Devlog #21 - January 2025 Monthly Roundup

This month I’m posting a devlog in lieu of an upload, as I’ve been working on internal systems and artwork that can be shown in a few screenshots (see below). The only gameplay changes you’d notice in a demo are the UI, inverted mouse setting, weapon switching and terrain-walking improvements.

Dev streams are currently 9-1 ET MTWT-S- (more or less) on Rumble only. I dropped Odysee (not a fan of the new management) and won’t be posting any more devlogs there either. If I add any other platforms it’s looking like Youtube at this point, since I do have a channel and I probably won’t get dinged too hard for violations of the language code or copyrighted music.

Change Log

• Improved terrain-walking mechanics
• God mode / in-game editing
• Scene/level/object loading
• Graveyard art: restored gravestones, statues, skeletons
• Scripting (Lua language)
• UI overhaul
• Script console [~]
• Basic character screen with stats [C]
• Settings for Inverted Mouse and Fullscreen
• Settings are now persistent (saved in userdir)
• Face/makeup textures (UV2)
• Sculpted vampire teeth
• Gfx tests: emissive lights, water shader, depth fog…
• Switchable weapons including Vampire Bite

Current Plans

Vampire sim progress is right on target. It’s already further along than the first Godot demo I uploaded 2 years ago, which was also 3 months’ work. The graphics have reached an adequate level, like 20-year-old games that still hold up, so now I can pick and choose from my laundry list of artwork, engine, and gameplay tasks.

Turnbased had to take a back seat until I finish some animation UI prerequisites, and it’s slightly broken at the moment which is one reason I’m not uploading anything this month. Hopefully we’ll have a basic Tactics Sandbox by… sometime in March. On second thought I think I’ll create a new game page for this. I’m not ready to resurrect Crusaders yet - this is only a step in that direction.

Laundry list (abbreviated)

• More with weapons, stats, buffs, sorcery…
• Audio-visual feedback for attacks, hits, misses, kills, wielding, walking, etc…
• Spellcrafting experiments (and possibly customization of non-magic attacks)
• More sophisticated key/button mapping… maybe hot slots 1-8 select LMB action, while RMB and other keys/buttons may be assigned to other actions in spell/skill/inventory screens?
• God mode: RMB menu, lighting tweaks, material tweaks, posing, freelook camera…
• Basic dialogue & quest systems
• Particle system for blood, fire, smoke, fog, sorcery VFX…
• Systems for animation, lights, shaders, portals between levels, NPC scripting…
• AI: behavior trees & navmesh pathfinding
• Art assets: trees, grass, rocks, sticks, logs, walls, fences, houses, pots, pans, utensils…
• Lua scripting API additions and refinements…
• Turnbased: teams, turns, animation sequencing, basic combat, RMB menu…

Future game release plans of the month:

• Sanguine Sanguinity: vampire sim tech demo (this one)
• Turnbased Tactics Sandbox
• Synthnostate 1742: trad vampire RPG
• Crusaders: turnbased RPG
• Synthnostate 2042: cyberpunk vampire sim

Pics

Here’s my first attempt at a thumbnail that screams VAMPIRES!! - featuring a skeletal lich type of vampire because the alternative at this point would be some kinda freaky twin sister boomer thot “hot” lesbo action thing which would come across as a lame attempt at pandering to degens. Anyway, this is just a quick Blender rendering with sketched-in blood and brighter fangs for use as a stream thumbnail until I make a better one. With a few god-mode enhancements we can do these in-game for maximum authenticity - our rendering is good enough now!