v0.4.5 screenshots. new text plaque design, UI and features. Other things.

WHY AM I SO LATE RIGHT NOW?

People who follow me on certain other platforms, will have seen me talk about something appearing on the business end, and that I needed to handle it carefully. I said I might be a bit late, and that the whole thing could either be worth it, or a complete waste of my time.

Good news.

I have been spending a lot of time focusing on project areas I initially thought I wouldn't. I’m back to work normally now again, even if it’s already the end of the time slot for another project. Certain events have made me realize this game has appeal to playerbases, that I didn't expect it to previously. When you get peoples attention with something, that’s a sign to work more on that thing, so expect updates here to roll out faster for a good short burst. I’ve heard certain gameplay complaints, that I’m immediately dealing with, as you’ll see

I have seen a burst of interest, so i’m putting in more effort here to reflect that.

Bad news.

Overall what I looked into was nothing but a waste of time for me, and that’s the most i’ll say for industry secrecy, and to not burn bridges too badly. I am very clearly late right now, that’s the most I got out of that. Oh well. COSMOS PURITY was supposed to be going out right now under a new project name, clearly that’s late too. i’m squashing that into junes schedule, and I‘ll try my best to get those releases out on time.

I wish I could explain more here, but I probably can’t ethically do that.

Overall, this will take some crunchtime, but I can get this update cranked out in a week or less.

SIMULATION FEATURES

Firstly, look at this new text plaque design. A complaint i’ve heard from several sources is that the text is hard to read. So, i’ve gone and designed a more natural looking way of presenting that information. In this case, i’ve gone and started to build actual little plaques. Certain areas will have these, and others wont. Either way, almost all the text boxes are being looked at right now. You may have noticed previously, for instance, that on some of them I try to experiment with color and other visual factors.

Improved textures. MASSIVE SUCCESS. Of the visual toolbox for making textures look great, it turns out I was hardly using 5% of what I could have been using. i’m still not even done studying all the features here either, so they’ll probably get even better.

Controller support. Look at that new UI and marked controls!

Also in the new UI is a new quality of life feature. i’m now letting you set your movement speed at will.

Adding to this, chessboard function is still on my to-do list but i’m getting there. There’s clearly stuff in the way first. i’m having to currently think over if I can even have controller support for the chessboard. maybe there just isn't enough controls.

MAIN MENU

look down at all those pretty new props!

The second menu option recently got revealed as a sister project concerning Ragnarok, for those who might have missed that piece of news.

https://errarachnica.itch.io/9-worlds-ragnarok

this means this game, and its files, have been split into 2 variants from the same backbone original. they'll have work schedules tied together, and can draw from the same content pool for both of their needs.

Look at what’s happened to the second option now, it’s now got a menu with volume controls. A proper pause menu with similar volume control is also being added to the simulation, instead of the double-tap ESC method it has now.

Another thing is that fourth menu option, which is a new one. While a credits list exists in the game folder as a text tile, it’s not technically in the game yet. Future versions will have the credits list, as well all the other relevant stuff you’d hope to find in such a menu option. That volume of information just unfortunately requires its own entire screen.

OTHER THINGS

I've talked about one major deity being built, but not yet placed and textured. Doing that involves building a level portion to put them in, before I can place the character model. Without saying who or where, I chose a place that has “COMING SOON” labeled onto it in the current live version.

Minor deities. I have 2 slots of them this time around, one of them was chosen by the players to be THOR’s mum, and the second I already have allotted.

One user asked if a list of all gods and places included so far was available, and to that I can say, yes i’m working on that right now. it’ll be in as both a text file, and hung up in Asgard. Also, Asgard is getting more work done. i’m sorry if it seems like building asgard is taking some time, look at the size of it.

For the status of the players grappling hook, again, i just kicked off a combat FPS sister project to this game. Give me a bit of time here while I get guns and weapons in general up and running, and that’s probably when I'll get this grappling gun working.

A bit of news on something else long-delayed. bifrost status. Currently, it’s a complex transit concept on paper, but the update after this one, I’ll be tackling it. As it turns out, “how do I make the player fly through a psychedelic rainbow tunnel, that is constantly vanishing, reappearing, and changing through/around a complex 3D world?”, is a question that gets really, really complicated really fast.

TLDR: business business business. Bad business or good business? Bad business. Dammit. Oh well, the update still ballooned itself from minor to medium anyways. UI, player quality of life, performance and most visual aspects are being sharply improved. The longest release will take is a week from now.