Skywatch #19 - Development Update

Welcome to Skywatch #19!

Whilst our updates may have slowed down, make no mistake! Development on Lost Skies is advancing at a rapid pace. The game is really starting to take shape, and whilst it's still important to stress that we're still very much 'pre-alpha', we think that a lot of people would be surprised by just how much progress is being made, if they could see the game being played today. Alas, we're not quite ready to show it off in its entirety yet (you only get one chance to make a good first impression afterall!) but we're edging ever closer.

For now, we hope you'll enjoy today's development update, which gives a look at some of the new systems that are now starting to make it into the game.

UX

We'll open with a UX update once more. Our UX designer, Ellen, has been hard at work on a range of UI elements during this sprint (note: a 'sprint' is a leg of development, several sprints will make up a 'milestone', which is a larger build update that we deliver to our partners at Humble Games, as well as our open development community). One of the big features that Ellen has been working on over the past few weeks, is our in-game compendium. As the name suggests, this will be a collection of knowledge that you will automatically fill out as you explore our game world.

We're excited to share with you an early sneak peek at the compendium in the clip below. Remember that this is very much a work in progress, and the entries are currently placeholder (hence the generic 'Lorem Ipsum' text) but hopefully it gives you an idea of how the compendium will work, allowing you to track the many exciting discoveries you'll come across on your adventures in Lost Skies.

The images below show some of the other work that Ellen has completed in this sprint.

Ellen's also started work on some colourblind UX mock-ups, as demonstrated in the arrow icon concept below:

And finally for our UX update, Ellen has been working on a new 'discovered' pop-up, that will show when you make a new discovery, as shown in the screenshot below (the berry icon is placeholder).

Skytravel

In our last Skywatch, we shared some of the procedural damage decal work that the team had started on. In the clip below, you can see some of Andy's work on the system and how it's progressing.

Klaudia has also been working on some ship damage VFX, and has spent some time over the past few weeks importing some of the old World's Adrift ship part visual effects, and updating them for use in Lost Skies. These are still very much a work in progress, but by being able to import these old VFX, our team can save a lot of development time that would have otherwise had to have been spent creating these effects from scratch. The clips below show the progress on these so far.

Finally for our Skytravel features this month, the video clip below, you can see the new Gall Disc crafting animation.

Islands

Lots of work is being done to make our islands as interesting and fun to explore as possible. First up, Luke has been hard at work on adding a grappling hook tutorial area to the starter island.

The grappling hook is one of the main features of Lost Skies, but because of the physical nature of the grappling in our game, we're well aware that it can take a good amount of time to become really adept with the tool, which can lead to some frustrating moments for newer players who have yet to 'git gud' with the tool. For this reason, we want to introduce players to the grapple hook in a controlled way.

The idea behind the grappling tutorial area is that it will serve as an introduction to your grappling hook by initially granting you access to a learners grappling hook, which would be functionally limited and introduce you to the mechanics of the tool step-by-step, in as risk free a way as possible. The screenshots below show how this area is shaping up:

In other island related work, some of our artists have been revisiting our Saborian aesthetic, as it has become apparent that some of the Saborian tech in-game has gotten away from the original Saborian brief. The image below shows some of the planned changes/updates to our Saborian items. The original design brief for Sabor was that they used a lot of geometric shapes and sharp edges in their designs, and less sleek lines and circular elements, so we'll be making some minor alterations to certain Saborian equipment to better reflect this.

Additionally to this, Klaudia has also been working on updating a number of our Saborian textures and material shaders in the game, some of which are shown below:

Going through and updating all of the existing assets with the new textures/shaders would be extremely time consuming, so Klaudia also came up with a bespoke material generator as shown in the screenshot below, allowing us to replace the textures much more quickly across a range of assets.

Next up is a look at some of the early work that's been completed on our first physics based puzzles. Jonathan Betts, one of our artists, has been concepting these. Right now, there are two variations - the sphere and the cube. You will use a combination of your grappling hook and Atlas lifters (spoilers! More on those below) to manipulate the physics objects in to their sockets as part of the puzzle.

The Atlas shard crystal in the centre of the object will point to the correct socket, similar to how the Marauder’s compass would direct you in Worlds Adrift. This will be useful for puzzles that have more than one object and socket, and is demonstrated in the concepts below:

Our final island update today is a look at some of our updated drone models. Jonathan has been working on some concepts for our different enemy drone types, including our AoE drone and our 'heal bot' drone, that will repair its fellow drones. Below is a look at one of Jonathan's concepts for these.

One of our 3D artists, John Warner, has then been taking these concepts and coming up with some 3D models based off of them, as can be seen below.

These are still very much a WIP, so textures, models and VFX may change between now and release, but below is a look at the drones in-action, with the heal bot doing its thing. Whilst not shown in this gif, the heal bot will also follow a basic triage, whereby it knows which drones are in critical need of repair based on their remaining health.

Additional things to note in this gif:

• Groups - Drones are now aware of their buddies within a group
• Formations (first pass) - Drone AI can now put itself in a specific position within a group.

Utility

Our final update for today's Skywatch focuses on our utility items. First up, here's a look at our updated re-textured furnace, and a snapshot of how it looks in-game when fuelled.

And finally, we're thrilled to finally be able to share some the progress of our Atlas lifters with you all (you may have spotted mention of them earlier in this post). First up, here are some of the concepts of our Atlas lifter by Jonathan and the current WIP 3D model.

For those of you who played Worlds Adrift, we're sure that seeing our Atlas lifter return will be welcome news indeed. For our newer players who didn't get to experience it in Worlds Adrift, here's a short brief about the Atlas lifters functionality:

The Atlas lifter utilises Atlas crystals (Atlas is the compound in our game which gives things their floating properties, and allows ships to fly) to help you move otherwise immovable objects. The lifter is a placeable object that works by applying lift and negating some of an objects mass, allowing you to manipulate physical objects within the world. This functionality is demonstrated in the gifs below.