Depth Spelunking dev log: Website edition
Hello! This is the first entry for the Depth Spelunking... blog? Not sure if I can call it that, but the point is, you're here, and now I'm going to bore you with some stuff about how development's going. Think of it as a journal where I occasionally make notes about stuff I feel like bringing up!
More than anything, right now the main focus is fixing bugs and polishing existing features and content. For example right now we're working on adding a weight/rarity system along with the LUCK stat. I wanted to make this system for a while and we're finally getting around to it. Internally, it'd help with consistency and would allow us to have more precise control over a LOT of things. For example, some maps will have higher weights will make them more common than maps with lower weights. We're adding this system for entities, pickups, and upgrades too. Along with this, we're finally adding the LUCK stat, which will influence weight and a bunch of other things in the game. LUCK is probably going to be one of the hardest things for development, but it'll all be worth it in the end, for us and for you: the players!
Obviously we're adding more content too, but that's not our main focus right now since we're working on polishing stuff right now. But this paragraph is all about the stuff I'm adding so it's the focus for now!
I've teased some of these things before in the Discord server (which you should totally join by the way.), but there are a few things I haven't teased yet, so I'll talk about them here since I have space or whatever.
Something I've been meaning to do is update the bestiary's portraits for the entities. The current portraits are just renders of the entities, the kind of render you'd see in some promotional art or something, which is boring. I saw what Pressure did and wanted to do something similar since I saw it. I want to make the photos in the bestiary look like actual photos someone took, with neat effects and stuff without taking away from the original image so it's still clear enough for people to see. Right now that's what I need to do. A while ago I also rewrote most of the current bestiary entries to sound more like scientific notes or something. But others were written by someone in particular, an important character to the lore. So some entities were discovered before he came around, and he discovered other entities after that period. It's an interesting dynamic and I think it definitely helps with worldbuilding and making the world of Depth Spelunking feel lived in. The loreheads will love it, hopefully. I love seeing the theories and stuff everyone comes up with!!
The big bulk of new content so far has been maps/floors. I've been working with my builder Tolcs to make new maps, and we have a sort of roadmap for making these new maps. A sort of list of maps I'd like in the game sooner, which he's working through as we speak. I've also been making some maps on the side, and I'm currently working on about 3 maps right now! Here's a preview of one of them:
This one in particular is meant to be very twisty and turny, and to be honest I'm not 100% sure what I want to do with it just yet, but the ground work for the layout is mostly there. I don't want this map too annoying to play on, I just want to make it big and wacky. I do want to make other maps agonizing to play on though, so surely you'll have fun with those when they roll around.
Right now I need to do a couple of things. Like rework the generator GUI, which I've done, but the one I made that is in game right now feels more like a placeholder than an actual GUI. I tried pixelating it so it fits with the whole Depth Spelunking theme and stuff but it honestly looks really ugly, so I'm going to not make it pixelated, one of the few things in this game that will be smooth. I also need to finish the next Boss' map and mechanic. The map itself is finished, but I just need to work on the map/boss gimmick and place all of the spawns for tasks and stuff, which doesn't take that long usually but it's a really boring process so I'm not really looking forward to it. I think the main hurdle is making the map's gimmick though since I need to make a model for it, which I don't think should be too hard, I've just been a bit lazy lately. I do also want to work on the lobby a bit more. I dunno if work is the right word, but I want to polish it and make it look a bit better. I don't want to make drastic changes like material changes or layout changes, I just want to polish it and mostly optimise it because GOD some models in the lobby are SOOOOO performance heavy, mainly the trees to be honest, the leaves have an UNHOLY amount of tris, idk why I thought keeping them was a good idea lol.
I have been thinking on working on some smaller things like icons or visuals for stats or buffs/debuffs, but that might come later since it's not a big priority right now. I also want to make a new icon for the game for the next time it opens, but since we're adding so much and the next test is like, A LONG WAY away, it's not that important right now, but I do have a few ideas. I also want to update more visuals and stuff since a lot of it feels pretty barebones right now, but I'll focus on that later since I want to focus on the big stuff right now. I mean, I kinda have to.
To end off this first entry, I thought I'd show some ancient stuff. I was digging around a few days ago and found some videos and screenshots of older builds of Depth Spelunking. Like, REALLY old builds. Back when tasks didn't exist, Arcade was the only map, and entities were just dummies with small accessories or models stuck onto them for differentiation. So here's a few images of that. I'll make another dev log when I think it's necessary, but I don't think it will or should be for a while since we're just getting back into the flow of things. Farewell for now Delvers
