Hey everyone! Welcome to the [i]first[/i] Runeforge Steam post! 🥳😀 I'll be posting here regularly from now on to give you guys some info on what's been going on during development. These updates will cover a 2-4 week period, so you can expect 1-2 posts a month. I'll also be posting about other cool things pretty soon like events we'll participate in, demo launch, and more! So without further ado, let's get right into it! [h1][b]New Mobs[/b][/h1] A few new mobs were developed to give more life to the game and fill in some roles that I felt was needed gameplay-wise. Also keep in mind, the colors of the mobs can vary since they'll be procedurally generated when you start a world. [h2][b]Hoodlumber[/b][/h2] The hoodlumber combines the words hoodlum and lumber. Interesting enough, ChatGPT (the new AI chatbot that's been going viral the past couple months) [i]kind of[/i] came up with it. While I was brainstorming new mobs that would spawn in a forest region, I asked ChatGPT to give me a list of portmanteaus to use as a name for a character in a game. One of the words was "Woodhood" which Immediately thought of some hooded ent-like character. Though, the name didn't really sit well with me. So after some thinking I ended up coming up with "Hoodlumber"! [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41441434/0d5c7bf09e0c4798eb4f7fbb134a0959226ca960.png[/img] The hoodlumber is an intelligent, and often times mischievous, specie of mini tree ents. They are capable of forming complex clan-like societies in the forests that they dwell. They are very territorial and will viciously defend their forests from intruders and other hostile hoodlumber clans. These little critters often use wooden swords and shields, bows, and magic against their foes and are naturally talented in the arts of healing and herbalism. As divided as these clan-like societies are, they've been known to cooperate and even have outlawed the use and production of axes and fire. Expect these guys to ambush you in forest regions, and maybe even become interactable NPCs in the future. [h2][b]Bullbarian[/b][/h2] A long time ago we had a poll in our Discord server where I ask what "large mob" should be added to the game. Runeforge was kind of devoid of large and powerful mobs, and I wanted to fill that void. The options were a golem, a troll, and a minotaur. The minotaur was a resounding favorite, winning over half the votes. But, in the spirit of the new way I'll be designing mobs from now on (which I'll get to later), I wanted to give it a different name and different [i]characteristics[/i]. I first designed the character model before naming it, and had no idea to name it. I then showed my brother the model and he instantly came up with the name "Bullbarian" (Bull + Barbarian) which I thought was brilliant. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41441434/45d3f58f9fee67b459b039ed262bd17ec0a7f913.png[/img] The bullbarian is a large mythical beast that is half man and half bull. This mob can be found anywhere from arctic regions to desert regions and is known for its powerful charge attack. Bullbarians may sometimes wield large axes and are some of the strongest beasts yet known in Runeforge. These guys are a sentient species, something that is overlooked by their barbaric practices and complex language of grunts and groans. Maybe expect these guys to be interactable NPCs in the future too? [h2][b]Vampy[/b][/h2] The vampy originated to solve a problem: We don't have many night mobs (zombie, spider), I wanted more diversity in caves because I believe caves should be especially challenging (ogres, slimes, spiders), and we have no flying mobs! So to kill 3 birds with 1 stone, the vampy was born. The vampy's name isn't a combination of two words, it instead derives from a name I gave a vampire plushie I had as a kid. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41441434/cf03b4b38cf22be282f301ddc23815424bea9b6c.png[/img] This bloodsucking bat-like creature is known to fly throughout the many cave systems in Runeforge. These guys are known to prey on their victims at night and may prefer to hunt in groups. I think this could make a cute pet once taming is implemented in the future. [h1][b]Mob Design Going Forward[/b][/h1] I actually had a lot of fun designing these mobs, much more fun then the original few that were already in the game. So, essentially the process was to think of some kind of play on words for a type of mob that was needed in the game and just go from there! This was heavily inspired by the Dragon Quest series and the works of the great Akira Toriyama. You also may have noticed that the style of these models kind of differ from previous mob models. I decided to go for a more simplistic, toon-like style. A comment I found on one of our recent IG reels noted that it looked like I've found my style. I honestly couldn't agree more. [h1][b]Character Model Reworks[/b][/h1] To keep things consistent, I've updated the following mob models: [h2][b]Human Model[/b][/h2] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41441434/47f895188afe8e1164d9a063c01255bee3f56dc4.jpg[/img] I've gotten a lot of suggestions and criticism over this model. I wanted to remake it for a while now, and I'm happy I've finally gotten the time to do it. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41441434/b140f4d1087f001a058c2c03981a0a6edcad0a9a.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41441434/60e94a8abb3c1bd765df02ab2d1b0ee848e64351.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41441434/8ed69c7de5801cbf008e12df00cea4b5df0d670e.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41441434/993c47e9210a3884d064fba8809c194de21e2342.png[/img] It's a pretty drastic change. Other than trying to stay consistent with the artwork, this model is much easier to design armor for. It's just a lot more intuitive and straightforward. I also didn't feel as impeded or awkward while testing. So this was a pretty big deal for me. Also, this is just the male human model. It's the only model at the moment, I don't have a female one just yet because character customization is non-existent at this stage of development. [b][h2]Ogre Model[/h2][/b] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41441434/5755d3b37020f0bde37c7238f99bb7f46d108f67.png[/img] The ogre was kind of awkward. It had a lot of detail compared to other models, I really like the redesign for this one especially. I hope you guys do too! [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41441434/ce3bffdcc4b4d38d241b29b0d836f7f07e80b0d1.png[/img] [h2][b]Zombie Model[/b][/h2] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41441434/84dc5d2218e67e9e63012910502461a3b6df0e1d.png[/img] I of course couldn't keep the same zombie model when changing the human model. This model was also voted on by our Discord. It was 1 of 4 options and won about half the vote. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41441434/4ca8815d4101751af52544d6117b08a1df0be665.png[/img] I added a little bit of drool, inspired by the Dragon Quest 8 zombies and Cube World's zombie. Here were the other options from the Discord poll: [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41441434/6e97190cb8bfec049b0dc14bc1d7fa9e60d3d9d9.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41441434/e62e509d053183254c788c148f810c615da0f79f.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41441434/61a0ebbcfb9ce1ae28ae7fb5dd4d886de25ad881.png[/img] [h1][b]Performance Optimizations[/b][/h1] So, a big portion of the work that has been done in the past couple weeks has been performance optimizations. I'm doing my best at trying to get the game working smooth for lower end PCs in time for the test demo. I'm not gonna bore you with the technical details, as I think this post is already getting pretty long 😅, but I will list the things that have been done. - Significantly reduced amount of noise sampling - Lower octave noise values - Improved noise interpolation - Significant improvement to 3D noise sampling - Pre-sampling block positions per chunk to determine if certain terrain generation functions need to occur - Cave "pre-generation" to skip noise sampling of blocks that we can accurately guess are solid or not - Improved how we handle regions - Complete rework of ore generation algorithm, resulting in significant CPU performance improvement - Chunk generation per frame limit, we load 1 chunk per frame (probably max for now) to spread work across multiple frames. This significantly improves performance. - Scene improvements resulting in significantly reduced load times [h1][b]What's Next?[/b][/h1] You can expect more performance improvements. I still need to optimize how lighting is calculated, region transitions, and how structures are generated. Then with a few bug fixes that'll be it for the optimizations and I'll move on to playtesting and refining features like crafting and forging. I've also been thinking about refining combat before I release the test demo, but I'll know for sure after doing some thorough play-testing.