Flatscreen Revamps, New Stores - Devlog 06/08

Last devlog I mentioned that there were a lot of changes and improvements coming to the flatscreen mode, and since then I've started the long process of swapping out the flatscreen character movement for a brand new system which should match VR player movement more closely. There's still a lot to be done on this, but I've got the main areas working to a basic level so I thought I'd show it off.

Quick Climb

The first issue with flatscreen climbing was when doing quick climbs up and over single objects, or vaults. In VR, this is quick and easy because you just grab the top of the obstacle, pull yourself up and you're over. But in the old flatscreen climbing, you had to carefully mouse-over the point you want to climb at, then move slowly up and over the object before pressing Q to stop climbing. This is finicky, and hard to do smoothly when running away, or when trying to latch on to a climb point when jumping.

To solve this, I've added a quick climb option to flatscreen. When walking into an obstacle, if you press space you will now do a quick climb over the obstacle, instead of jumping. This will put you up and over the object at around the same speed as a VR player could do, without having to accurately click on anything. Here's a demo to show the functionality. This jump-grab is possible in VR, and quite easy to land, but was previously next to impossible in flatscreen.

Leaping from the truck in the lobby to the gantry, and automatically latching onto the climbable barrier and climbing up. 

Auto Climb

I covered the reasons for auto climb in the previous dev log, essentially it should solve the issue of flatscreen players finding it difficult or annoying to do long climbs, grabbing multiple points in a path. This is especially prevalent in ladders, rope launchers, and roof gutters. Since the last post, I've tidied up the autoclimb a bit and made it smoother

Showing auto-climb working between multiple different climbables, making it as easy to get around by climbing in flatscreen as in VR. I didn't have to press E at all after starting climbing.

Note that the reticle still appears, meaning it's still possible to set your own climb points. I'll probably have an option to disable autoclimb for people who like a bit of suffering with their game sessions. I haven't fully checked the speed against VR mode, but this can be tweaked until they're roughly equivalent.

Most of the rest of my time has gone to just making the new flatscreen character work properly. The previous character is integrated quite heavily into the projects, so it's been a bit of effort to untangle functionality such as climbing and carrying so it works with the new one. But it should be worthwhile, since the new character is much simpler and easier for me to make changes to. I'm hoping I'll be able to fix the high-FPS hand jitter in flatscreen once I have the new controller working.

New Mall Shops

I've also been working on a bunch of new room varieties in the mall level on my twitch streams. There's now at least 2 possible varieties for each room, so you can't be sure of any particular room being there anymore. Here's a few of my favourites!

Bigger music store, with a centre-piece grand piano! A very heavy, but very expensive steal.

Small barbershop, with a few barber supplies to steal. Or just take the chairs.

A jewelry shop, finally! I'm still planning on having a bigger one of these as its own separate mission, but I thought I'd add a mini version to the mall. Lots of good stuff in here to steal.

I also added some high-value, hard-to-steal ATMs to one of the mall atrium varieties. They're heavy, and bolted down hard, but it's worth a lot if you can get it.

And that's all for this update! I'm now streaming twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays, so come by if you're around. Remember you can get a VIP role in chat for being an early patron, by messaging me your twitch name on here. Check discord for the event times!