Neon Tail -  DevLog 15

For this week's #screenshotsaturday a lot has been done, while a lot of sleep were lost. Also a lot of retries for this video haha.
- Environment update
- Hitting Goal cutscene (missing FX, WIP)
- Intro and outro added (WIP)
- Created and placeholding textured dummy pedestrians
- Animated many moves the pedestrians can do, like watching smartphone, lean on wall, sit on ground, sit on chair with without smartphone, party hard, evade, getting angry, getting hit hard, etc...
- Wrote the Pedestrian Manager, optimizing spawn amount and activities based on distance to player and camera visibility
- Integrated interactions with pedestrians
- Added pushable props physics
- Added secrets in the streets with good precision skills required (hence my many retries)

I'm looking for some electro pop music that are very dynamic, if possible with female vocals in. Something like "Fusq - Perfume" or "She - Coloris" would fit.
I don't have budget for now but arrangements can be made. Or if I really love the tracks I'll sell a kidney or something. ;)

Anyway, I'll keep rushing. Have a nice week end, see you next week!

Neon Tail - Devlog 16

Hi, this week's #screenshotsaturday is of a lesser gameplay quality, I'm exhausted so excuse the missed jumps and such. 
- Added temporarily a free music, recorded some grinding sounds, and created and integrated a bunch of new sounds.
- Made groovy grandma dance, made her into a talking NPC.
- Added the guy who'll let you in the game.
- Added small badges to collect mini quest.
- Fixed wallrun and grinding physics.
- Other dozen small stuff.

To do for next week :
- new bug appeared : Cutscene's ponytail goes crazy.
- VR Challenges and Tutorial.
- polish demo.

I'm exhausted, but like this week, many 4 hours nights are scheduled next week. Have a nice week end! 

Neon Tail - Devlog 17

Hi, this #screenshotsaturday is almost wrapping up a presentable mini demo of our progress.
The demo is really short but it's something. \(o_o)/
Not public for now, sorry, but that should be feasible some time later. 
Added a loading screen, fixed many collisions, added a secret level, fixed many small bugs, added objective panels, tutorial messages, pedestrian bugs, dialogs, sounds, fonts, lights, UI, optimization, etc...
Really a big bunch of tiny things in the end.
For now I just don't like the cheering sound when a game is won but meh... will change it later :p
Have a nice week end! :3

Neon Tail - Devlog 18

Hi, it's been a long time since I posted a #screenshotsaturday !
But I've got good news to people who wants to try the game, however much the game is a work in progress.
A demo will be available on November 1st, I will post more about it then.
This #screenshotsaturday doesn't show much new features, but mostly everything that is already there has been polished.
Added 2 languages, french and chinese (traditional and simplified), fixed many bugs, added this and that logo...
Started to code in a new tricks & combos system.
And started to make real devlogs, going in depth into game design. More later. :)

Neon Tail - Devlog 19

Hi, for this week's #screenshotsaturday , a little more mood work, a little less acrobatics.

- Added Pedestrian clothes, hats and bags management system
- Added Tricks and Combos system
- Added Reputation system
- Added Hypershot system and tutorial
- Added more Keyboard & Mouse support (Icon change and stuff)
- Added a Pause menu
- Changed to night time

Next week I'll work on the surface city, maybe design more characters, and finish my devlog.
Have a nice week end! 

Neon Tail - Devlog 20

Well, this week's #screenshotsaturday is quite a big one. Been changing many key designs and fixing big issues with the wallruns.
Added animals to make the city more alive, but right now it's so alive it became visually messy. I will use spread pedestrians and animals into a more cinematographic way later.
Here's a list of all the new things we're preparing for the monthly builds for our Patrons :

- Modeled / animated the Zombeanies
- Added pedestrian and Zombeanies invasion system
- Improved Hypershot system (can now shoot pedestrians...  )
- Birds, cats, dogs
- Removed Boost from Button B
- Added Spin Boost system (perform Ground Spin then press trigger)
- Improved wallrun system
- Fixed many wallrun bugs
- Fixed and added grind poses
- Added spin pose based on rotation while falling
- Added snow fall + auto optimizing code
- Fixed accidental heaviness on Hypershot
- Added a VR Challenge level
- New NPC basic pose loop added
- Upper city in construction 

Happy holidays in advance by the way! \o/

Neon Tail - Devlog 21

This week's #screenshotsaturday I'm finally attacking the story's implementation... This video clip might look unusual, but it's part of the story.
So development wise it's going to be short :

- HUD now displays speed (in km/h)
- Grinding speed goes to a set speed when no triggers is pressed.
- Grinding speed max limit was increased
- Imagined created and coded a simple grid system to move around and encase the player in a performance friendly cluster of particle system. I can now haz snow storm or dust storm and such... with the right sounds and effect it can be really cool. :3

Have a happy new year!

Neon Tail -  DevLog 22

This week's #screenshotsaturday shows a little about what I'm working profusely on at the moment. I also implemented a main menu full of placeholder but it's really not much to see yet. It's all just functional. This is what I did this week : - Implemented saving system - Updated the options, now they're saved - Implemented main menu - Added a first version of the prologue - Added a wake up from a sofa animation - Implemented it based on first mission - Shopping District accessible but all rail collisions are to be done.

Neon Tail -  DevLog 23

This couple of weeks I've been working on a build for the Taipei Game Show, where people will come and go maybe try the game for a minute or two then move on. For this special case, we decided to take out the VR levels and tutorials, and instead of trying to create an impossible 2 minutes skating mastering course, I decided to implement other fun sources, work on the universe, the people you meet, their reasons being here, etc...
Hopefully, people trying the game won't just be facing an impossible challenge of mastering the skating physics within 2 minutes, but will find a street to explore, people to meet, and a city to look forward to.
Also hopefully we'll find a way to help funding our project.  

- Improved dialog system for more flexibility with missions
- Optimized A LOT the pedestrian management system (most of the time went here)
- Fixed many small dialog bugs
- Added Optrellian NPC
- Added lost hat side mission
- Fixed dialog trigger detection bugs

- and shopping district still in construction

Neon Tail -  DevLog 24

Hi there, I'm sorry this week's #screenshotsaturday is a bit redundant, been mainly debugging and preparing for the Taipei Game Show.
Here's a list of the small changes :

- Implemented the dialog conversation animations to the dialog system.
- Made and added Optrellian's animations for basic reactions.
- Fixed many small things, fixed some problems with textures.
- Shopping District still in construction :O

Neon Tail -  DevLog 25

Hi, been a few weeks since I last posted a #screenshotsaturday !

Beside the #TaipeiGameShow, there was a huge update with the whole shopping district made available and updated with pedestrians. Ran into a lot of expected performance problems, that I dare think is mostly resolved probably. 

The list of changes since last update :

- You can now skate in the Shopping District! \o/ - HUGE rework on the pedestrian manager for optimization purpose. - Implemented Saving system. - Updated the options, now they're saved on hard drive. - Implemented main menu (functional but ugly. Visual update pending) - Added a first version of the prologue (same, will be more spectacular later) - Added a wake up from a sofa animation - Implemented it based on first mission - Dialog system code improved - Reduced Pedestrian polygon count by around 30% - Added and Animated Drones and props - Many new props will now move on player touch - Fixed grinding bug - General performance optimization

I'll probably keep working on more optimization for all the dynamic props next week, something visually visible for the next #screenshotsaturday could be nice for you guys too.

Have a nice week end!

Neon Tail -  DevLog 26

Hi! For this week's #screenshotsaturday there isn't much graphic work done... but a huge, tedious, boring, tiring and annoying amount of work done with the optimization.
In short, I've been organizing and restructuring the whole district so all the props and animals (and there's a ton of them) goes along with my pedestrian management system, disabling them when unused. Also did a lot of other various and exotic optimizations, be it in codes, materials or light bakes.
This led to a loading time sped up by about 500%, and an FPS increase of around 15~20FPS (yes having tons of active props does that)
The downside is I need to really be careful with what zones can be seen when. Props can be seen popping in and out in some places and debugging... it's just more work.
Ah, also now when you jump while skating forward you will only flip when pressing Rt. Changes nothing except that you can spin earlier without the flip. Feels nice.

Hopefully I'll get to some actual game content next week. Or maybe make another Devlog.
See you next week!

Neon Tail -  DevLog 27

Hello! For this week's #screenshotsaturday , I made several small changes along with a big update with the job system.

- Structured and wrote the Job System
- When grinding, pressing B will fall down without jumping
- When grinding, pressing Y will change grind pose
- Her head now look at the camera during selfies
- Selfie cam is now angled to the side
- Fixed bug with jumping on steep slope
- Added a mini Job to test the job system (Package Delivery)
- Added (and struggled with) a target pointer for the job's target.

Since I didn't post last week, here's also what was done before :
- Constant force Trigger Added (Makes the player float up)
- Disabled a huge amount of small scripts running for no reason, made only relevant ones run.
- Systems are rewrote
- Props and animals are optimized
- Lightmaps and occlusion culling baked
- Jump : Press Rt Flip, don't press Rt no flip.
- Normalize eyes texture on Ruby
- Decrease loading time by 500%
- Modelled, skinned and rigged a new NPC. The first job giver : Tybalt Von Badyke, the chic punk dude.

Next week I'll be polishing this new package delivery job's system. Later on I hope I'll be even able to model a cute package bag, or even better a delivery outfit and make an imaginary delivery company brand. But one brick at a time.
See you next week! ;)

Neon Tail -  DevLog 34

For this week's #screenshotsaturday , steady progress on free roaming activity.

• The job system is done, a first type of job, package delivery, is coded and is ready for level design phase
• Created a Notification system. You can receive any kind of message, jobs included. You open the message by pressing down on the dpad, and for jobs you can accept  and activate the job by pressing down again.
• A small Monument that displays the names of our backers/supporters. (bigger and crazier monuments to come)
• Added breakable walls in the city.
• Added a night version of the Shopping District.
• Fixed a big FPS drop for night version of shopping district. (too many small lights)

Next week we might open access to a new residential area, stay tuned!

See you next week!

Neon Tail -  DevLog 35

This week's #screenshotsaturday will kind of catch up what I missed showing last week, since I couldn't record and post myself.

As a reminder, here's what was done :

- A small Monument that displays the names of our backers/supporters. A huge thank you to them!
- The job management system
- First job system : package delivery
- A notification system
- Breakable walls.
- A night version of the Shopping District.
- Fixed a big FPS drop for night version of shopping district.
- Replaced fast brake with manual flat land trick.

This week I was mainly focused on creating the shopping system. Setting up everything that's happening while inside a shop.
There's nothing much to show beside a lot of code for now, so I'll see you next week with more updates! :)

Neon Tail -  DevLog 36

This week's #screenshotsaturday on my project ”Neon Tail” I've only worked on the shop system, but that was actually quite a trip around.

- In order to have a shopping system I needed first to create a UI menu, so that's what i did.
- In my UI menu I needed first the datas about each items, so I created the Items database, containing all items descriptions, names, types (such as cosmetics, consumable, food, or gift) and prewrote a little about each type's usage and spent some time working on how/who could access this.
- With the item database done and back to my shop menu, I understood that I had to implement an inventory system, which holds a specific amount of items based on your bag size. Of course the item type would determine whether the item was unique consumable equippable accessible by this or that etc...
- meh, gotta do the items meshes. I tweaked some already done to fit our girl.
- In order to equip the cosmetic type of item, I needed to specify which part of the body it will go to and also specify which hair part I should hide or display based on the head gear. So I wrote all that, it's actually a lot of codes and thoughts game design wise.
- Upon equipping, to make it presentable I created tiny animations, one for body clothes, one for head items. it's quickly done but i'll adjust later, i just want to see my menu work.
- When testing the cutscene, the item didn't appear. Ah.
- My cutscene system wasn't designed to follow the equipment of our character, so I had to update that. Not going into the details of this one but it got me fall asleep of tiredness a couple of times.

Aaand that's one week gone. Well that's a reasonable amount of work for one feature that isn't much to watch. But hey, it's done and functional. I'll polish everything later.
Also i want to model a young bored emo/goth lady vendor that sigh and hate her job.

Have a nice week end, see you next week! ;)

Neon Tail -  DevLog 38

Hi this week's #screenshotsaturday is pretty much coding.
Been super busy lately so sorry about the lack of news.
There's a lot going on with our planning and what direction the project should go. I did created a new NPC, not as alive as I want her to be, but I will come back at it later, like most things. With BitSummit approaching, speed is key. ;)

- Fixed a ton of small bugs
- Modeled skinned rigged animated and coded a new NPC (clothing shop vendor)
- Added a secret Rocket of Fame
- Added the save point function with the Cafe Fafifou
- Updated the Notification Manager
- Redesigned the Job Manager
- Updated the Package Delivery game loop

Have a nice week end! ;)

Neon Tail -  DevLog 39

Hi, this week's #screenshotsaturday for my project Neon Tail, I worked on implementing the new residential area to the game. I have quite a lot of difficulties with streaming scenes. I don't think it is possible with Unity unless I put a couple of assets per scene and async load billions of scenes this way. Actually I think that's how they did it in the game "Inside"

So for now (since the game at present state allows it) I'm simply optimizing enough so the game runs with both area loaded at once. Eventually I'll have to find a way to stream the huge city rather than load it all at once, and at worse, go into loading screens and change scenes. We'll see, BitSummer is coming and as always, I need to speed up.

You can also note that the new area is quite a big chunk, so it will take some time to get it all at skatable. Lots of buildings and bridges and roads have no colliders yet. :P

- Fixed Shop talking bug

- Added Save Menu to break times

- Adjusted Alis shop's furnitures and colliders

- Added hint, go back to Tybalt when Job Notifier disabled by player

- Imported Residential area to the game

- Created Pedestrian Manager for residential area

- Organized dynamic props

- Updated Grinding code so loopings are possible

- Updated all grind collider to the new grind system

Have a nice week end! ;)