What’s a Tech Tree?
28 March, 2024
Ayo, it’s Thursday! And boy howdy, what a Thursday it is. I was so busy I dang near forgot to drop a fresh new edition of your favorite weekly digest - and we can’t have that. So let’s dive in; The team has been busy this week!
Around the Horn
Folks around these parts (3rd Shift Studios) have been heads down and imagination up over the past week, and it’s pretty wild how incredible the results are. As you’ll see in everybody’s notes - things are getting spicy on both the creative and development side of the house!
Ryan
Did some work on player configurations. It now supports loadouts / skins / anything really and works across the lobby system as well as in the game. In non-nerd speak, that means you can see your and your teams loadout in the airlock.
Adjusted menu core logic so you can only search for matches if you are in a lobby / team AND the host of said team / lobby.
Added button cooldowns / lockouts for buttons that call lobby functions so you don’t overload the poor widdle lobby system.
Added a back / left / right dodge. Use by tapping shift+moving in those directions. Does not currently support back-left or back-right.
Added an inventory feed UI that shows items you pick up.
Added an effect + cooldown feed UI so you can see effects and skill cooldowns.
Zombies apply a bleed effect now - no damage just yet.
Ton of gameplay UI edits. Too many to list.
Adjusted zombie swarmer state machine. Still tweaking.
Coldbreaw count == 29
And a new challenger from the community enters our midst??
Bryan
This week was an all-in effort to make a significant breakthrough with our tech tree concept and UI. Though we have more than a few hurdles to jump before reaching the finish line on this thing, it's safe to say the system is taking shape. Here's the report:
Created a 'loadout customization' concept.
Embedded weapon progression / technology tree within the 'loadout customization' menu. This applies to both the lactose, and lactose-free weapon varieties.
Broke ground on a weapon 'tier system' with varying build costs. Adds an element of risk / reward when choosing a weapon with which to attempt an extraction mission.
Preparing (or perhaps dreading) to create a new document, organizing and detailing the many weapon and component recipes that will make up the tech progression portion of afflicted.
Bryan will be spending the rest of this week updating all 'Tech Tree' related documentation to current. Afterward, I'm sure he will be jumping into the trenches for a spot of bug-testing.
Marc
Killing it on the meme front - go follow @realterrytrueman on Instagram if you aren’t already!
Mike
Continuing zombie rigs and other fun stuff!
Cole
Updated swamp prefabs for performance reasons.
Updated more weapon posters.
Continued work on map posters - they’re tough.
In Closing
A busy week, but a super productive one! The core of afflicted really feels like we’re getting it dialed in, between ourselves and the community. We’re working full steam on fleshing out the final unsure bits and they’re help define how you all, the players, will go toe-to-toe with all of the baddies we’re throwing your way. Once again, happy Thursday!
Barely on time,
Squid