Blog 2 - Exhibitions, Broken Computers, and More

Exhibition?

Exhibition? Yes! This project started partially as a school project, a sort of capstone project for my(Austin, in case anyone new ever joins the project) BFA. Part of that project is actually exhibiting the work. This project began before the Covid-19 shelter-in-place order, so previously the plan was to create an altar-space in a gallery, enshrining a PC on which the viewer could play a brief demo of Magenta. Unfortunately, disease and the governments response to it proved unconducive to that plan. The new plan, is to provide a link to a demo in New Art City, a virtual gallery space created by Don Hansen. Take a look at my graduating class's work here. Do it, it's super cool, you'll probably have more fun than you do reading this. If you just want to download my contribution however, you can get it here.

What's actually being exhibited?

For the exhibition demo, I decided rather than work on gameplay that I figured I wouldn't have time to properly polish (though there are some gameplay updates you'll learn about a little bit later), I would instead try and create a small explorable space that evoked the feeling of the world. My first priority was modelling, animating and texturing a procession of priests who sing their prayers through the dim streets of the upper city tenemants.

The Priests of Hevran

The Pyramidal figures who roam the streets singing their prayers are the Priests of Hevran. They ask their Lord Hevran, who shrank the sun in the sky, for blessings and for mercy. It is in their interest that he is fed, so that it is in his interest that they might be fed in turn.

The priests were fun to work on, if a bit frustrating, I spent a great deal of time negotiating with Unity's cloth physics system, and trying to give appropriate weight and imbalance to the priests' movements, however I think the extra time paid off, though there are still tweaks to be made.

The Broken Computer

Unfortunately, soon after releasing the brief world demo, my computer's charging port burnt out, and I was unable to repair it until yesterday. I had intended to quickly add in new assets to the world demo to create a more interesting to explore space, that communicated more of the Half-Sun city's material culture and society. Fortunately, my computer is now repaired and backups of the project are being made, however now that so much time has passed, I think I'll save the additional art assets for the next released demo. Speaking of which...

Gameplay Updates and the Next Demo

There's going to be a new demo soon. Since the last blogpost I've been able to implement a few new features. NPCs are now able to hear falling objects, and there's an easy path for implementing other audio sources. Additionally the volume of object impacts, both what the NPCs are able to detect and what is played over the speakers, is adjusted by the force of impact. Player speed now also effects the volume of footsteps, giving the player a clearer picture of just how loud they are being. Soon there will be a floor material system implemented which will alter the sound and volume of footsteps depending on the surface the player is standing on. For example, running on a metal floor would produce more noise than running on a carpet.

The new demo will explore stealth gameplay, more specifically, it will encourage the player to interact with the NPCs and learn how to navigate and exploit their level of awareness. How exactly it's going to be strcutured I'm not sure yet, but you'll be able to play it within a month. I hope you'll give it a shot, and I would appreciate it greatly if you sent me some feedback through itch.io after you play it.