Field journal · Chapter IV
From the
rafters' notebook.
Letters and sketches from the workbench. Pinned, taped, and slightly out of order.
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The probe
"The bat can bite anyone in this town. It cannot bite this."
A flying drone now hunts the bat from the air. It can't be bitten or infected, and when it spots you it sirens the soldiers to your exact position and keeps telling them where you go. Getting it to move at all took most of the day.
AI · STEALTH · ENEMIES read → -
Grounded
"Health was a bar that went down until the bat died."
Health is gone. The bat has stability now, its grip on controlled flight, and when it runs out the bat doesn't die. It drops to the floor and has to climb back into the air before something catches it.
STABILITY · MOVEMENT · STEALTH read → -
Heart rate
"The bat used to fly around like it had all night."
The bat can't fly forever anymore. It has a heart rate that flying lifts and sprinting redlines, the pencil outlines shake harder the faster it beats, and at the top your own health is the cost.
STAMINA · SHADER · UI read → -
Web page inside Unreal
"I sat down to build the strain editor screen and decided not to use UMG."
I sat down to build the strain editor and decided not to use UMG. The day became a spelunk through CEF, a web page that thinks it's a widget, and three more screens by the same pattern before sundown.
UI · CEF · MENUS read → -
Cards and slots
"Three days ago I shipped an upgrade tree. Today I deleted it."
Three days ago I shipped a virus upgrade tree. Today I deleted it and replaced it with cards. Solo dev privilege.
VIRUS · DESIGN · REFACTOR read → -
Drawing with sound
"The world looks like a drawing. Steady, monochromatic, held in place."
Two shader prototypes died before the third one stuck. The world isn't lit by the chirp anymore. It's drawn in pencil, and the chirp is the hand.
SHADER · ART · ECHOLOCATION read → -
Tuned hearing
"Two values and a boolean."
Short one. Aliens were spotting the bat from across town and every civilian was hearing every chirp like a dinner bell. Two values and a boolean later, the bat is quiet and the chirp is dangerous.
AI · PERCEPTION · TUNING read → -
Night cycle
"Whatever rhythm a playtest had was the rhythm I imposed by quitting out when I got bored."
The night now starts, runs on a clock, and ends three ways. About twenty C++ files, an inverted guard I want to disown, and the first playtest where I sat there for a second after the screen faded.
GAMEPLAY · UI · SAVE read → -
Wired up the gathering animations
"Extremely funny in screenshots, extremely embarrassing to show anyone."
Civilians have been doing the entire social system in T-pose for months. This week they finally got to use their arms. Paired conversations, idle one-shots, and one UPROPERTY to wire it all wrong from.
AI · ANIMATION · SOCIAL read → -
Aliens that actually shoot
"It was the world's politest combat encounter and I let it sit in the backlog longer than I should have."
The attack task used to be a stub. Military aliens would line up and politely do nothing. This week they got real projectiles, and then I lost an afternoon to two stacked GAS bugs that I deserved.
COMBAT · GAS · BUGS read →