Spellbound Update #2
Author: indiefoldcreator
Date:
Sat, 24 Aug 2024
Game: Spellbound
Genre:
Action, Adventure, Indie, RPG, Early Access
Developer: Wobbly Duck Studios
Release Date: Mon, 05 Sep 2016
Developer: Wobbly Duck Studios
Release Date: Mon, 05 Sep 2016
This is a huge update and is one step closer towards my vision for how VR should be. This update contains hundreds of changes, big and small. I stopped keeping track of the specific changes, but I'll do my best to describe what has changed:
NEW: The way characters are controlled has been completely redesigned and rewriten. This is the biggest change, which took a really long time to work out. Now, instead of controlling a character directly, you are a ghost which can possess a character. You control the ghost, and the ghost controls the character. This means that in the future, you'll be able to switch to and control other characters at any time. This also means that adding support for additional VR hardware platforms will be a lot faster and require no reconfiguration (I just swap HDMI cables). This also means that it will be a lot easier to support observers, mixed reality, different game modes, and multiplayer in the future. If I did my job right, you won't notice any difference ;)
NEW: Support for Oculus Rift + Oculus Touch
NEW: The wizards hands can close and open. If you have Oculus Touch, you have touch sensitive per-finger gesture controls. It's just aesthetic for now, but will become useful later.
NEW: The title world now has illustrations to complement the narrative story. You can also click the illustrations to speed through it. This is a placeholder while we wait for additional artwork.
UPDATE: The game has been updated to support Unreal Engine 4.13. This brings a slew of backend updates, capabilities, and small performance updates.
UPDATE: You can now turn your head and look over your shoulder.
UPDATE: You can now crouch. This also shrinks your collision profile proportionately, meaning you can duck under overhangs or hide behind walls. The wizards knees also bend down to match your position, creating slightly better body presence via mirroring.
UPDATE: You can now have a different spell in each hand -- by design. To fully support this design change, I had to change the spell selection and spell targeting system. To target a creature with a spell, you point your hand at it. This also means we're one step closer to combining elements to get new spell effects :)
UPDATE: The wizards endurance has been increased from 3.0 seconds to 8.0 seconds. This means he can run for a longer period of time before getting tired. This also means players may get motion sick faster, so use care. Note: To run, move your hands up and down as if you are jogging.
UPDATE: The book summaries in the title world have been removed (for now). It's a redundant step.
UPDATE: Sparklers have been added to the title world to help attract new players attention to points of interest
UPDATE: Some really dark parts of the prelude level have better lighting.
UPDATE: Added more destructible brambles to the beginning stage of the prelude
UPDATE: The AI for zombies and wraiths has been completely rewritten. This fixes some small AI glitches and increases their performance considerably.
UPDATE: The "Crawler" zombie and "walking" zombie have been combined. Same behavior and attributes, different body and collision profiles.
UPDATE: I can now find player torso orientation to within a very small margin of error (~5 degrees?) based off of motion controller and HMD locations.
UPDATE: The "Spell Orbs" have been changed to have a new aesthetic appearance. This is more inline with the idea that they are not "Spells", but "elements" which create various spell types.
UPDATE: Rather than using the "look down" gaze select for spell elements, you now press the thumb pad on the Vive / thumbstick on Oculus Touch, and move your hand into the element you want to select for that hand. I suspect that this user interface change will frustrate a lot of people, so it may end up being a preference setting. Please tell me what you think.
UPDATE: Wizard movement speeds have been increased very slightly.
BUG FIX: Wraith projectiles glitch far less. A wraith which died while charging a spell would leave behind it's spell.
Overall, this update is a significant *technical* update which adds support for multiple hardware platforms and brings additional VR capabilities and improves the existing input capabilities. There will be a lot of rapid updates to fix minor problems and add performance improvements.
In the next update, my focus will shift away from adding hardware support and technical improvements and building out content and adapt to feedback and input from you and the community. A few feature requests have been requested and implemented, but I still have polishing and updating to do before it goes live. Tentatively, we'll be having faster update cycles for the non-technical updates. I look forward to hearing everyones feedback!
-Eric Nevala
NEW: The way characters are controlled has been completely redesigned and rewriten. This is the biggest change, which took a really long time to work out. Now, instead of controlling a character directly, you are a ghost which can possess a character. You control the ghost, and the ghost controls the character. This means that in the future, you'll be able to switch to and control other characters at any time. This also means that adding support for additional VR hardware platforms will be a lot faster and require no reconfiguration (I just swap HDMI cables). This also means that it will be a lot easier to support observers, mixed reality, different game modes, and multiplayer in the future. If I did my job right, you won't notice any difference ;)
NEW: Support for Oculus Rift + Oculus Touch
NEW: The wizards hands can close and open. If you have Oculus Touch, you have touch sensitive per-finger gesture controls. It's just aesthetic for now, but will become useful later.
NEW: The title world now has illustrations to complement the narrative story. You can also click the illustrations to speed through it. This is a placeholder while we wait for additional artwork.
UPDATE: The game has been updated to support Unreal Engine 4.13. This brings a slew of backend updates, capabilities, and small performance updates.
UPDATE: You can now turn your head and look over your shoulder.
UPDATE: You can now crouch. This also shrinks your collision profile proportionately, meaning you can duck under overhangs or hide behind walls. The wizards knees also bend down to match your position, creating slightly better body presence via mirroring.
UPDATE: You can now have a different spell in each hand -- by design. To fully support this design change, I had to change the spell selection and spell targeting system. To target a creature with a spell, you point your hand at it. This also means we're one step closer to combining elements to get new spell effects :)
UPDATE: The wizards endurance has been increased from 3.0 seconds to 8.0 seconds. This means he can run for a longer period of time before getting tired. This also means players may get motion sick faster, so use care. Note: To run, move your hands up and down as if you are jogging.
UPDATE: The book summaries in the title world have been removed (for now). It's a redundant step.
UPDATE: Sparklers have been added to the title world to help attract new players attention to points of interest
UPDATE: Some really dark parts of the prelude level have better lighting.
UPDATE: Added more destructible brambles to the beginning stage of the prelude
UPDATE: The AI for zombies and wraiths has been completely rewritten. This fixes some small AI glitches and increases their performance considerably.
UPDATE: The "Crawler" zombie and "walking" zombie have been combined. Same behavior and attributes, different body and collision profiles.
UPDATE: I can now find player torso orientation to within a very small margin of error (~5 degrees?) based off of motion controller and HMD locations.
UPDATE: The "Spell Orbs" have been changed to have a new aesthetic appearance. This is more inline with the idea that they are not "Spells", but "elements" which create various spell types.
UPDATE: Rather than using the "look down" gaze select for spell elements, you now press the thumb pad on the Vive / thumbstick on Oculus Touch, and move your hand into the element you want to select for that hand. I suspect that this user interface change will frustrate a lot of people, so it may end up being a preference setting. Please tell me what you think.
UPDATE: Wizard movement speeds have been increased very slightly.
BUG FIX: Wraith projectiles glitch far less. A wraith which died while charging a spell would leave behind it's spell.
Overall, this update is a significant *technical* update which adds support for multiple hardware platforms and brings additional VR capabilities and improves the existing input capabilities. There will be a lot of rapid updates to fix minor problems and add performance improvements.
In the next update, my focus will shift away from adding hardware support and technical improvements and building out content and adapt to feedback and input from you and the community. A few feature requests have been requested and implemented, but I still have polishing and updating to do before it goes live. Tentatively, we'll be having faster update cycles for the non-technical updates. I look forward to hearing everyones feedback!
-Eric Nevala
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