Remembrance Developer Log

Hi, I'm Danimal and welcome to my dev blog! Music producer Solo Game Dev Programmer Visual Artist

[remembranceofficial]

Happy New Year!

Been a little while since I posted something, mostly out of laziness but I've worked pretty much every day in December, polishing existing systems and implementing new ones.

A couple of things I've been working on was first a complete refactor of how I handled certain animations and motion and have switched over to a Root Motion work flow. More on that another time.

The big thing I was designing and finally got working in a (mostly) efficient and scalable way was the Goal Oriented Action Planning AI system, or G.O.A.P., much like the one that was built and used in the video game F.E.A.R. from 2005.

My initial attempt at building an AI was to use a state machine, but as I needed more and more states and saw myself duplicating a lot of the same code for different types of units, I felt the need for something better. And after watching a talk on AI and Games with Dr Jeff Orkin, the AI programmer on F.E.A.R., I was determined to try it out and see if it would work for my use cases.

How GOAP works is like this. You have an agent and you provide it with a goal, an ability to get information about the world state, and a list of actions it can take. Each action has a set of conditions for the world state, what the world state will be after the action is completed, and the cost to take that action.

All of this, the goal, the world state, and the available actions are then fed into a Planner which will do a path find using A* to figure out what order of actions would arrive at the goal the quickest.

A basic diagram of this process

This means that for each agent type, I no longer needed to build a way to tell each agent what to do and when, only how to carry out the individual actions and let the GOAP planner figure it out for itself.

So for example, lets say I have a goal to patrol along a path. Below is a diagram of how that goal might be deconstructed into the individual actions needed to meet and keep the world state desired by the goal.

As the agent does things in the world, the state will of course change. And depending on the nature of that state change, it might require the planner to build a new list of actions. If we have two goals for example, one being to patrol an area and the other to engage the target. The agent is patrolling when it's receives a signal that it can now see a target that it should engage. The planner rebuilds it's plan and issues the new instructions to the agent to go do what it needs to accomplish that goal.

Now, by letting the GOAP planner handle what to do with the agent and it's state, all I needed to do was to manage and keep that state updated which I still use a state machine for but it's much less complex.

I will have some video of GOAP in action in a later post but that's all for now. Thanks!

Resources:

AI and Games retrospective with Dr. Jeff Orkin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Of2NtTYcvU

[remembranceofficial]

Cover System 2.0

Hey ya'll, I'm back with another update! Been focused on two things the last few days, the first being the cover system. And I am proud to showcase version 2.0 of this system!

I'm glad I paid at least some attention to my professor in my vector calc class, because a lot of vector math went into getting this to work. At first I tried to use bezier curves to generate a nice smooth arc around the corners but after a lot of trial and error, I decided to just try something much more simple.

Basically, taking the two points, I find a third point far enough away from the corner and then I create an arc (purple line) that goes through that point, adjusted outwards by the side of the players (p0) collision shape.

And this worked! Results are shown in the video!

Additionally, I added support for going between two inner corners of a wall, crouching support, and proper directional animations.

What's next? Cover to cover movement between cover not attached and/or of different heights.

References:

Bezier Curves: https://bit-101.com/blog/posts/2024-09-29/evenly-placed-points-on-bezier-curves/

Gears of War (Always loved the way cover in this game worked)

The second thing I've been working on is some modeling of the first level. Here are a few photos from blender of that work, along with the block outs. These are still WIPs but I'm feeling pretty good about them.

Interior of a train car. Don't mind the render quality, this was just from the blender viewport and once exported into Godot, will look a lot better.

Thanks for reading! Follow to keep track of updates as the come out!

[remembranceofficial]

Cover System v1.0

Version 1.0 of the cover system I am creating.

This allows the player to look at a wall (will expand to other forms of cover later) and snap to it to take cover. The player can then sneak back and forth along a wall and being forced to stop when there is no more cover.

Here is the roadmap for v2.0

At the end of cover, trying to move left or right will allow the camera to drift a little bit, as if the player is looking around the corner

Cover to cover movement

Can only enter cover when within range

Allow the player to go around corners

Allow the player to 'sneak' through a door way

This was pretty fun to get working, and it made me really start to think more about how I'll need to build the levels for the game. Also has really started to bring back memories of college trigonometry and vector calculus.

[remembranceofficial]

Wanted to post something sooner but it was a pretty busy week for me here at home and while I was working on things, I didn't have much to post or show until now. The biggest change is that I decided to go with a third person, over the shoulder camera view!

I had to change a lot of my movement logic to account for the different camera angles and it will be a bit more work to make each space immersive but I think for the type of game I am trying to make, a third person camera view will be in service of the stealth mechanics better then the top-down over world view.

Walking on stairs works like a charm. It's not as clean as it could be, I'd like to make it so the model's feet snap to each step but that's some polish that I can apply later.

I also added a neat little debug panel for my own sanity checking. Next up is to create a crouch and wall cover system and then I can get back to working on the enemy AI.

I also storyboarded out the intro and tutorial chapters for the game, which I now hope to push for and complete so I can get get a demo up for alpha play testing ASAP. Peace out!

[remembranceofficial]

Next up on my todo list was to create stairs that the player and NPCs can actually use. And while my initial subway model had stairs manually placed, I wanted to make something more dynamic and manageable.

The original stairs ^^^ So last night I started working on a stair case tool, got something basic working

And this morning I was able to add some railings

After playing around with it some more, I got a good, working version 1.0 that I can go forward with!

And here is a still of what mine looks like now

A few things I'd still like to add to it : - Unique bottom and top steps, both in depth and texture - Varied step textures - Each step has a lip or slight overhang - Toggle a "sleeve" around the staircase itself, so that the steps seem distinct from the staircase's foundation

But for now I am going to work on some scripting so players and NPCs can be animated and walk up and down the stairs.

[remembranceofficial]

Today's Showcase

Some units demonstrating different animations, with them being able to cycle through multiple animations of a similar type, as in multiple idle sitting animations

Better looking police/caution tape

Lighting

Video screens (playing commercial ads ripped from cyberpunk 2077 as place holders)

Cone physics

Version 2 of this tool I made to dynamically create caution tape along a Path3D node. I was about to start manually making some caution tape and my inner voice said "Just automate it. It'll be a quick, 20 minute adventure. In and out, easy peazy". So an hour or so later (which isn't as long as I thought it would take compared to other 'just automate it' moments I've had), I have this working. And while I don't know if I'll even need this specific use case very often in my level designs, some of the techniques used will be useful for other visual effects, such as displaying a network of nodes.

[remembranceofficial]

Verison 1.0 of a tool for creating a holographic police tape that will generate the posts and then display a spatial shader between the posts. It uses a Path3D's build in points to position the posts. This will allow me to add these types of game objects into the world without having to model and position all of the holograms and the posts manually, and instead to just arrange the points. Backpost from Oct 23nd, 2025

[remembranceofficial]

Documenting development progress on remembrance now that I've started building out the very first level. Was pretty happy with getting the video screens working and wanted to mark it. In this progress update I have my player controller working and the basics of the first level set down.

Backpost from Oct 22nd, 2025

[remembranceofficial]

First Post!

Wanted to start a new developer log for the game I am working on so here it is!

Introducing Remembrance

"The Protagonist's significant other/sibling/someone close has gone missing. Arriving by train in NYC, The Protagonist has set out to find them, their last known address being the only clue they have to go on. What will they find? Whatever it is, it will set things in motion that will change The Protagonist, but potentially the world, forever."

Set in a futuristic New York City, Remembrance is a narrative driven stealth/shooter with psychological horror elements that slowly begin to ramp up as the player progresses.

In terms of game mechanics I want to focus on stealth and solving each level as a puzzle, instead of running and gunning. I want to make both options possible though, with their own unique set of challenges and rewards. I am looking at games like Resident Evil, Signalis, Metal Gear Solid, and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory as my primary influences, where resources are scarce and thinking tactfully will pay dividends. Regarding the themes, there's a lot of cyberpunk media that lives rent free in my head from where I draw inspiration. Things like Neuromancer & The Sprawl Trilogy by William Gibson, Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, The Matrix, Blade Runner, and Akira, just to name a few.

Additionally, the Cyberpunk franchise, Deus Ex, and Mirror's Edge.

As for the horror elements, I have been looking at Silent Hill, Signalis, Dead Space, and Alan Wake. Also the book Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. And no, it's not lost on me that all of these feature a protagonist looking for their significant other. It is a trope I plan to use with zero shame!

The Road Map

I am developing this full time at the moment while I look for work after having been laid off. When the time comes that I find another job, development on this will surely slow down but I am going to get as much done mechanically now to make it so down the road I've the tools and knowledge to move rapidly when my free time is more limited.

For now, I am going to try to make progress updates a few times a week, just to document what I've worked on on any given day.