Lacuna Passage - Devlog #65 - WayStats, Habitats, and Survival Events

I'll have plenty for you to read about this month, but let's start out with a video instead. We've been working on our survival sandbox randomization features and that includes the random placement of 16 different Waypoint Stations around the map. Check out the video below for more info.

Having these early randomization features in feels great, but we have more than just WayStats being randomized. We recently completed an early test for full habitat randomization, including exterior/interior transitions which you can see in another video below.

Last month we gave some details about how these habitat locations are randomized, but now we actually have them physically represented on the map along with loading transitions to randomized interiors. This is a big step towards being able to test our new "Survival Event" system.

Survival Events

"Events" will form the backbone of our survival sandbox game mode for Steam Early Access. We've shown how the physical components of the map can be randomized and remixed for each playthrough, but with our events we will be able to randomize the gameplay as well and keep the player on their toes.

Those of you who have read or watched The Martian will know where we are trying to go with this system. The intent is to surprise the player with many "mini-disasters", but to hopefully make the player feel like they have just the resources they need to solve the problem if they think quickly.

If you watched our previous devlog video about crafting items then you will have a better understanding of how these events will be "fixed". Similar to how you might craft items, the survival equipment in the game may have components that break and need to be replaced. Some materials might be useful for crafting and for equipment repairs, so you will need to ration your supplies carefully and choose which items might need to be broken down for their component parts.

Space is an unforgiving place, so you will have to face increasingly difficult challenges the longer you survive. If you haven't had a chance yet, you can check out our previous art devlog to see some of the equipment that you might be tasked with repairing.

Thanks again for following along with us on our blog. Come back in a few weeks for more progress!

Lacuna Passage - Devlog #29 - Habitat Interior Designs

Since we posted our last few videos we have made even more progress with the time-of-day systems by adding in clouds and stars which you can see below.

Exaggerated clouds to demonstrate the rim-lighting effect as the sun passes behind the clouds

Subtle, wispy clouds like you would find on Mars

With these systems mostly complete I have now moved on to improve our scripts for controlling inventory and context sensitive object interaction. One of the first steps in doing this has been to make a “tag” system. This will allow us to display information about any object just by looking at them. Below you can see these new tags in their early form.

I’m also very happy to officially announce that we now have a new full-time team member! My brother Spencer (who can be seen in the original Kickstarter pitch video) has joined us as a full-time artist and general assistant for the project.

Spencer and Jeremy (another part-time project volunteer) have been focused these last few weeks on developing the designs for the main habitat, otherwise known as the Hab. Jeremy has been creating a set of modular elements that can be combined like lego pieces and Spencer has been utilizing those modular pieces to rough out several different internal “modules” of the Hab. Below you can see the first three modules we have begun designing. The crew bunks, a bathroom/laundry area, and a couch seating area.

Crew Bunks

Bathroom/Laundry

Couch Seating

These are still very early screenshots. There we be lots of detail added in the final designs, especially when we start to apply more textures. With Spencer working on these models full-time we expect lots of progress in the coming weeks.

We are taking a lot of care in designing this habitat not as a sprawling space base out of a science fiction film, but rather a dense, functional living space that would be reasonable for an early mission to Mars. The Hab is one of three planned structures that will make up the Foundation Base Camp. The others are a greenhouse and laboratory, which we will begin building soon.