QTE DevLog #2

Hello again! It's been six months (what!) since my last DevLog - i'm still churning along with development on QTE, getting into more of an schedule and the end actually feels in sight! I have to stop myself getting excited for a particular new idea every once and a while and just stick to programming what I've planned - otherwise i'd be making this forever :) So, a quick update today on what i've added, and what's still to come!

End-of-level "feedback"

I like the idea of some sort of player-to-dev interaction - so I added a little mechanic to the end of each level. When you finish, some of the words you completed can be combined into a little sentence - that can be sent straight to me! I will have to make sure it can't be abused or spammed, but I think its a neat little feature that will come up with lots of rubbish :)

Minor Systems

Last time, I'd explained how there are 3 types of systems to power in QTE - Lightspeed, Weapons and Minor Systems. Minor systems can be beneficial or a hindrance, and are meant to be used either to get rid of unwanted power clusters (you may only have floats, but lightspeed can only take integers!) - or as a place to punish the player for not organising power correctly! This means if theres too much power overflow (e.g. 3.5 power into light speed would equal 3 to the system, and 0.5 "vented") that power will randomly power a minor system.

I've developed all the minor systems - and I won't give them all away here, but as examples of their effects:

• Hull Repair: Heals any damage taken from asteroid hits
• Spin Cycle: It's quite a cramped ship, and we don't have time for clothing racks. The screen will shake for a short period, making it difficult to aim those clicks!
• System Update: This is like that Windows update you're constantly postponing. Your "screen" will reboot and you'll be locked out for 5 - 10 seconds.

Dictionary

This was an idea I thought would be more complicated but came along pretty nicely - basically it allows the player to remove/add words to the list the game pulls from. I'm going to set a limit so you can't just remove all your least favourite words, simple as!

Art progress

I'm probably not alone in going back and forth between the art/programming instead of focusing on one at a time, so I won't share the current art concept - as its constantly improving - but here's how the test build is currently looking:

and Finally...

I've been gradually looking at making an alien "language"/alphabet for the dialogue in certain parts of the game - might have to draw some inspiration from when Unity glitched out while writing this log:

That's all for this update! The next one won't take another six months...