Devlog #15 - New weapon, gameplay improvements, underwater effects

Wallpaper Engine link to the render

WEAPONS

• Added new weapon that will replace the nightstick as the first weapon of the game: THE AXE
• Axe will be found in a similar way to the nightstick
• Attack animations have been modified so that they actually look like a heavy hit instead of a simple swing
• Follow up attack: Instead of being able to do just one attack, the player is able to perform one attack followed by another. While it allows the player to attack faster (higher DPS), you can get damaged in the spaces in between attacks, which might make it more convenient, in some cases, to do a single attack instead of two.

Render (Inventory):

Editor viewmodel:

In-game animations (Walk and attacks):

(Still lacking blood, swing and hit effects)

VISUAL IMPROVEMENTS

• Instead of a simple fov change (as in the first Demo), attacks now have a dedicated camera animation (see animation above)
• Slight inventory ui changes (Item bg made more noticeable) - UI will be changed a bit for the next devlog
• Underwater shader and environment fully done (Will be used in scene 6)

BUG FIXES 

• Resetting a scene when screen effects are active will now remove those effects upon spawning, as those are just meant to be momentary

Last month was extremely exhausting for me, so I wasn't able to do as much progress as I had initially planned (hence the late devlog). Still, since Wednesday, I've been able to work on Depth Above full time. Before fully getting to scene 6, which I've already designed the map for, I would just need to improve the UI a bit, add the new monster now that the axe has been implemented and just an intro for scene 5. With that done, I'll be able to focus on scene 6, which will be a lot more story focused, as I said on previous devlogs. One of the reasons I'm still putting a lot of time into the renders is that they not only help me make the lore more consistent (throughout the different sections and places you can find), but they offer a great opportunity to experiment with environmental storytelling. So, even if I purely focus on doing renders for a few days, they are still part of Depth Above's development, as those maps will eventually be used in-game. 

Thanks for your support and attention these past weeks, even with the small number of updates I've been able to post ^^