Baradise Escape Another Progress Update

Welp, it’s been months since then but time sure flies when making a game… Was ashamed to post when there was no substantial update / if things are done only to end up being scrapped. Anyway, I’m pretty satisfied with the amount of progress that has been made so I’m posting!

(Click to continue -> then title screen)

The game core system is now all functional: as in, from title screen, loading screen, all the in-game menus (inventory, skill etc), saving and loading. Some of those don’t seem like much but unexpectedly a pain to get working reliably >_< 

Like the loop of title screen -> new game / load game and when in-game can enter game menu etc can sometimes get messy.

I also revamped the cutscene system a bit to be more performant. Before, each cutscene was packed as a scene, and instantiated when said cutscene is about to be performed. Each cutscene held its own actor objects and others (the player 3d object etc). Now, the same actor objects are reused throughout the entire game (the cutscene only “commands” it to show up here, play this animation etc). Previous method was kinda stupid honestly, since adding and removing the actor objects were costly in performance (and sometimes multiple cutscenes need to be spawned at the same time, which makes it unnecessarily costly in performance.)

Boat exploration with island streaming

I want a seamless ocean exploration like Wind Waker, but putting all the islands in one map just seems like a bad idea especially for lower spec computer. So, I made an island streaming system, so when you are getting closer to an island, it will be instantiated to the map. Essentially, the distance between islands is the “loading screen”.

Fast travel system

Accompanying the boat exploration, once you have landed on an island, you will unlock it in fast travel and can fast travel to that island from anywhere.

New inventory system

Was always confused about inventory, but managed to get a nice grid based inventory system. Item now also has quality LEVEL component of it. Higher level = can be sold higher and higher efficacy / higher combat stats for equip. You can also equip weapons, armor, and tools. The player’s 3d model is also now showing on inventory, so we can later on add some clothes for him!  =)

Skills are properly working now. Before it was just a number… now it’s integrated in many aspects:

• Higher level generally means you consume less energy when performing the action

• Higher gathering skills can yield higher levelled items

• Higher cooking / crafting skills means you can craft higher levelled recipes (you CAN craft higher levelled recipes, no hard requirement, but it will have higher failure rate and higher energy consumption)

• (If you see that the skill name is not capitalized, it's because I'll need to replace those IDs to the localized terms in each language)

Crafting / cooking

Crafting and cooking is also done =)

I have also generated an item list and recipe list with (hopefully) balanced value since I used a proper formula to calculate (based on needed level, the number of ingredients needed, etc etc) -> at least it will be fairer than if I were to just make things up on the fly…

Combat has proper scaling now

Monsters also have combat stats with proper scaling now. Monsters have higher ATK/DEF/MATK/MDEF scaling vs player. Player can and should compensate by getting better gear (more gear focused)

Haluca tribe quest board

You need to increase tribe reputation if you want to woo Citali (lowest requirement), Ragnar (medium), and Lex (highest requirement since he’s the tribal chief).

Underwater area

I scrapped the ability to swim everywhere because I couldn’t get it to reliably work (like it often get stuck / should enter swimming state but sometimes doesn't want to? Anyway, I decided against it), BUT I’ve added an underwater area, where you enter by interacting -> then immediately teleported there, so no jank getting stuck thing but still being able to get underwater map!

Gameplay loop

If you notice, you can kinda see the missing survival meters… they are now replaced by simple HP and Energy bar. I couldn’t get a nice survival game loop going with the island exploration… so I decided to scrap it and just go at it purely exploration based (I guess it can’t even be called survival anymore >_<)

Basically, the new core gameplay loop:

• Boat exploration to find more islands. Each island has its own item specialty, and some one-time chests.

• Statues of gods demand offering of specific items: gaining level increases max energy (more efficient gathering and exploration), maxing them all out gives you ability to return back to modern life, but that’s an optional thing to do, before that ending is achieved you can already marry etc. And I plan to just allow marrying multiple guys at once. Just at true ending part, if you want to officially end the game, you can choose which guy to get the modern ending for.

• Combat doesn’t consume energy, but you have to “skin” the enemy to gather loots, which does consume energy.

• Can find other settlements -> increase your reputation in that settlement to unlock more items in shops, unlock permanent residence there, or even unlock love interest path (the Haluca tribe guys).

• Sell items to get money. Money can be used to buy recipes, upgrade tools, or buy permanent residence.

• Gift items to your love interests, talk to him daily to increase his affection.

• Basically, it’s… Rune Factory mixed with Wind Waker? Less focus in farming (though I plan to add it… not so hard ones) and instead of 1 permanent residence, I hope to offer several options that you can choose.

I don’t know how well this gameplay loop would turn out in the end, but at least I’m feeling more sure about it now. Rather than the feeling of being in a limbo before… 

Revamped the maps a bit more. Previous cave was kinda too flat? Because I didn't want to add too many lighting but this one is pretty cheap since it's using baked lighting. Since maps are now simpler, I scrapped the terrain system (basically using height map to generate terrain) to now using plain old mesh. This comes with benefits of being able to bake lighting, making performance better while still having proper shadows :)

Modified Haluca tribe a bit (overall vibe still same, but it’s more gated now and surrounded by huge caves -> you need to first enter cave to get in. 

Merman dwelling area (Syris looks so washed due to the lighting I might need to lower his brightness)

Some more screenies:

Storage chest so you can store your items at basecamp

Sunset

Night time at Haluca, might increase brightness / add more lighting source

To-do-list for demo? Probably there are still a bunch of small things, but of the top of my head:

• Adding the SFX (like weapon slash, sound of pot when cooking anim is played, forging sound when crafting etc, enemy groans)

• Repainting Syris / Ragnar / Citali / Lex → with the new blend shape since UV is changed need to repaint texture if I want to get their faces animated

• Finish the Citali intro -> Haluca tribe intro (dialogues are done, just need to implement with new cutscene system, which means need to first make Citali / Ragnar / Lex cutscene-specific actor)

• Finishing up the settings... (add shadow quality option, antialiasing etc, and maybe make proper graphic preset)

• Finalizing the already made systems (fishing? Need to add the proper fishing spots, fish pool probabilities, add more quest to the quest pool for Haluca tribe board) 

• Finalizing several maps that have been made (add the proper resources that can be collected in the area, properly put the enemies)

• Settlement NPCs?? I dunno probably for the time being just use faceless placeholder…

• Tidying up the project file before exporting because there are currently a lot of unused assets 

A bunch of finalizing basically! Since even if most are already 80% done, the final implementing can cause issues!

Anyway, I hope to keep up this pace \0_0/