Update #6 - Literally making progress

Hello!

Yes, as per the title I am making progress in quite literally 'making' progress at the moment. What does that mean? Well, visually it means this:

At least, this is the part I can show you - this whole layout extends much further, but I don't want to spoil that for you :)

So what is it? It's the player progress map!

For some time now I've been brainstorming cool ideas for wrecks, for puzzles and navigation, for quests and items to find, and working out the main story beats. But at some point, all that haphazard fun nonsense has to be made into something tangible. It has to be structured in a way that links all of those things together so that they escalate in difficulty, unlock when they are meant to for either upgrade or story reasons, and so that the narrative can be told across the game, fitting into all the above elements.

So I am now on a Miro board, where I've planned the physical layout of the game area, busy splitting it up into a bigger chart of what wreck the player visits when depending on what upgrades they have, and making sure the story I want to tell fits into it in the right way. Once that is done, I will then be able to think about navigation and puzzles in and around the wrecks and where best to place them, again, given the upgrades and story beat at that time.

Now, I find this a fun and interesting process because it means forming something resembling fine dining from the 'end-of-the-week' casserole pot in my head. And while it's not scripting a game system, or modelling a ship interior, it's absolutely vital to do otherwise the game would not exist outside of a few editor screenshots and some short YouTube animations.

Anyhow, I'll hopefully have this finished in the coming week, then I'm back into trying to create an inventory system for the player's ship. So wish me luck for that :) 

Bye for now!

Tony.