Overgrowth Progress, Mid May

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May 13th, 2017

Project Status:

We released Steam Workshop support to everyone. We decided to kick it off with a 30% off sale, and a video with a voiceover you might recognize as Humble Bundle cofounder (and Wolfire alumni) John Graham. Lukas also had a big hand in making the video possible, by selecting the mods to showcase, taking all the in-game footage, and doing the final editing.

We hope to have Beta 4 ready for release next week. Beta 4 is one of the last betas before release from early access. Speaking of which - we now have a final official list of items to finish before we release from early access, and finally unveil the new Overgrowth campaign. It is getting a little shorter every day!

Team progress over the last two weeks:

(This is not a complete change list for all of Beta 4 - check the last two update posts for the rest of that!)

Gameplay/graphics changes:

  • Improved text wrapping in dialog overlays, and added initial version of "click to continue" prompt
  • Made camera not dip below lava surface when you die in it
  • Improved raindrop effect, made it more water-like and made droplets not streak when screen paused
  • Tweaks to spawn points in Magma Arena level to avoid some cases of spawning outside level

Modding changes:

  • Added steam workshop voting and marking favorites to mods menu
  • Small enhancements to advanced mod menu usability
  • Added depth of field cue triggers to dialog script
  • Added "defeat_optional" goal type in Overgrowth campaign checkpoints system
  • UX improvements for new prefab system ("save" doesn't require you to prefab a group yet, single items can be saved as prefabs)
  • Fixed some crash bugs and problems saving positions/bounding boxes with new improved prefab system

Performance improvements / Other bugfixes:
  • Added ability to log all assets that load while inside a level (so that we can add them to a list to pre-load)
  • Added checkbox to enable "simple water", to improve performance (turns off screen space reflections)
  • Various CPU and GPU performance improvements
  • Fixed bugs with creating OpenGL context in some cases on Windows
New campaign:
  • Level 1 major art and gameplay pass, improving the path through the level, signposting, and making it a bit harder to die
  • Extensive detail art pass on "forced fight" level, making it harder to escape, easier to fight in, and improving visibility of NPCs
  • Added new "water cave" level, and did a few detail art passes, including experiments with more dynamic water motion
  • Major art pass on 13b rat slavers level, improving path through level and adding a light platforming section
  • Minor gameplay pass on level 5, improving encounters with enemies and making the enemies a bit less placeholder
  • Tweaks to fog on rat slavers (13b) level
  • Lighting and water reflections tweaks in "forced fight" level (18)
  • Improved material properties/reflectiveness, and added ambient sounds in magma arena
  • Roughed up floor and added water puddles, and added fires for light/warmth in stands in cave arena level
  • Lighting improvements to water cave, volcano barracks, waterfall barracks, and volcano mine levels
  • Added more color-based signposting in water cave level
  • Replaced dialog in level 1-24 with new story pass
  • Hooked in new music to several levels
  • Worked on distinct character prefabs for the new campaign

Posted in Overgrowth Alpha Art by David Rosen