Monomyth - Dev Update

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Rat Tower Software found the time to post an update on their progress. A long update.

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State of the Game: Current Progress | Creation of Level Sections

Hi, dungeon-crawling fans!

It's been a few weeks so it is time for another update! A lot of things have happened and the project is on a good way! So without any further ado, let's get started...

Current Progress

As you may remember, I am currently in the middle of the content creation phase or, more precisely, in the middle of the world-building process. This process has a few stages. It starts with the creation of the level designs "on paper" (or in planning software, as you will see later in this update). It then continues with a blockout phase, where the basic building blocks of the designs are put into place. The finished blockouts are then re-iterated on and eventually replaced with actual game assets (i.e., 3D models of the level geometry, mostly split up into modular parts). After that follows the so-called "detail pass", where detail assets (furniture, rubble, wall decorations, vegetation, etc.) are placed in the level. The whole process is then concluded with a lighting pass, audio assets, visual optimizations, and level logic.

Monomyth is currently in the re-iteration stage (here and there I am already adding details, but mostly I am trying to stick to one task). All areas in the game - from the beginning to the end - have been blocked out. This was an important step because it narrows down the actual scope of the project and keeps it manageable. The levels of Monomyth are no longer just "on paper" designs that could be changed at the drop of a hat. Instead, I am now dealing with a finite set of concrete work tasks, which is infinitely better if your goal is to get things done.

After reviewing my schedule I decided to take a little break from level design and do some game system refactoring (that is, a reworking of the code to make it more maintain- and extendable). That means for the next two weeks I will be doing some coding which I would have otherwise done in January. Level design is a comparatively straightforward challenge from now on and I am trying to prepone any tasks which may cause unpredictable problems. Coding has a tendency to cause such problems, even though I already figured out most of the refactoring on paper, so, fingers crossed!

Once the code refactoring is done I will continue with the detail pass of the level design. This brings us to the main part of this update...

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