Important: Release schedule, Patreon tiers, and more.

Alright everyone! Since what I would consider to be a "build" is just about done, and the workload is a little more familiarized, I am going to be putting together a more solid development schedule for the team. I will be sure to cover the progress report for this week right after, but without further ado, let's get into it!

First thing I want to mention is that there is still a good chance the game's name may see changes. "Star Lust" is a more temporary name (Earlier I may have said we're going with that name, but we've since found reason to potentially change it a bit, and it's not too late to swap it up a bit).

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Next, what is the development schedule going to be like? Well the original goal was to have 2 month build cycles. I'll lay out the current plan as straight as possible:

April 1st:
Level: Catiya
Character: N/A
Hscenes: Nova Hscene, Pod Station

June 1st:
Level: Moon(unnamed)
Character: Mercenary (unnamed)
Hscenes: Merc 1, Merc 2.

August 1st:
Level: (Patreon poll decision)
Character: (Patreon poll decision)
Hscenes: 2 scenes with the determined character.

Oct 1st:
Patreon poll choice

cont...

When there is Catiya + 6 other planets released, we will likely cycle back, and make a 2nd level for each planet. In this 2nd phase, there will be no more new characters but each build will bring 2 more Hscenes to the character related to that planet. After that we will take on the Final Levels.

I'm moving forward with this as the planned schedule. I would REALLY like releases to be 2 months max, but if it seems too tough to pull off there is a possibility of reworking the scope, or extending build released.

With the release schedule keying in, I will be kicking things off, and get us out of this Patreon limbo. One big change in the Patreon that I believe I mentioned before, but if not I will say now: Patreon perks will be bumped up. "Build Access" will now be under the $5 tier, polls will be under $10, and art will be under $20. I'm making this change mostly due to the change in caliber of the project. There will be more people involved this time around, and the overall production is being stepped up. I'm sorry if this is upsetting to some people, but I hope when people get their hands on the game they will understand the difference from SpunkStock.

I will be changing the tier descriptions, and images to reflect this later this week.

That's the update on the project's cycle. Let's get things in order and push towards the future of Star Lust! Thanks everyone!

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Now on to the actual progress report of this week:

A bit unrelated to Star Lust: I spent the first portion of the week learning, and implementing Steam Achievements to SpunkStock. When I did this I also addressed a few bugs that had been reported and updated the game on Steam/Itch.io. If you have the game on Steam and want to grab some achievements, you now can!

Next I did a good amount of work on the boss transitions, and full sequence to the boss. (I was able to do so with the new Boss theme Wishful Simping worked up in the preview above!)

Added some effects on the falling building

Working on the intro sequencing for the boss

The song above has an "intro section" which plays during the dialogue. The game is synced to the audio queue. The song's main loop kicks in right when the boss says "FIRE!" and the speed picks up a lot.

I also increased the overall speed of the boss, and pushed him back a bit further.

With the massive speed increase for the boss fight, I needed to address a potential issue with boss fights. This is a bit more of a behind the scenes section for those who are curious, if you don't really care for it just skip past the "-------" section:

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An issue with using the rail system during boss fights is that all projectiles shot by the boss will have additive movement. (This means the missiles and lasers fly by you at mach 5 if you are moving at mach 5. Realistic, sure, but not ideal for gameplay)  The player's projectiles will also have this effect. Going that fast, the player is moving almost the same speed as the lasers, making laser travel VERY delayed.

If you watch the missiles fired, you can see what I meant.

There was the option of making the environment move instead of using the rail system. This would make the player and the boss actually stationary, but give the impression of movement. The issue with this is that there may be some animations that would have to be catered to the fact that your stationary (Ex: the wing trail on the player would no longer have movement)

What I ended up doing was creating a bit of a hybrid solution. I created an Isolated form of game-space. I called it the "Scenic field". This space travels directly off of the rail system's X and Z position (Basically purely horizontal data).

This allows me to lock anything I want in to the horizontal localspace surrounding the player, and not have it effected by worldspace movement, player rotation, or player y value (vertical position).

I lock any projectiles from the boss, or player in this space, so that their speed will always remain consistent regardless of how fast the rail system is going, but keep things like the wing trails outside of it so that those DO pick up on the rail speed. Basically this allows me to pick and choose what objects I want effected, or not.

In fact, I took advantage of this space to create objects for a pseudo skybox effect in terms of environment. The mountains you see in the back of the boss fight stay stationary from your view point, but are actually texture-less hills at the tip of your draw distance.

Overall this system should have good integrity in the long-run for boss fights and the levels themselves, and will let me adapt to any big differences in speed/positioning/direction within them.

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ANYWAYS! With the carpet rolled out for development, I hope you are all looking forward to the future releases! What I have planned for the upcoming week is making final touches in the early versions of the menuing, putting together the last of the SFX for this build.

I'll catch you all next week, thanks a ton!

-Regulus