Pre-Alpha Devblog #3: (Traps | Animations | Fortifications)

Hello all,

Thanks for checking out our third devblog! We're making great progress on the 0.8 fortification update. You can check in on our progress by having a look at the changelog. Animation Updates and Additions (0.8)

@woto has been busy animating zombies. We've taken some of your Twitter and Steam remarks and have started adding additional animation variants. Check out the gifs below for a bit of a progress update on that.

Someone has had one too many!

A quick vault through.

Belly flop!

Quick hop

AI Tracking (0.8)

@André Kats has been busy cracking along on AI behaviour and tracking. You'll notice in the gif below that zombies won't just pile up at doorways. If the AI has the chance to take a path through the door, it will. If the door is blocked it will find the quickest way out.

Going through both the door and the window.

A Quick Update on the Fortification System (0.8)

You'll notice the player only swings once and the plank is fixed to the frame. The player swings and the plank is 'tacked on'. The plank at that point is in its weakest state. The player can continue to tack additional planks on or choose to strengthen the initially tacked plank. Adding more nails (with additional hammer swings) will bring the boards strength up. Destruction in this gif is so simple because all boards have only had their initial tack up. You'll also notice some placement effects and general smoothing from the last update.

UI, initial placement and destruction and smoothing.

These are weak planks. These planks will be harvestable from fences and wood piles.

Traps, Persistence and GUI (0.8)

@Jayty has been working on trap persistence and logic. Below you can see some of the logic that has gone into the trapping system. UI overhauls to allow for direct placement, machine persistence to keep track of fuels and ammo.

Trap placement done directly from the inventory.

Interaction, moving ammo from and to traps.

Picking up a trap done directly from the traps interface.

Inventory Management (Future Update)

We've noticed in videos and while playing ourselves that some players do not use inventory tabs. After playing for some time the inventory list can get quite long. We're doing some rework for a future update and had the idea of tab highlighting. This is just a quick mock up for the purpose of some feedback.

The general idea an items specific item tag will highlight when it's added to your inventory. Either with a dot or a glow etc. The player will take more notice to an exaggerated tab getting them used to using the tabs and making it easier to figure out if you picked up something new.

Let us know what you think of this possible addition or if you have any better ideas!

We're Hiring! We're looking for help! If you are or know any programmers/unity developers looking for work in the UK please let us know. We're looking for like minded devs, the project is near and dear to us. The team is very small and being a team player is very important to us. If you'd like to send a CV to support@survivethenights.net please do so :)

As a reminder before we go, we'll be getting these devblogs out weekly. You can check our next set of goals and 0.8 progress whenever you'd like via the changelog. Thanks for checking in and the continued support!