our terrain generation is incredibly helpful for creating basic formations, but there are some definite limitations. The data resolution and the inability to create overhanging rock formations combine to make the terrain look like a continuous flowing surface without many rugged features. To combat this we need to create rock meshes that protrude from the surface and form more realistic cliffs, etc. In the past we have relied on the Unity Asset Store as much as possible for rock models, but for cliffs we had difficulty finding appropriate models. So I spent some time this month creating my own cliff models using real Mars cliff photos as reference.

During the creation process I realized that these models might be useful to other developers working on desert environments or planets, so I packed everything up and posted it on the Unity Asset Store for $25. Each variation began as a uniform model which was modified by extruding the vertices using a heightmap generated from a high quality texture. Then each unique model needed to be optimized and adjusted to hide the texture seams as much as possible. Ultimately this provides us with very similar "building blocks" that combine perfectly to create larger formations.

The end result looks great, especially at very large scales where the repetition is more easily hidden. So if you are a developer or know someone who needs some realistic cliff models/textures you should check out our Asset Store page.

Additionally, we are still relying on some other Asset Store packages to supplement our own terrain assets. We did manage to find one set of cliff models that will work for us, but we had to make some significant edits to make the meshes modular and lower poly. The package also contained some really high quality rocks that will look great strewn around our terrain.

Arid Environment Rocks - Unity Asset Store

After working to match these rocks and cliffs with our own we feel much better equipped to start building our survival sandbox terrain.

New Relief Terrain Pack Shader

More recently we have also started investigating a new terrain shader in order to further improve our terrain quality. Our old terrain shader is a heavily modified version of an Asset Store terrain shader and it is having issues now with the Unity 5 physical rendering changes. This new Relief Terrain Pack shader may be our best option, and after some early tests it may actually improve our workflow for terrain creation overall. We don't have any screenshots of it in action for Lacuna Passage yet, but to get an idea of what's possible with the RTP shader check out the video below.

November has been a busy month for art development. The rest of December will now be devoted to building up the survival sandbox map design version 1.0 and populating it with randomized elements that will make every survival mode playthrough a new challenge.

Lacuna Passage - Devlog #58 - Fitness Station and Inventory Storage

We have been hard at work adding some interesting new interactable “work stations” within the Habitat to give depth to the survival aspects within the game.  We recently completed the fitness station, consisting of the multi-purpose aRED (Advanced Resistance Exercise Device) and a Treadmill.  Fitness is an important factor to consider as you travel across the Martian landscape.  For instance, training at the fitness station will increase your overall stamina and reduce the likelihood of injury.

We wanted the fitness station to resemble some of the equipment used in space today.  The treadmill is pretty recognizable, but the aRED is something you wouldn’t find in your typical gym.  That’s because it uses vacuum pressure to replicate multiple weight-based exercises, reducing the need for unwieldy weights.  Here’s a cool video from astronaut Mike Hopkins showing off how it works.  The vacuum pressure even makes it practical to use in zero gravity at the ISS.

Our next station we are in the progress of adding is the storage area for inventory items.  We want this area to feel easy to access, and show visually what you have stored away.  At any time the player can walk up to any of the three storage areas to access the inventory management screen on their datapad to add or store away items in their backpack.  Here is a first glimpse at how it might look:

This area is one of the more essential components to managing your food, equipment, and crafting materials, so we want it to be rather large and visually appealing.  We plan on adding lots of small details to make it feel like it actually reflects what you have stored away.  And remember, you can find multiple Habitats in our survival mode - allowing you to store away items at specific locations.  Inventory management will surely be key to your survival on Mars.

Lacuna Passage - Devlog #57 - Survival Stats Interface

We decided to do another video this month to show off some more improvements to the Datapad user interface. We now have a simple vitals screen that helps you visualize your current survival attributes like nutrition and hydration. It may look complex at first, but hopefully after watching the video you will see that we are trying to balance realism with readability. We also have an updated sleep timer screen that will allow you to reduce your exhaustion and move time forward more quickly. And if you stick around to the end of the video then you will see a few improvements we've made to the crafting screen.

Check out the video below and please let us know if you have any feedback for the features we are working on. We hope you are excited about the prospect of surviving on Mars!

Lacuna Passage - Devlog #56 - Crafting and Research Stations

As we work to implement more survival focused features into Lacuna Passage, we have been revisiting the elements of crafting in the game.  We have decided to incorporate dedicated “work stations” into the Habitat that the player will interact with depending on what it is they need to craft or research.  For instance, if the player would like to craft an emergency pop tent, they may first need to take something to salvage over to the workbench to break it down into materials.  Or they may need to use a 3D printer to create parts from scratch.  Here are some images of how the workbench and 3D printer look right now:

These workstations will be randomly generated in some (but not all) habitats the player discovers in survival mode.  Another objective we would like to include in the survival mode of Lacuna Passage involves the new research station.

This area would be utilized by collecting rock and mineral samples in order to better understand the geology and biology of Mars.  Although this goal would not directly affect your survival, we found that having multiple open-ended objectives is more enjoyable.

As we work to create many new and interesting areas in the habitat, we are always trying to utilize existing models and elements from other assets.  We reuse as many pieces as possible, like the computer monitor mount and work station tabletop.  Even the wall and outlets are recycled bits from other sections of the habitat.  It's important that we create these assets in ways that would allow us to reuse them in the future.  For example, the microscope pictured above was one of the very first internal habitat assets we created, but we have a variant with an attached computer monitor and keyboard that we can use in other locations.

We have plenty of other ideas in mind for interactive workstations, and we hope to have even more to show next month.  Let us know what you think in the comments.