DEV DIARY #22 - CARBON

Hey there Augs, Today I would like to show you our progress on update #22. Last year was a bit strange for all of us and to say that adjustment to the post-pandemic world did not hit us would be a lie. It’s been a while since our last update, but with the new year, we will try to do things differently. We would like to give our discord fans a little bit more insight into the development first then summarize it with additional info in our dev blog updates. If you would like to be part of our community you can find us on our DISCORD channel.

We are still looking to recruit for several positions, mainly Sound designer, VFX artist, and enviro artist. You can see all the listings on our JOBS page.

Here is a summary of the contents of our video update.

CARBOn

We already teased a bit at New Year's eve, but to make it official the game name changed to Carbon. Based on recurring feedback from the community and streamers we decide to change it. The main goal was to be easy to pronounce and remember. The new name brought a new logo and since I was in the flow I updated our company logo as well.

To celebrate all those changes we released limited series of A1 posters on 250 mgs silk paper and I will be ruffling one over on social media.

CHARACTERS

Our character team managed to add a new texture on the tier 3 exo suit, a new bio gear-set and started work on the first mini-boss - Biotitan. We also working on new animations for attacks and general locomotion for dual wield, combos and new melee skills.

BIOTITAN

Our first mini-boss to test out more complex game mechanics is Biotitan. It’s still early in progress(without textures), but the game-ready character with the full rig is already in the game.

DRONEs & drone Launcher

The new weapon introduces is Drone Launcher. It’s not fully implemented yet, but the model and textures are already in the game. We finished drone textures and plugged in the game with the first iteration of “minion” A.I. for following and attacks. It is necessary to test those as soon as possible to get a general feel of minion-style gameplay, which is one of the core build styles in most Action RPGs.

EXOSKELETONS

Our exoskeletons are textured and finally ready. From left to right - base agility character, trainee Exo suit, advanced Exo suit.

BIO GEAR

It looks like, that Tech characters have a little bit more love lately so it was about time to balance it out and test some Bio gears how they will look in the game. The first bio gear set is ready in the game.

ENVIRONMENTS

Abandoned Laboratory

Major overhaul for the Laboratory environment. We are still searching for the right mood and style we want to translate to players, but even in this early stage, it looks promising. The next step will be to work on the lights for the level and light radius for the player.

CODE

Code Department was pretty busy as usual. We implemented a dismemberment system and blood decals. Started work on new skills and damage formulas for the combat systems.

A.I.

We started working on flying AI, represented by friendly drones. Players will be able to summon drones to help them in a fight, surrounding the enemies for a short period of time and blasting them from up close. There is still plenty of work left to be done, but one of the features flying AI will have is the ability to fly over small obstacles the player has to avoid. Additionally, we also started to rework the AI behavior system, which was beginning to look clutter. These changes brought more interesting AI behavior (most notably, the amount of chasing after AI was decreased), performance improvements, and better behavior modality.

HUD

The first version of Inventory UI is fully implemented including 3d character preview and item swapping. We also worked on the icons for the first few skills we want to present with 3 different vertical slice builds. So far we have the yellow background for Spender type, the red background for Generator type, the blue background for Defence type, the green for Movement type, and the orange for Offence type skills.

See you with the next update sooner than the previous one! :)

Thanks

-LKR