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    Maelstrom New Horizons


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Capt. Phil said:
Well the game is still in development, I have a long list of voluntary beta testers already, the islands, and oceans are filling up with friend and foe, the player has numerous things to do, some individual tasks, some repeating tasks, the nemesis of the game is regularly hounding the player, and their on going quest is to find a way of bringing them justice (and take back what was stolen of course). the UI is looking better, and optimizations have made it run better on mid entry machines. Custom code written so far is about 30,000 lines. Adding new things has become easier, such as items, tasks, dialogs, action sequences, spawning of items, creatures, gangs, flocks. Ocean traffic systems are working nicely, so ships can follow routes, pre determined or player commanded - which may involve sea battles, but that the luck of the draw! (my wife wants to kill me the amount of time i have poured into this), however its a labor of love and I think its an awesome game as I really like the genre (old sailing ships and tropical islands are too cool). Maybe I will get it out this year!
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I'm quite excited with what you've been doing with this! What ocean system will you be using or will yours be custom? Will you be releasing some screenshots soon? Good job on the progress man!
 
This is looking seriously promising Capt.Phil...I love how many AOS/Pirate themed games are developing and coming out at the moment. I think the genre's making a bit of a come-back. :sail
 
Ah the ocean, a quest for the perfect looking water will never be over! I have almost lost count how many variants I have used, and modified to the end degree to try and make it look as nice as I can. I am still on a modified Unitys water4. As its quite small, and cannot scale up, I have implemented an auto tiling method, so that no matter where you are, you always have ocean, and not ocean where you are not to keep performance high.
I have been reading about what users like and don't like in a game on the interweb, it seems using Assets from the Asset store isnt liked much, however - Not using them seems to add an awful lot of work making loads of extra props and models, which if I did myself, basically would reside this project to all the others on steam greenlight which never get finished. Mostly down to the sheer amount of work it takes to do. As I have decided to do this entire project by myself in my Spare time, its just going to be the best I can.
Screenshots.. well perhaps maybe a video.. I was thinking of getting peoples reactions.
This week, I am mostly, working on the shopping UI and background workings. (Theres stuff to buy, provisions, weapons, powerup ect) from general store, market places ect. The item system is working well with easy expandability. As is the weapon system (up to about 10 different ones, with re-targetable animations of course). Making clothes for the characters seems to take ages, as a good way of making new NPCs it to reused clothes, recolour them, rearrange, and there we have a new person, ready for a dialog, roaming points, a story to tell, a task to give, or reward, or the main/side quest moves forward.
Also im up 15 implemented NPC's all with dialogs. I have written scripts for more (of a native sort), however I havent got round to creating the villages on some of the islands, however I do have most of the assets I need for that, pretty much all built myself which look quite cool I think. Buildings, props, temperamental villagers (think the film: Dead mans Chest hah!).
 
Capt. Phil said:
Mo-cap with 3 cameras test tonight. Lets see if I can cook up some nice 65 bone animations!
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On a side note, the audio is filling up now, with lots of sounds depending where you are, what your doing.
I'm almost done with the Port. Iv started on villages on other islands. I need to research on what tropical natives get up to! Farming, hanging about by fires, being slightly aggressive to players who wonder into their village ect, with out a good reason at least.
 
Either that or stubborn! I think im trying to get a good grip on all the tools needed to make a game (half decent) from start to finish.
 
Updates since last post:
New cave system, with boss, part of main story line.
AI fights are alot better now, backing off, blocking, strafing, dieing in various ways, dropping stuff, bleeding, reacting, fleeing, working 99% the way I think I can accept - a quick go on Skyrim PS3 gives me the sort of feel I want.
Group behaviors, with different states such as alert and flee.
Spawned camps for Bounty reward for sending em to Davy Jones locker..
Lots more sounds, each NPC Dialog has an phrase (with a snazzy oldy-worldy accent where appropriate!)
Also I have created scripts which adjust the ambiance of the lighting based on distance from one point to another - which is useful for entering and leaving a tunnel, having that sudden blast of light when exiting looks cool, and it shrinking so you cant see as you descend into the bone and stalagmite laden caverns of distant cursed islands..
Iv got a mass place prefabs tool now - I modified one from the asset store, which speeds up placing items alot, with a random selection, sizes, rotations ect.
Iv had an interesting idea of some kind of undersea level.. or maybe I should finish other stuff off first!
 
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Pirates will be dealt with..
 

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Update:
The player can Save and load to encrypted binary files.
Whether they can only have one save game.. or multiple.. not sure yet..
Once I get a good chunk of the main story all linked up correctly- which is nearly there, and theres enough to do, I will be getting a few of my work colleagues to beta test it I think.
 
Ohh look..

Certification | Unity Certification

I'm gonna get me one of those! The game has probably made me cover about 90% of the exam objectives i'd say..

https://certification.unity.com/pro...unity-certified-developer-exam-objectives.pdf

"Future levels of the Unity Certification Program will address progressively more advanced and specialized skillsets, offering a growth path for professional development and the means to validate even higher levels of skill and experience"

Seems as if they are really going to push this more and more! No doubt employees will want to see these passed..
 
Is there a reason why the colours seem quite fuzzy in that shot...?
 
I've got to admit I would not expect a whole lot of fog in weather like you have on your screenshot...
 
Perhaps its a bit high for atmospheric scattering based on the current weather. Currently, the weather cycles are a bit lacking, and I haven't put much more than alternating skyboxes, with different colour fogs. I keep meaning to find a nice cloud system and put in some rain. Maybe even a bit of lightning! All adds to the shipment date of course..
 
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