It is that time again, and boy do we have an updated for you! 

For this update we will focus mainly on our recent technological optimisation to increase game performance, as well as the continued implementation of player immersiveness by using AI to source sounds for player engagement. In addition we have also expanded our tutorial to allow players a chance to understand the game more before being thrown into a time sensitive cycle. 

Performance Optimisation 

During a recent live play test, the team was able to see first hand that within certain areas of the game, the framerate would drop drastically causing the player interaction to lag. Upon further investigation it was discovered that the main culprit to this issue was a cluster of lights that we each attempting to load individually. To be able to have more control over our rendering pipeline, we implemented a Render Graph System. This system allowed us to mange our pipeline in a more simple way which in turn reduced the resource demand that lowered our framerates! 

Sounds Like Progress

While we were able to implement sounds in our initial play test, what we did have was not as polished as intended, only giving the idea of what we wanted, rather than being practically included. We spent time assessing each sound, its location, purpose and overall sound balance that was required. As many of our sounds we not sounds we were able to recreate ourselves, we were able to use AI created sounds from sites such as ElevenLabs as the basis for alot of our sounds. From there it was simple edit on Audacity and they were added to the game in a way that now not only adds immersion but was also able to be used for player way finding and level progression. 

Day 0 

During our most recent live play testing, one thing that was apparent was the lack of direction once the player finalises the tutorial. It seemed that players were adopting more of a “try everything till something works” technique rather than any intentional direction. To alleviate this, the team has been working on adding in a Day 0, which will serve as an extend tutorial that allows the player time to get used to their surroundings and control. 

Next Steps 

As the next play testing is on the horizon, the team is spending the next week finalising the Task functions, and connecting each of the tasks to our daily tracking system. The rest of the time will be focused on tidying up any bugs found through internal and external play testing sessions. 

Keep checking back for more updates!