v1.1.0: Post-jam update

S.E.A. » Devlog
3 years ago by shiftBacktick
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The first post-jam release of S.E.A. includes a major upgrade to its engine, a graphical heads-up-display, and more settings to tweak. Perhaps there are more secrets to reveal as well?

Spoiler Warning

This release includes several enhancements to its underwater gameplay. Visually reconstruct the shapes of the ocean floor with minimalist graphics. Collect from an expanded set of random treasures and junk. Track your playtime with new statistics. And waste no further time with the new fast travel system.

v1.1.0 changes

  • Upgraded to latest version of syngen
    • Implemented new movement model
    • Some sounds and physics may behave differently
  • Added graphical heads-up-display
    • Added compass
    • Fade opacity when idle
  • Improved sound design
    • Added panning to compass cues
  • Split settings into multiple screens
    • Added Audio Mixer screen with existing settings
    • Added Controls screen with existing settings
    • Added Graphics screen
      • Added toggle for enabling graphics (on by default)
      • Added sliders for Field of View, HUD Opacity, and Motion Blur
Spoiler Warning
  • Added underwater graphics
    • Added depth meter
    • Added scanned points
    • Added treasure hints
  • Added Fast Travel screen
    • Added fast travel to floor
    • Added fast travel to origin
    • Added fast travel to surface
  • Added Gameplay settings screen
    • Added toggle for Treasure Hints (on by default)
    • Added toggle for Treasure Notifications (on by default)
  • Added new statistics
    • Fast travels
    • Scans
    • Scan results
    • Time idle
    • Time in air
    • Time in caves
    • Time on surface
    • Time underwater
  • Improved treasure
    • Added more adjectives
    • Added more nouns
    • Added more surnames
    • Added treasure collection notifications
    • Guaranteed treasure spawns on first successful scan
    • Unlock fast travel to floor after first pickup
  • Miscellaneous
    • Implemented new collision model

Roadmap

The future of S.E.A. is bright and exciting. The next minor release is all about new content. If you’re comfortable with spoilers, then you’ll be happy to learn that I keep a detailed roadmap for S.E.A. in its GitHub repository.

Known issues

This release represents a major rewrite of the game to work with its new engine. I’m very excited to share this release with you, and I would be lying to say everything works perfectly.

Comment here, on the game page, or open an issue to notify me of any issues or suggestions. If I can’t incorporate them in a hotfix, then I hope to include them in a minor release.

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S.E.A.

Chill watercraft simulator

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kalmarr3 years ago

Well, this time I found quite a few things. Graphics made gameplay more simple and not less interesting, visually beautiful too. Though I still can't intuitively understand sound cues that radar gives me

As to bugs - I found two. I'm playing linux version

First is that sometimes I get stuck in terrain. My guess is, it is most likely to happen after bumping on high speed, or in narrow tube sections. To get myself out of there I can press movement buttons and jiggle out (or teleport - kinda frustrating though)

Second - sound sometimes crashes. While jiggling inside terrain I may get crackles in my headphones (as if sounds were overlaying and causing membrane to go insane, maybe?). And more crucial situation - like 4 times out of 60, after I heard new treasure, sound started crackling severely and completely died off in few seconds. But after collecting the treasure it returned to normal. And I hadn't been noticing such behavior of my soundcard or headphones before

Overall, I see that You shifted focus to graphics, and - for me - it made game much more playable. I've played it for a few hours, and now the main thing holding me back from returning is lack of content. I, personally, think, that it won't hurt any game to develop it's plot. There is already an interesting collection of mysterious treasures - and I need to arrange them so that they are telling stories. Also, water surface is kinda empty, and that kinda undermines whole point of "surface" part of the game, so if You could make use of it, it would make game feel more complete

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shiftBacktick3 years ago

Thanks so much for the constructive feedback! I really value your input and how much time you spent in the game to develop it.

(Obligatory spoiler warning.)

  • Graphics. I’m glad you enjoyed their addition. I love them too. Future updates will continue to develop them in other areas. A good side effect of having them is that it will help me visualize and solve issues with world generation and sound cues in new ways.
  • Collisions. I’ve also gotten stuck in the terrain a few times. This was part of the inspiration behind the fast travel system. I’m sure there are some optimizations to make here.
  • Performance issues. I’m aware and sorry about the issues you’re describing. Unfortunately they happen with a lot of my games. I believe it’s OS-agnostic and related to Web Audio. I intend to add some audio performance options in the next minor release. This will include render distances, object limits, and the ability to disable reverb post-processing. It’s possible there’s a memory leak in there too.
  • Surface gameplay. I agree that it’s light on things to do. My roadmap currently includes adding creatures and weather effects to the surface in an upcoming release. Personally I get a lot of joy from the simulation and just jumping around, but I’ll think about this more.
  • Story. I’ve hesitated to add story to any of my games because there are so many good narrative experiences out there and sometimes I just want to chill. Treasure is an excellent example of emergent storytelling. Your suggestion has me thinking, though, that there could be more explicit stories told through certain treasures, or the occasional underwater landmark or encounter.

In other news, fellow No Video Jam participant Lone Rabbit has updated their submission, PRESS 0 FOR OPERATOR. Very pleased with their progress. Check it out!

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shiftBacktick3 years ago

Thanks for the reports!

In this new update I hope I finally fixed that issue with the audio cutting out around treasure. Been in there since the beginning. It’s quite a hack: I think it’s a bug in how Chromium handles audio parameter automation. We can use an FFT to detect audio crashes and then rebuild what crashed it. So now the wah effect on the treasures might stop for a moment, but it’s so much better than the whole game going silent.

I think I’ll have a solution for getting stuck in the terrain next release. So far I think it’s related to frame drops and how I’m using delta timings for physics and collision detection. Probably need to handle or check something differently.

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