Zetheros
Developer
Hey Exanimates,
We've done a lot of work on the narration system and the dialogue system in general, in terms of making the system more functional and versatile. We have interactive narration prompts, and the first instance of more structured events and story interaction. For now this involves one short, but critical moment in the Exanima story, but we're adding the features to do more. This includes more scripting functionality, some specific effects and a kind of "emote" feature, as in gestures of short animations that can be triggered by dialogue or other events. Another addition we're working on as a general feature is the ability to inspect bodies, in a way that ties into the role system. This has a variety of applications from assessment of corpses and creatures, which could change based on your character's knowledge of anatomy or other subjects, and character or event specific roles that could tie into various narrative elements or activities. This is exactly the sort of thing that the narrator feature allows, providing more exposition and unique interactions. .
It's a bunch of fairly small things, but they add up to a more complete experience, and it feels like we're getting back on track to making an actual RPG. It's not until the update following this one that, with a more complete role system, we'll add more characters, dialogue and other story driven interactions, but it's a nice change to be adding new and small things that make up the big picture. Finally we're breaking free of iterating on what's already there, the seemingly endless feedback loop and nitpicking at details that don't matter very much in this bigger picture. A lot of our recent efforts have been front-loaded with huge, sometimes unexpected, development hurdles, like with procedural weapons and the new renderer, or the GI and pathfinding systems for more complex environments. It's not like we'll stop tweaking and improving things, but major overhauls should be behind us, and while there's still some tough work ahead, it will translate to lots of new value.
Have a great week!
-the BM team
We've done a lot of work on the narration system and the dialogue system in general, in terms of making the system more functional and versatile. We have interactive narration prompts, and the first instance of more structured events and story interaction. For now this involves one short, but critical moment in the Exanima story, but we're adding the features to do more. This includes more scripting functionality, some specific effects and a kind of "emote" feature, as in gestures of short animations that can be triggered by dialogue or other events. Another addition we're working on as a general feature is the ability to inspect bodies, in a way that ties into the role system. This has a variety of applications from assessment of corpses and creatures, which could change based on your character's knowledge of anatomy or other subjects, and character or event specific roles that could tie into various narrative elements or activities. This is exactly the sort of thing that the narrator feature allows, providing more exposition and unique interactions. .
It's a bunch of fairly small things, but they add up to a more complete experience, and it feels like we're getting back on track to making an actual RPG. It's not until the update following this one that, with a more complete role system, we'll add more characters, dialogue and other story driven interactions, but it's a nice change to be adding new and small things that make up the big picture. Finally we're breaking free of iterating on what's already there, the seemingly endless feedback loop and nitpicking at details that don't matter very much in this bigger picture. A lot of our recent efforts have been front-loaded with huge, sometimes unexpected, development hurdles, like with procedural weapons and the new renderer, or the GI and pathfinding systems for more complex environments. It's not like we'll stop tweaking and improving things, but major overhauls should be behind us, and while there's still some tough work ahead, it will translate to lots of new value.
Have a great week!
-the BM team
