Community Newsletter: June 4, 2021
almost 3 years ago – Sat, Jun 05, 2021 at 04:31:29 AM

Combat Arena Alpha

• Work on the combat arena has been slower for the past few weeks, in favor of making tons of progress on the single player side of the game. That being said, we’ve made some implementations this sprint that will benefit both the single player and multiplayer. One of the biggest is an optimization to our animators that improves the game's framerate!
   

Single Player

• We’re continuing to develop the combat AI for NPCs in the open world. Currently, our main focuses are custom behaviors for different species of Kinfolk, and giving them a greater sense of ~object permanence~. We’ve also added several more abilities that are specific to the single player for now.
  
   
• We’ve been making improvements to our conversation and capture UI this sprint. We’ve also added in the first version of tutorial UI, and given the single player side of the game it’s own unique main menu.
  
   
• In order to optimize our open world so that most modern gaming machines can run it, we’re implementing a technique called terrain streaming. It’s a really important step with major performance benefits, but it may require us to reimplement some of our features such as trees and foliage in the future. It stands to be a somewhat time-consuming, but very powerful improvement to the game.
  
   
• We’ve added a ton of new assets and features to one of the game’s towns! It’s beginning to feel much more like a real living place as we continue to build it out.
  
   
• The first cutscene we’ve created for the open-world portion of the game is very near to completion! We need to add some final touches before we can truly call it done, but it’s very close. Here’s a little piece of what we have so far:
   

Community

•  Item Art Contest - Winner Announcement at 12pm EST on June 5 (Discord & Website)
  We’ll be announcing the winners of the Item Art Contest tomorrow in a post on our website, as well as on Discord! Be sure to vote for the Community pick on Discord by 12pm (noon) EST tomorrow!
   
•  Prizes:
  
  -First place will become an item featured in Kindred Fates
  
  -Second place will receive a Champion Package
  
  -Third place will receive a Challenger Package
  
  -Community pick will be featured in the Cryptic Journal
  
   
•  Kindred Talks - June 12 at 3pm EST on Twitch
  Come join Rob and Andrew for another round of Kindred Talks! They’ll answer questions in chat, talk about the current state of the game, and potentially show you some behind-the-scenes features!
  
   
•  Terrain Sculpting Stream - Saturday, June 19 at 3pm EST on Twitch
  The terrain sculpting stream has been postponed to Saturday, June 19. It’s a bummer that we won’t get to hang out tomorrow, but we think it’ll be worth it! Thank you for understanding <3

Thanks for stopping by! We’ll see you next time on June 18!
 

Community Newsletter: May 21, 2021
almost 3 years ago – Sat, May 22, 2021 at 06:16:58 PM

COMBAT ARENA ALPHA

• In our latest Patch, we made several quality of life improvements. Dodging was tweaked to be more consistent, minions now knock enemies away from them instead of away from the caster, and we re-enabled hit SFX on all objects.
  
  
• We’re working on some optimizations to our terrain that could have a major positive impact on performance, both for the Combat Arena Alpha, and for the single player!
  
  
• In the next patch, we hope to continue improving the feel of combat with some targeted fixes for attack animations. We also have a new addition to combat planned that we’re very excited to test out with you all!
  

SINGLE PLAYER

• As you may have seen in our Dev Spotlight this week, some of our big focuses recently have been developing the Evolution mechanic, as well as the functionality for leveling up. Evolution was surprisingly complicated! We’ve also continued developing the Kinfolk Death mechanic.
  
• Here’s some (still WIP) test footage of that:
  

• The work continues on building out the open world terrain! We’ve recently implemented new mountain textures that are a much better fit for the visual style we’re going for. We’ve also started adding colliders to buildings and props using a new asset that makes the process significantly faster! What was going to take weeks now takes days, which is an awesome feeling.
  
  
• We’ve started creating cut scenes for the first time, and to go along with that we’ve been writing dialogue for the NPCs that will be featured in them.
  
  
• Animations are coming along great too! An unrevealed character’s combat animations are reaching a polished state, and new animations are also being created for cut scenes.
  

COMMUNITY

• Item Art Challenge - Ends May 29 at 12pm EST on Discord
  We’ve been having so much fun seeing everyone’s ideas for items that could fit in the world of Kindred Fates! Some focus on tying into the lore in interesting ways, while others add cool ideas for new mechanics! If you want to get in on the action, be sure to submit your idea on Discord by May 29!
  
  
• Mod Stream - Monday, May 24 at 1pm EST on Twitch
  The mods will be back at it on May 24 playing Human: Fall Flat (and possibly some other games)! It will be a special day to celebrate one year since two of our mods were brought on board!
  
  
• Terrain Sculpting Stream - Saturday, June 5 at time on Twitch
  You’ll get to take a peek behind the curtain for this stream! Come chill with Tori for a few hours as she works on terrain sculpting for the open world portion of the game.
  

Thanks for stopping by, it was good seeing you! We’ll catch you next time on June 4!

Community Newsletter: May 7, 2021
almost 3 years ago – Sat, May 08, 2021 at 11:30:32 PM

COMBAT ARENA ALPHA

• We put a new patch out this week to fix some pesky bugs! We’re currently testing out the fixes for the next patch, which should take care of some more issues we were aware of when releasing the last one. (It should also have some new fun additions as well!)
  
  
• We’re working to improve our methods for deleting servers that are no longer being used after a match is over. This should help players connect more quickly and reliably.
  
  
• The practice arena is progressing nicely! We’re currently working on making the physical space for it (which will be markedly simpler than our other arenas), and refining the behavior trees for the AI that will be a part of it.
  
  

SINGLE PLAYER

• We’ve been hard at work developing multiple important functions, including the save system, mission completion and failure, and the Kinfolk death system (sad but oh so necessary). Saving in particular is a complicated function that has taken a lot of time to put together the right way.
  
  
• We've recently made 3 new kinfolk playable in the game's single player, with 2 more expected to be playable in the coming weeks! Some of these are Kinfolk you’ve seen before, but others are still unrevealed. We’ve been very excited to watch these new characters come to life!
  
  
• The UI is seeing more development! We’ve added waypoint capabilities to the map, built the shop UI to a playable state, and implemented the game’s in-world currency system.
  
  
• Don Pablo recently gave some familiar faces a fresh coat of paint, and they look fantastic! Feast your eyes:
  

• The QA team has gotten their hands on the single player portion of the game, and there’s already plenty of work for them to do there! It’s been exciting getting to explore and build out this new part of the game.
  

COMMUNITY

• Item Art Challenge - Begins May 8 at 12pm EST on Discord
  At last, we’re putting on another art challenge! This time, the subject will be in-game items! The contest will run from May 8 to May 29, and we’ll announce the winner on June 5. The 1st place winner will be featured in the game!
  
  The Prompt: This time, we wanted to base our prompt around what not to do instead of what to do! That way everyone has lots of room to get creative. With that in mind, we’re looking for an item that does not alter a Kinfolk’s stats or directly deal damage. Everything else is fair game, so have at it! Each submission should have a written description as well as a visual depiction (don’t worry, we won’t be judging based on artistic skill!).
  
  
• Mod Stream - Saturday May 8 at 3pm EST on Twitch
  Our Discord mods will be playing Human: Fall Flat tomorrow on Twitch! We’re very excited for it and hope you can make it!
  
  
• Chill with the Devs 8 - Saturday May 15 at 3pm EST on Twitch
  Prepare to Watch Rob Die Edition. Rob is starting anew in Dark Souls and will be making decisions about what to fight and how to build his character, based on the live chat! Hope you guys don't start him off with anything too bad… ;) He’s super excited for it- hopefully you are too! See you there!

Thanks for stopping by! We’ll catch you next time on May 21!

Community Newsletter: April 24, 2021
about 3 years ago – Sat, Apr 24, 2021 at 11:51:22 PM

COMBAT ARENA ALPHA

• We finalized and pushed out the first pass of our new combat UI! Those who’ve played the game recently will notice that the ability bar and team list graphics have been updated, and the stamina indicator now sits above the ability bar.
  
  
• The party modes (Kaiju, Sumo, and Toybox) from April Fools have been removed… for now. Fear not, this won’t be the last time you see them, and you can continue to enter private matches with the time of day and weather modes!
  
  
• We’ve been working hard to get the training arena up and running! One of our main focuses the past few weeks has been implementing character-specific combat AI. We started with Slyphur and Lumala, and at the moment, they’re scary strong!
  

SINGLE PLAYER

• The writers took some time away from their other tasks to focus on building out important details for the single player side of the game. It was a really productive couple of days and they came back with some exciting material!
  
  
• We’ve been developing and implementing a lot of new UI specific to the single player! This includes UI for the map, inventory, missions, and team screens for example. Here’s a peek of one of our WIPs:

• We’ve continued making progress on adding models and refining the terrain for the open world. This includes planting the world’s forests, carving out rivers, and shaping towering mountains for players to explore.
  
  
• The AI that we’ve been working on has also been a fixture in our single player progress. We’re working on getting Lumala’s AI to the point where they can move and attack together as a herd. A lone Lumala in a field might not pose any trouble for your team, but taking on the herd is a different matter entirely! Once we’ve got this working for Lumala, we’ll be able to implement similar behaviors for other groups of kinfolk you encounter in the wild.
  

COMMUNITY

• Some members of Skymill Studios have been virtually attending the East Coast Gaming Convention. We’ve met some really cool people and learned a lot!
  
  
• Kindred Talks 10 - Saturday May 1 at 3pm EST
  Rob and Andrew will be playing some matches of the Alpha while answering live questions and talking about the state of the game now and going forward.
  
  
• Chill with the Devs 8 - Saturday May 15 at 3pm EST
  Prepare to Watch Rob Die Edition. Rob is starting anew in Dark Souls and will be making decisions about what to fight and how to build his character, based on the live chat! Hope you guys don't start him off with anything too bad… ;)
  

Glad you checked in with us! We’ll catch you next time on May 7!

Community Newsletter: April 9, 2021
about 3 years ago – Sun, Apr 11, 2021 at 04:15:23 AM

COMBAT ARENA ALPHA

• You’ve already seen some of our handiwork from the past couple weeks! We spent a sizeable chunk of time putting together the April Fool’s Day celebration for this year. We hope you’ve enjoyed the new game modes (yes, they’re real!) as much as we enjoyed putting them together for you! In our next patch, we plan to put the party modes back on the shelf (to be brought out for future special events), but the weather and time of day modes are here to stay! If you want to get a few more rounds in with the party modes (kaiju, sumo, and toybox), we recommend that you do that this weekend! Fun fact: Toybox has been the most popular party mode!
  
  
• Aside from preparing the April Fool’s Day modes, we’ve continued working on bug fixes as well. Stagger and/or knockback while aiming the last Wicked Thorn no longer causes the cooldown timers to disappear from UI, Stunner Flies and Wicked Thorn can’t be damaged by your team members, and issues with slow down when using Quicksand have been resolved.
  

SINGLE PLAYER

• The two major focuses for our team at the moment are developing the capture mechanic, and our enemy AI. The devs are hard at work on both, but these are large systems that will likely take some time.
  
  
• We’ve developed a Character Wizard to automate some of the process of adding new Kinfolk into the game! This way, we won’t have to devote as much time to manually placing colliders, adding necessary components, and implementing combat features, which could add up to months of dev work.
  
  -In the coming weeks, we’re planning to implement something similar for other non-Kinfolk objects that need colliders. We also hope to have a button that creates a fully implemented character, though that might be a few months from now.

• We’ve continued working on the art mentioned in the last newsletter! More 3D set pieces are being added, lots of new UI designs implemented, and Awburn’s animations are being touched up on top of the new model! We’ve also added several new VFX for single player abilities.
  
  
• A lot of time and research has been dedicated to, of all things, the grass for the single player version of the game. We wanted to use methods and tools that would balance aesthetics with large-scale performance. While the grass currently used in the Combat Arena works well at that scale, its performance isn’t quite good enough for the full game. After a few weeks of hard work, we think we’ve come to a good working solution.
  

Thanks for stopping by! We’ll see you next time, on April 23!