Skywatch #21 - Development Update

Hi all and welcome to this month's Skywatch! We’ve been working hard on the moment-to-moment gameplay - all things islands and survival - over the last six weeks for a big delivery to our partners over at Humble. At this stage, we're not only adding new features but doing a lot of tuning and polish, which makes pulling these updates together a little harder, as they are best experienced in-game. But hopefully, these improvements are still exciting for you all!

Unified Damage Systems

A big improvement over the last month is Tom’s work on the Unified Damage System. We’ve created a base system that can now be applied to all objects in the world - meaning everything can damage anything.

This screenshot shows how you can use your gun, although not the most efficient way of doing the job, to bring down trees. This will hopefully lead to some great emergent gameplay and players will be able to interact with the world in ways we’ve not thought of.

UI/UX

We've made another big step forward for UI/UX this month. Ellen has focused on Iconography, which is crucial for new players. Clear and understandable icons significantly enhance the gaming experience, allowing you to grasp information quickly without needing lots of words. Ellen's efforts are paying off, making the game more intuitive.

Another thing Ellen has been working on is how we introduce boss encounters in the sky. Here’s the first look at some of the popups and enemy HUD.

Region 2 Creation

Klaudia has been hard at work on creating the assets for Region 2. It's a massive project, as she needs to craft an area that feels like Lost Skies but also distinct from Region 1. Her work ensures that players will feel like they're exploring a new part of the Skies world.

Ship Building

Over the next two months, we’ll be focusing on shipbuilding, parametric flight and ship combat. All these systems already exist, but after a lot of playtesting, our team has come up with a big list of QOL tweaks we’d like to add. The video below shows item rotation improvements, placement snapping and additional fixes. This will be a significant chunk of work, so those are only the first steps.

While Tony is working on that Luke - our Lead Designer - has been looking at easing players into the shipbuilding process and breaking down this progression. Shipyard will have different levels, the first one allowing you to build 6 sections and a fairly small ship. As you can see in the screenshot below, it will be very small in comparison to the Herald, the first big enemy you encounter. This gradual introduction to shipbuilding allows players to become comfortable with the system, flying smaller ships while unlocking upgrades and exploring, before moving on to massive warships that require more experience and resources.

Sky Bosses

As I mentioned earlier, the next few months are focused on perfecting the in-sky experience. This includes building bosses to ensure we have exciting encounters up there. Jon, our Concept Artist, has been working on modular shapes for Heralds. By using the same body with different legs, heads, and other parts, we create a sense of continuity between enemies while adding some visual variety. This approach also helps reduce development costs, which is crucial for an indie studio like ours.

Here are the whitebox assets based on these concepts, created by John, our 3D artist. Once these go through playtesting and we validate the experience, they will be refined and textured.

Region Creatures

Matt our AI programmer has been working on a few different creatures over the last few weeks, cave bugs (final name TBD!) being one of them. Below you can see a Worker and a Soldier variants. Soldier bugs are my personal favourite - they burrow through the ground and come up and attack the player. It fits with our player experience goals and adds a real sense of vulnerability and danger as you explore the world of Lost Skies.

Matt has also been working on the Mantas, focusing on how they spawn and manoeuvre around a region and between islands. Similar to Ellen's UI work, getting this right is crucial. Done correctly, it feels seamless; done wrong, it can break immersion. Fortunately, Matt is on the right path, and you can see it working below in the editor.