Vaguely Damp

Independent Game Studio, currently developing Sector Plural Zed

[vaguelydamp]

Hoooly cow it is a long time since I’ve been able to work on SPZ. This week I’ve been putting many hours into AI, so here is a sneak peak of the new enemy asset being scary and aggressive in engine.

I’ve also upgraded the version of Unity the game is built on, making performance a lot better as well as the whole game looking a whole lot nicer.

[vaguelydamp]

It’s been a while since we posted an ‘official’ look at Sector Plural Zed’s progress. A lot of major components for the game are slotting into place now. These screenshots represent a first look at how the game is actually going to look and play in the final version.

[vaguelydamp]

We participated in Ludum Dare last weekend, and have now ‘released’ our first game as a team. We had fun, learned a lot, and are currently polishing up the rough edges to do a more complete release of how we originally envisioned the game.

Frenzy Inc is available to dowload here: http://aevek.itch.io/frenzy-inc

[aevek]

Sector Plural Zed was Started One Year Ago!

Sector Plural Zed was originally created for the Procedural Death Jam game jam one year ago as of a last week. It took me a while, but I decided that I should look at how far SPZ has come over that year, and where it is going next. The game is progressing slowly because everyone involved in the project has other priorities such as school, but I am proud of all of the progress that has happened over that year. 

The first version was created in one week by me working alone for the Procedural Death Jam. The game didn’t do that well, only a handful of people actually played it. But I got some really good feedback from friends and I decided that it is an idea worth continuing. I spent the next couple of weeks following the initial release working on an update, including level generation that allows for hallways to link up with each other, and a more intelligent AI. Both of these things are still the core of the current version of the project, although heavily modified.

 It quickly became obvious that the art I had created quickly was not going to do, so we explored some options. We first tried a simple concrete aesthetic once again made by me, but quickly decided that our skills at the time were not going to create a nice look for the game.

We then purchased a modular sci-fi level set, and quickly got that plugged into the level generator. This art actually stayed into the unreleased SPZ 0.3, which was finished in July of 2014, but we decided not to release it since we did not feel it really showed what SPZ could be. This version also implemented the first version of the new controller and weapons for the game. Sadly I cannot find any screenshots of this build.

We were still using this art when I implemented the new room system, for the still-incomplete 0.4 version. This system is still being refined, but this is when the system was first implemented.

I spent some time practicing my 3D modelling skills, and then came out with this new hallway design (I actually did a whole post detailing the design of this hallway). 

The level generator is now close to finished, with only a few room types and a lot of clutter items to create. This is a fairly old image of the map of a level. The new controller is actually close to done as well. Things are starting to come together. And to complete my updates of a year of progress, here is a screenshot I took today of the current state of the clutter system and some clutter art.

The original version is still available over on http://aevek.itch.io/sector-plural-zed by the way, for anyone interested in playing that.

[vaguelydamp]

Be sure to check out the original and give us any feedback or ideas you have! A game this early in development still has a lot of room for improvement!

[vaguelydamp]

And to finish off what has turned into a week of screenshots of unfinished artwork, here is an untextured hallway section.

[vaguelydamp]

Here is another level art piece, this one holding another weapon (that we hadn't shown off until now)

[vaguelydamp]

Another non-weapon in-progress art piece. This one intended as a clutter item in a warehouse. This one is not as far along as some of the others we've been posting, but we think the unfolding is really cool, so wanted to share it.

[vaguelydamp]

Back to showcasing the gorgeous weapon art that our 3D modeler has been making for us.

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Another untextured asset for Sector Plural Zed, today's is not a weapon for a change, since there is a lot more to a good game that shooting things.

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Another look at an untextured weapon for Sector Plural Zed.

[vaguelydamp]

It's been a while since we posted anything for Sector Plural Zed, so here is some of the new art on it's way down the pipeline. Shown textured and with no animations, this is the basic greybox of the gun.

[vaguelydamp]

Harvesting the Creativity of the Internet for our own uses

Hello there. Vaguely Damp here with a question. Your answer may influence Sector Plural Zed, so any and all input is appreciated.

What kind of things do you expect to be in a permanent station (like the ones in Sector Plural Zed, say) on other worlds? Space Toilets? Desks? Bookshelves? Warehouses full of bananas?

[vaguelydamp]

Vaguely Damp here, with a friendly reminder that you can keep up with development of Sector Plural Zed on our Trello board. Let us know what features are important to you, and check on our progress on fixing the bugs we currently have.

https://trello.com/b/lpQd981U/sector-plural-zed

Shiny new screenshots incoming as soon as they're ready to show.

[vaguelydamp]

A preview of the new art style for Sector Plural Zed. 

The colored stripes are designed to be able to change with the area of the station you are in to make working out where you are in the station hopefully a little easier.

More 0.3 news on the way!

[vaguelydamp]

Sector Plural Zed Just Updated!

Version Alpha 0.2 Changelog

Level generator now allows hallways to reconnect and form loops and more interesting structures

AI is now controlled by a central hivemind that reacts to player actions

AI now has pathfinding

Game Over screen tweaked to better show the level

Added version number on menu

Assorted bugfixes

[vaguelydamp]

This is the public todo list for Sector Plural Zed. Users can see what we're working on, and vote on what needs doing next, or even vote on possible features.

[vaguelydamp]

Sector Plural Zed - First pre-alpha post

This is the current publicly-available release of Sector Plural Zed. More features are... works in progress.