Pre-Alpha Devblog #10 (Crafting | Consuming | Notifications +)

Hello all,

Thanks for checking out our 10th devblog! Happy holidays to all :) We may not have a weekly blog up next Friday so a quick heads up there. The team has been busy cracking away on 0.9, You can follow the progress if you'd like right on our changelog. Below we'll discuss a few of the features you can expect to see in 0.9.

Crafting Rework After a good deal of community feedback and some solid testing by the team, we came to the conclusion that the crafting system needed some work. The system as it stands in 0.8 is over complicated and cumbersome. It's just not clear how to find recipes, how to use tools and when you can or can't craft something. @Jayty has spent some time tweaking our current systems and reworking how the search and recipe system is laid out.

Once the player opens the inventory and reaches the create tab, they're presented with 3 methods to begin the crafting process. These methods include searching using the search bar located at the top of the inventory page. This is ideal for locating a recipe or item you may not already have in your inventory. The player is also able to press the [Search] button next to any item in their inventory. Doing this will show them any recipe that includes the item. The last method allows the player to press the [Recipe] button next to any item in their inventory. Doing this will show the player a recipe for the item should there be one. Below are examples of all three methods.

Method 1 : Search for craftable items using the search field.

Method 2: Press the [Search] button next to the item's name in the inventory to search for recipes that include that item.

Method 3: Press the [Recipe] button next to the item's name in the inventory to see the recipe for that item.

Notifications Our current notification system is easily missed and often ignored. All notifications are jammed into the center of the screen out of the line of sight and often become very repetitive. The general notification system is currently displayed alongside the hint system. This means a common notification like the player dropping loot is displayed in the same area where a helpful hint is. The current system is largely ignored even by us so an update was needed. The new system is way more dynamic and most importantly, it's designer friendly. This allows designers to set up triggers and easily place notification systems in any way they see fit. You'll see them mainly as hints for now. There are some concepts below currently awaiting pull request approval.

Door Interactions

As some of you may be well aware, getting chased by a zombie and trying to open a door can at times be infuriating and terrifyingly unfair. While playing a few weeks back, the team came the conclusion that door interactions needed to be worked on. The initial step to bettering the system was to create a panel wide collider. This system allows the player to tap the interact key anywhere on the door panel to slam the door open or closed. This is done at a cost. The door slamming will make a good deal of noise attracting nearby dead. The player still has the ability to open the door normally by interacting with the door handle (same as the current system). Below you can see the system in action...bit of lag in the gif but the animations are nice and smooth in game.

Door interactions, slam and normal open mechanic.

Consuming and Stat Changes The current consuming system isn't very clear. There's no quick and easy way for a player to see exactly how what they're about to consume is going to affect their stats. We've implemented a system that makes the stat changes from consuming clear and obvious. Green is good and red is bad. Each item will display the nutrition it provides along with other things like the chance of sickness upon consuming. Below you can see the system in action.

Stat change preview mechanic. ​

Dropping Where the Players Looking Dropping and placement have had a big overhaul for 0.9. The current system makes our placement feature rather difficult to enjoy. The player must first drop an item from their inventory and then hold the interact key to place it. In 0.9, the player will be able to hold shift while hovering on the [Drop] button changing the button into a [Place] button. The current system also doesn't have a system to allow the player to drop items where they or the crosshair is looking. In 0.9, the player will be able to drop directly where they are looking making things a bit more fluid. Remember to hold shift and [Place] items if you don't want the server to clean them up!

Dropping items where the player is looking.

Well that was Quick! Today marks 1 year since we launched our unlisted pre-alpha Steam build. The team has made a good deal of progress with the project in the last 12 months. We've also learned a great deal more about development and running a company. We'd like to thank the community support and mods for all the help over the last year. Below you'll see the Survive the Nights changelog for the year of 2018. You guys have done a fantastic job at finding and reporting issues. We'll continue to push forward and introduce alpha mechanics, building towards a super enjoyable alpha game! :)

Click here and scroll down to the spoiler tab if you'd like to view our full changelog for all of 2018. You can check our next set of goals and 0.9 progress whenever you'd like via the changelog. Thanks for checking in and the continued support! :)

The team would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! If we don't speak again, Happy New Year!