Devlog #7: Trying to make this game look better


This week I mostly focused on improving several smaller systems, e.g tutorials, keybinds... Oh, and speaking of keybinds: There're keybinds now! Also, the tutorials no longer automatically update when you complete a task, so you need to press X to progress through the tutorial (but I'll add it back later as an option).

I also tried improving the lighting system (specifically parts to do with the day/night cycle), but quickly realized that it's impossible with the current version of the Godot Engine since there aren't Directional Lights in 3.x (lights that act as a sun), but in Godot 4.0 there will be a new type of light which will allow me to make lighting more realistic. Right now if you're inside a building it'll have the same level of light as outside, so it looks like there's no roof and the sun is directly above you no matter what, but with the Directional Light, I can not only have the inside of buildings have different lighting from outside but also make it look like the sun is rotating around the world! With that said, until Godot 4.0 comes out, the lighting still looks shitty... Actually, I did make several sprites look better including the ground tiles so it looks a little better—a little.


Now for the exciting stuff!

I'm currently thinking about a storm that the player will have to look out for and, before it starts, you can find signs of it. Imagine you've walked far into the open world and are exploring a large house you see that it's darker than normal outside, but you don't think much of it and continue searching. After searching every part of the house you go outside, but then your vision starts to get dusty and you start to feel drops of water and you realize what's going on. You rush back into the house, then remember that it doesn't have doors nor does it have protected windows, but you are too far from home to risk dying in the storm, so you must wait, and hope the storm doesn't break the crooked house...

But before adding that, an important change must occur, and that's removing the instantaneous "Go Home" button, which would make you walk home instead of simply pausing and clicking one button. This change would also likely lead to a rare vehicle being added for faster transportation if found. These are likely not going to be implemented in this update, mainly because there's not a lot to explore in the open world right now so removing the "Go Back" button would make you walk back through all those uninteresting areas (I just wanted to write these ideas down somewhere).

Get Home Grown

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