Just wanted to share a quick update on the development journey—there’s been a pretty big shift recently. After I understood the needs of my project I made the decision to switch my main project over to UnrealEngine.

This decision came down to one key thing: I have no clue about graphics at the moment, and I really didn’t want to “waste” months going from knowing nothing about 3D to creating a multi-threaded, functional voxel-based system using the marching cubes algorithm. Since there’s a very good voxel system in UE, it felt like a smart choice (and it was).

It took me two weeks to post an update because I first had to learn the basics of Unreal Engine and Blueprints(also I got sick and had to stay in bed for 4 days). For now, most of the project is built using Blueprints, but I plan to rewrite the most tick-heavy and physics-heavy systems in cpp  as I move forward.

After following a few hours of guides, I then proceeded by making something like an interaction museum type of thing.There are platforms and bridges connecting them, going from simple ones to more "advanced".Turns out it was a very good decision.I was able to learn most of the things alone started from simple things like collision interactions.Later, I made an interactable interface and used Raycasting to put different functionality.Lastly I did some digging in the physics system of unreal engine and I was able to create a satisfying system with it.

Now for the updates of the game:

Movement--

Firstly I wanted to dive into making the game loop so I can get a feel for the gameplay fast.I used a decent first person asset from the store.When the game loop is set I will most likely gonna rewrite a new fp tailored to the games feel.

Mining-

For the mining I have set a Voxel World.To mine I have set a simple system to where you hold left click and then after a brief delay a chunk of the terrain is removed.

Tool System-

As of now I have just added two tools.one is a pickaxe the second one is a drill.I use both just for proof of concept and to test ideas and how they work in the game.Right now each tool has a radius for how much terrain it removes per interaction and also a cool down for how fast it mines.

Material Spawning-

Yesterday I started working on the Material spawning system for my game.It started as a simple three dimensional grid.I have added enough variations where the spawning seems natural.I added things like percentage to spawn I have added to spawn two different materials I have also added randomness in rotation.Lastly to break the grid lining of the materials I have used the randomness the previous choices to where the ores have a small possible offset from 0 to 30 or from 0 to -30.

To  get the material spawning system feel right it will need hundreds of playtests so I will be improving it as I go.

Cart Mechanic-

Believe it or not making the Cart mechanic was the hardest thing so far.The reason for that was that I tried to make it using physics and it was acting very weird I was just tweaking things for 8 hours or more.After I realised its almost impossible  to make it work with the physics engine I made my own system.I firstly I added the cart to the interaction button and I made it so its always in front of the player when he is holding it.First challenge was to make it feel smooth so I interpolated both rotation and position.I tweaked the numbers until it felt just right.
Second challenge was the collision detection.So I had to change the way I moved the cart and I had to use a different setup to move the cart which uses sweep to test for collisions.Thirth challenge was that when I put a physics material in it, it would act weirdly or get stuck.To solve this I just added some collisions to cover the base collision since I realised it only sweeps for the root object.

Environment-

Right now I have made a corridor for the space ship.I have also set up the big objects for the first planet you mine.

Atmosphere-

I will be honest the atmosphere turned out a lot better than I expected... I might have made it half luck half tweaking stuff.It gives the exact vibe that I'm looking for.

Sound Design-

Sound design is one of my top priorities for the game, and I plan to buy high-quality assets from professional websites to ensure a polished experience. I really value sound design, and it's definitely in my top three priorities.So far, I've added walking sounds by using a raycast every 0.6 seconds, which turned out to work well. I also implemented an ambient wind sound and a mining sound to enhance the atmosphere.

What's next-

For now I will go ahead and work on the ore spawning system to make it feel rightAdd y conditions.I will also fix a lot of small things like a ground check and fix some bugs.

I’ll also try to post more often now, as I’m making a lot of progress each day.