DISTANCE ADVENT CALENDAR

Hi all. Before I jump into devlog mode I want to make a couple notes. It's finally December which means it's time for Distance Advent Calendar! In this community-run event, level creators have banded together to share a new level each day during December. We can't wait to see what debuts this year. Check out the trailer by Splaysh and get the levels here. http://youtube.com/watch?v=x_znu8n7_EA On top of creating the art for each Distance Advent Calendar level (like the one above), Jam~ created some brilliant Distance-themed gift tags! Seriously, so good.

Distance-themed gift tags:

• http://imgur.com/Ruw2WYD (scroll for pdf link)

PLAYSTATION EXPERIENCE

Yeah, yeah... I know this is a Steam update, but if by chance you'll be attending PSX in San Francisco this weekend please come say hi! I'll also be posting a PS4-themed devlog soon with some fun news. Watch for it on refract.com, Twitter, and Facebook this week.
Find us at PSX: http://playstation.com/en-us/campaigns/2015/playstation-experience/

DEVELOPMENT PROGRESS

November was strangely busy. We started by looking what's still on the table before we can finish Distance, and from there each one of us asked ourselves "if you could work on literally anything this month, what would it be?" It's easy to get off track and find yourself working on something counter to your passions, so we wanted to see if an adjustment was needed. We knew that PSX was coming up so Andrew decided to focus most of his efforts on performance improvements and VR. Getting the PS4 to run at 1080p/60fps was quite a challenge since we quickly ran out of straightforward tricks, but Andrew, Jason, and Kyle made some clever improvements. Many machines will likely see a performance improvement in our next update. Andrew even got in a form of batching where large groups of similar objects are merged automagically. A few community levels that use huge groups of simples may see their framerate double.
(our good friend, the Unity3D profiler) Jason continued work on the replay system while helping with performance improvements. From what I've seen it's shaping up nicely, with a lot of cool features for spectating previous matches. As soon as I can list the final features I'll be sure to share. Kyle, Eddie, Laura, and I have been tackling Adventure mode however we can. Kyle and I have been attempting to create more dramatic and memorable moments that tie into the story, and Eddie and Laura have been designing a climactic moment near the end of the campaign. As we use the editor more and more we're finding features that we really want, so frequently we branch off to create some tech that makes our life easier. At the start of this month Kyle and Jason started work on the ability to add logic directly in the editor. This allows us to make objects way more dynamic, and hopefully it's something the community will eventually find useful for moving and rotating objects.
(more components to be added to this list) This month I've been approaching the story from more of a writer's perspective and less of a game designer. I think we're finally close to nailing down the major plot details and (more importantly) how they'll be conveyed. It's been a slow process to iterate on the story, but I think we're getting better and better every day. I seriously can't wait to unveil some of these cool moments when the game is finished.
(new Adventure mode content in development)

NEXT UP

I'm not entirely sure what will be available in the next update, but it should be quickly approaching. After PSX we'll be evaluating our task list again and see how we can wrap up the year with some cool new stuff. Stay tuned! - Jordan (@torcht for more frequent dev updates)

[ 2015-12-01 17:34:48 CET ] [ Original post ]