Shooting is the bread and butter for players as it not only serves as a direct way to deal damage to enemies, it is also the only way to change the player’s momentum mid-air. Additionally, and probably most importantly, ALL ACTIONS CAN BE CANCELED through shooting: grabbing, hooking, throwing, dashing…etc.
Needless to say, the depth of the combat system in 《Drifting》 relies heavily on how well the player utilizes the shooting mechanic.
In the previous update, I talk about the functionality of tripwire. I like the interactions it adds to the gameplay, however, I felt the model doesn’t align with the artistic style of the game. Here is the new model of the tripwire, instead of a scifi-fantasy look, it is now more mechanical and realistic (relatively speaking) and it blends in with the environment very well.
The source of the protagonist’s ability stems from the exoskeleton arm she’s wearing, by channeling energy through vacuum tubes down to her right hand, enables her the ability to emit highly condensed energy from her index finger.
A metal corridor built amidst the ocean. As with other alien structures, this massive corridor is built with barbed wire and metal plate, unlike other structures, however, there are dead bodies floating around the corner, something terrible must have happened to these alien invaders…but what could it be?
In this week’s update, I wrote a short article about the challenges and the solution I came up with making this exotic enemy in the game - The Tentacle. I hope you enjoy reading it!
If you watch the previous videos or images of 《Drifting》 closely, you’ll notice the ghost replicate of the protagonist has polygon hair instead of tessellated hair, an issue that bothers me for quite a while.
A few weeks ago, I manage to work around the visibility issue of the hairworks component and after some performance optimization, the game can now render 24 additional hairworks components in the same scene with a smooth fade in and out .
This is the list of all the moves the protagonist can perform in the game.
Noticed all the moves has a wall-run counterpart, even grab-kick and grab-stun can be performed during wall-run, meaning players get to enjoy all the degree of freedom during wall-run with increased movement speed.
Most of the moves can be interrupted by another move, for moves that can’t be interrupted, remember you can use “shoot-cancel” to switch to another move.
Last but not least, the inputs are configurable with key bindings, so feel free to set the basic moves to your preferred input keys.
In this week’s update, I wrote a short article on my blog talking about performance tests and game settings, which may give people a rough idea regarding how well this game can run on their PC with the desired settings.
(Keep in mind, however, since the game is still in development, the figures may subject to change.)
I hope you enjoy reading my article, have a great weekend! =)
All the 2D arts are animated in real-time: hair, breast, and hook are made using sprite sheet with UE4 flipbook material; lights and ghosting effects are made using UMG translation and alpha animation.
The idea of this start menu is to convey a sense of free-flowing momentum that players could experience while playing 《Drifting》.
I hope you enjoy this week’s update, have a wonderful weekend! :3
In the past two weeks a lot of visual elements have been added or improved in the game, ie: character mesh smoothness, animation trail particles, ribbon particles, impact decals (simulating scorched bullet mark), post-process effects…etc, radial blur is one of the many visual effects that improve the gameplay experience.
In the following updates I will be posting a new combat video to showcase all of these visual improvements, so stay tuned for the upcoming content in the future! =)
My laptop broke down yesterday (it will randomly shut down after using it for a few minutes) and I sent it to repair.
According to the repair center, it will take around 5~8 working days to fix it.
I just backup my project 2 days ago before the malfunction happens, so no harm was done to the project.
I’m planning to buy a tabletop this week as my new development machine but even then, I still need 1~2 days to set up the working environment, which means it is unlikely for me to meet the weekly update schedule.
This is a reminder that the weekly update from 10/26~10/27 will be canceled; the new combat video will also be postponed for a week.
You’ve made solid frequent updates across the board, so don’t feel sorry . It sucks that this happened to you. I had to replace my brand new motherboard and CPU, because it was defective. I had to wait for replacement hardware for around 2 weeks, so I can feel your pain being unable to continue with anything.
Thank you for your kind post, it’s good to hear from someone who can relate to the situation I’m currently going through.
To be frank, the situation is worse than I wrote in the previous post. Besides the weekly update, I also applied an indie game contest which is due at the end of October.
If I can’t get my project to build before the end of October, I won’t be able to provide the latest demo of my game to their website, which will be really bad for me as you can imagine.
The first day my laptop broke down, I panicked and felt like it’s the end of the world, but after a full day of contemplation, I feel I need to do whatever it takes to get the project working as fast as possible.
Now I’m just waiting for the new machine to arrive tomorrow and install all the dependencies, hopefully, if I’m quick enough, the project can be running again before Thursday and I can still catch up on the deadline.
Thank you again for your kind words and consideration, wish me luck!
Wow this looks great! This product reminds me of the console action story adventures like Devil May Cry and Remember Me. It’s great to see Indie devs breaking into all these genres and impressive seeing what a small/solo team can do. Sucks about the computer troubles, that’s rough and every developer’s nightmare. I hope everything works out for you, this definitely has potential.
Thank you for sharing your compassion to me, a few words mean a lot for people who desperately needed the strength to go forward.
I’m fine (mentally) right now, just have to focus and work extra hard before the end of October.
It’s like what they say, no use crying over spilled milk, and given the current situation I’m in, there’s really not much time for me to be sad and pessimistic.
Thank you for your kind words.
I wish all the community developers a smooth and stable ride on their journey!
In this gameplay footage, I intentionally perform some moves I’ve added since the last combat video update: vertical wall run, vertical wall slide, forward throwing while wall running; The new directional throw animations are also shown to make a big difference in terms of player control feedback and visual appeal.
Various visual effects are added into the game: post-process blur, bullet scorch mark, the energy flow on her right arm, animation trail…etc.
Overall, this combat video concludes all the controls and visual improvements made during the last six months.
I hope you enjoy watching it, and I wish you a wonderful weekend! :3
Usually, games with protagonists who could fly or float will add a robe or scarf (or something that is light and extensible) in its character design to enhance the visual feedback of the protagonist’s movement.
In 《Drifting》 however, the idea of the protagonist’s design stems from gymnastics, which has to be clean and concise to better showcase her acrobatic skills, adding additional trinkets did not fit this vision well.
In order to add visual feedback without compromising the artistic design, I made animation trail FX appears only when she performs acrobatic movements, which turns out quite nice as an enhancement for visual feedback.
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