2021 Retrospective

Once again, I'd swear the year just started, yet here we are at the very end of it. Feels like it's only going to get faster as I get older, heh. Anyway, let's take a look back at everything that happened with Unto the Breach, along with a look forward into plans for next year!

Obviously 2021 had a lot of the same issues that 2020 did in the world, but things thankfully seem to be slowly getting better again. Hopefully that trend continues. For my part, things have largely been in a bit of a holding pattern, with some things getting better and others getting worse. A string of departures at my current employer has left me completely overwhelmed with work, but, rather than let the burnout pervade my game dev work, I've managed to shift my perspective enough to view working on Unto the Breach as a pleasant diversion instead. It probably helps a ton when my game's code is infinitely cleaner and better organized than what I have to deal with at work (I've been wanting to do a complete rewrite of one of our main toolchains for nearly a year and a half now, but have so inundated with endless maintenance work that I've yet to even get started on it). I've been attempting to find better work elsewhere, though nothing has quite panned out yet (I do have one promising lead that'll require waiting until February, at least).

I suppose my biggest disappointment is still not getting Episode One done, even after putting hundreds more hours of work into it, but I can at least take solace in recognizing how much progress was made. The scale of this project is bigger than some games I've played with entire teams behind them, so it shouldn't be a surprise it's taking a really long time to complete on my own.

Anyway, let's take a look at everything that was accomplished this year!

Early 2021

As part of my resolution to get back into things with working on the game, the early parts of 2021 saw a lot of under-the-hood work accomplished, leveraging my newfound proficiency with programming to modify existing plugins, sometimes heavily, to finally get various gameplay elements to better match my vision for the game, or to fix longstanding bugs.

Among other things, major accomplishments included:

• Fixing a number of issues with the random loot system, including improper colors being applied to names, and "duplicate" items appearing in the map popups and after battle reports.
• Expanded the skill learn system to also include purchasable stat improvements, tailored to each character.
• Began publishing tutorial articles meant to explain various gameplay elements. So far these articles include:
  • Loot quality and effects
  • The equipment system
  • Character stats, both primary and secondary
  • The skill mastery system
  • The monster proficiency system
• Various UI improvements/fixes, such as fixing alignment issues in the universal status window, drastic improvements to the item usage submenu, cleaning up the Status Menu, and improving readability of resistances.
• Assorted battle system fixes and improvements, such as removing awkward pauses in animations, adding a weakness indicator to attacks, color-coding damage numbers based on the element used, correcting icon issues for buffs/debuffs, and making attacks, dodges, and counter-attacks more obvious with new animations.
• Began implementing character-based side quests focused on your various companions, as well as a psuedo-reputation system for said companions' opinions of you, based on various decisions or actions you can make throughout the game.
• Converting the random loot system to use a centralized JSON database instead of extensive individual notetags for each monster, making my life significantly easier there and providing a more consistent experience.
• Expanded the affix system to allow the odds of certain affixes to be adjusted dynamically based on various conditions, allowing for more flexibility and options for things like crafting.

I did a little bit of content creation during this time as well, but obviously the bulk of my time was doing foundational coding work. I've definitely been very proud of myself for being able to figure out how to do all this, and in only three months, no less!

Spring/Summer

As the year went on and I knocked out more and more tasks on the coding side, I started to shift back towards content and changes that would probably be more obvious to the player, and/or enhance the experience further.

This included:

• Implemented the first stages of a random weather system, allowing for outdoor environments to be either sunny or rainy. Where applicable, lanterns will also be lit when it's darker outside.
• Added some additional lighting and color effects that will do things like add subtle bloom lighting to certain surfaces when it's brighter outside.
• Added ember particles to campfires, braziers, and anything else with fire in it.
• Completed the connecting content for the first two quests, essentially turning the first half of Episode One into a cohesive experience instead of just unconnected pieces.
• Also completed the connecting content to the third quest, granting access to the larger wilderness exploration maps.
• Fixed a lot more bugs! So many bugs!
• Began some optimization work to improve the game's performance on low-end systems.
• Started grayboxing all remaining maps for Episode One, and completed a couple smaller maps.
• Finished implementing the Skill Mastery system values (i.e. damage/healing amounts increasing based on the mastery level).
• Published six new lore articles (five complete rewrites and one totally new article)!

This was a big step for me, because Episode One is finally starting to feel like a single unified game, instead of just a bunch of random pieces that can't be accessed from each other outside of playtesting. The finish line is actually starting to come into view!

Fall/Winter

Development for Unto the Breach slowed down a bit in September and October as my time was taken up by various tabletop gaming activities, plus I spent some time finalizing a professionally-printed copy of my board game Protoverse, while also attempting to finish up Seven Families of Jorandek. However, that didn't mean work stopped entirely!

I still accomplished:

• Finished connecting all maps for Episode One, so it can now be played from start to finish (although the story events towards the end, and the episode ending itself, have yet to be implemented).
• Finished the main exterior map for Doramor City, and added the first group of new NPCs to it.
• Added NPCs and crafting stations to Legacy Armaments in Doramor City.
• Finished restoring the Mercenaries' Guild third floor.
• Made some tweaks to some interior maps.
• Added buff/debuff turn counters back to the battle system.
• Fixed even more bugs!
• Implemented a code tweak to save myself some work on item pictures in the menu.
• Adjusted the help text for skills to change the damage/healing amounts based on the current mastery level.
• Redesigned Alex's skills to have two skill trees like everyone else, replacing his limited access to the Restoration and Elemental trees with a totally new tree that's a hybrid of those two.
• Published three more lore articles, including an entire short story.

I almost feel like I should focus on finishing the connecting content at the end just so you can legit play the entire episode from start to finish. At that point it'd almost be ready for some kind of early access build, heh. Although given that process is usually fraught with danger for devs, maybe I should just wait until it's done...

Looking Ahead

When I list everything out like that, I think it feels a lot more impressive how much got done for being one guy working on this game in his spare time. I don't plan on stopping in 2022 either, of course. As I said above, the finish line is finally coming into view, and for the first time I actually feel confident in saying I think I can do it this year. Of course I don't want to jinx it, heh. It's still going to be a metric frak-ton of work, especially in the final dungeon maps. But I just need to keep pushing forward, and we'll get there. I can't wait to finally release this game for the world to enjoy.

However 2021 turned out for you, I hope 2022 is better!

-Brian