Weekly Devlog #1

Welcome to PLANET 404's weekly devlog. Here we will provide updates on the game's changes and progress on a weekly basis, so keep an eye on this to get the latest information on PLANET 404! 

This is the first week our team has gone into developing PLANET 404 seriously so we've got quite a bit of work to do this week. We have selected a few of the most important areas and decided to work on these first because it's important we solve the hard problems from the beginning so they aren't as much of a problem later on. I am happy to say we have completed most of the scheduled tasks for this week, and these are introduced below.

Let's talk about the game mechanics first. So, as you already know in our first build (which you get to play on the game's homepage),  PLANET 404 really doesn't have any obstacles, or anything that could be dangerous to the player. This leads to the player being able to comfortably complete the game screen without really encountering too many difficulties. To solve this problem, this week we added a pretty special mechanic to our game, the day/ night cycle. Well, I know many of you will ask how the day/night cycle can solve this problem and if you have that question in mind, let me explain our system for you.

Basically, our day and night mechanics are similar to other day and night mechanics of many games, where the background of the game will change color slightly depending on the time of day. The gif below shows how it looks in the game ( sorry for shorted but itch does not allow a file larger than 3 MB to be posted)

However, if you pay close attention to the gif above, you may also notice that the color of the platforms changes from blue to red at 7am and this is what make our system so special. So, do you remember we said we were missing something that could endanger the player? Well, we chose the platforms as a tool to deal damage to them. More specifically, while the blue platform represents safety and appear during the night (22:00 -> 07:00), the opposite occurs with the red platforms which appear during the day (07:00 -> 22:00), and will deal damage to players if they stand on them by burning them as during the day the platform have sufficient energy to activate their superheating.  With these platforms implemented, the players must now be really fast before being burned to death, or they will have to find another route to go during the day because the daytime platforms are very dangerous (We have a plan for this and will talk about it when it is completed in a future devlog).

Additionally, work has begun on a robot NPC for the game, which will serve a role in aiding and obstructing the player (with behaviour depending on the time of day). The robot's model is complete (and can been seen below) and work has begun on animating the robot's actions for the game (which will include melee and ranged attack animations).

The current timeline is to have the robot model inserted into the game with animations by next week, so look forward to our next weekly devlog!

In addition to this, work has begun on the robot NPCs abilities and behaviour. The foundations for the robot's melee and ranged attacks have been laid and will be completed upon the arrival of the robot model into the game. The robots have been programmed to patrol their area looking out for the player during the night, attacking them when they are in range to get more energy, and to provide a moving platform for the player during the day when they are fully charged. The robot's patrolling behaviour can be seen in the above gif (the robot is a cylinder as a placeholder). Stay tuned to hear more about the robots in the next devlog!

Work has also begun on the medpacks that will restore upon collection some of the player's health they have lost as a result of an altercation with a robot.