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Attention, survivors!

Welcome to Episode #2 of the Ardem Dev Diaries. We are thrilled to dive deeper into the events of the last two weeks and provide you with some intriguing insights into the development of Ardem. Also we will move the dev diary to Sunday instead of Saturday to allow ourselves more time to work on the report. Let's dive in!

Level Design

One of our top priorities remains Albington, our second city. Last week, we successfully completed the infrastructure phase and transitioned into the detail phase. Here, we began placing smaller props to make the environment feel authentic. As shown in the picture, significant progress has been made, and the inner city is beginning to take shape. We've also decided to introduce something special and new to Albington by constructing a sewer system beneath the city. This system will feature several entrance/exit points, serving as strategic elements to avoid enemies or set up ambushes. We can't wait to see players utilize this in the next playtest. More details on the sewer system will be provided in our next dev diary. Creating a city like Albington, making it feel authentic, and populating it with loot is a task that spans several months. However, walking through the city with the team after each iteration is truly amazing.

As we continue populating the landscape with various points of interest, we are also working on the roads connecting them. Due to lore reasons, we've decided that roads and highways on the south coast suffer from more overgrowth, with more vehicles and military checkpoints obstructing them, sometimes leading to significant traffic jams. On one hand, this means you need to be cautious and drive slower at certain passages (beware of ambushes). On the other hand, it provides you with more loot when you decide to explore these vehicle wrecks. Overall, we've completed the design of a large portion of the highway that leads directly to Albington.
As promised in our last dev diary, let us provide you with more details on the sawmill we've been working on. We've made significant progress on this new point of interest and almost completed the polishing phase. While a few assets, particularly the roofs, are still in the whitebox stage, we are extremely satisfied with the results and are on the verge of adding loot spawn markers to the location.

Game Mechanics

On the game mechanics side, we have finally implemented a pickup notification system that displays a message on the top left screen, showing you what you've picked up and the new quantity of that item in your inventory. This feature proves especially useful for gathering crafting resources, allowing you to know your inventory contents without the need to open it. During playtests, it emerged as a significant quality-of-life improvement in Ardem.
As mentioned in the last dev diary, we successfully completed and polished the bow and arrow system, conducting extensive tests and addressing any issues related to the system. Additionally, we've made smaller improvements, such as arrows sticking in animals or other players. During our testing phase, we observed that tracking the arrow's trajectory can be challenging at times. To address this, we've added a feature to the arrow, creating a subtle "tail" behind it to visually indicate its path. Players can choose to deactivate this feature if they prefer a more challenging experience. Overall, we are highly satisfied with the new system; the shooting experience is excellent, and it introduces an additional method for obtaining food in the wilderness.
As we progress with implementing and balancing AI enemies, providing proper hit feedback becomes increasingly crucial for the player. We have now implemented a system to visualize received damage through a typical temporary screen effect, turning your screen red. This effect also serves as an indicator of the damage magnitude you've incurred. For instance, minor damage from punches will only cause the screen edges to fade to red, while major damage from firearms will momentarily fade the entire screen. Although the system requires further testing and polishing, it is expected to be finalized next week.

Miscellaneous

Following our Open Alpha playtest in October 2023, we observed that a significant number of players were utilizing low-to-medium hardware and experiencing issues with low framerates, even when using lower graphics settings. As we approach the upcoming playtest, we have initiated an initial optimization pass to ensure that more players can enjoy Ardem with high settings, even on less powerful hardware. Currently, our focus is on addressing the most accessible optimization opportunities, and we have already achieved up to a 25% increase in frame rates in certain areas.