02012021

Pretty productive day today (although I still didn’t get my five rooms done…). I started by working on the dirtiness effects like I said I would yesterday. It ended up being a little bit trickier than I initially projected: since the game is running at true resolution, the texture, which previously worked fine on a much larger sprite in a different project, had to be manually adjusted in order to not appear blotchy/weird on Avery’s character model. Nonetheless though it turned out fine and everything works as intended now: dirt and grime naturally accumulate while outdoors but particularly during rainfall, and can be washed away in the decontamination shower. I think I’m gonna have the regular shower give a substantial mood buff, which is countered by a long wait time in between available usages (maybe a day or two, as new water gets filtered in).

While coming up with ways to make the two work together well, I also came up with the idea for a small underground area, accessible via a hatch in the ground in the outpost room, leading to an interior cell containing the water and power sources for the outpost. I’m not entirely sure yet what the point of those would necessarily serve beyond demonstrating the functional construction of the outpost, but it’s an oddly exciting idea that I’m gonna work a bit with more tomorrow.

I also started working on directional sprites for the idle animations: now, Avery will stay in whatever position she was facing when she stops walking. It’s a relatively small change, but significantly improves the feeling of the movement overall.

Lastly, I got rid of the alternate lighting system entirely after discovering some gross incompatibilities with the design of the outpost, and implemented an alternate light source instead: a miniature storm lantern, which, instead of casting a beam like the hand torch, casts a small radius around Avery. I’m thinking it’ll be powered by fuel tablets (also used for starting fires), although I’m not yet sure what its advantages over the torch are yet. I’ll think about it a bit more in the coming days and hopefully arrive at a satisfactory solution.