Fossil Sweeper Progress Update VIII

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Thinking about dig biomes
Thinkin' about more dig biomes
Been adding highlight outlines for nearby/hovered items in the museum to make interacting a little more intuitive.
#ScreenshotSaturday
Offscreen indicators so you're not lost when you're lost (will make these look nicer later)
Adding a first pass for informational displays ahead of implementing the research phase. Exciting times \o/
Dinosaur names are mostly Latin, so I may as well just make the informational displays Latin, right?
Late-but-not-as-late-as-last-month mid-month status update for February \o/ https://www.patreon.com/posts/79123502
Fossil Sweeper Progress Update IX

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It's still just a first pass, but I've finally got the research phase implemented. You can now spend your surplus fossils on extra bits and pieces to customise your museum with (only additional rooms for now, but that'll expand to include skeleton mounts, display cases, informational displays, lighting, etc.). Once started, research progresses as you visit dig sites and work on assembling skeletons.
This represents a significant milestone! Every gameplay phase is now represented in the game to some extent. Until now, there was still a gameplay loop missing, and while I need to fill in a lot more content, do a visual pass, make it TTS-friendly, etc., I feel like I can now better demonstrate the "shape" of the game as a whole and it feels a little exciting to come back from a dig site to find some research has finished.
Doing some initial work on getting more variation/identity into dig biomes
Looking slightly better
Sometimes forward progress doesn't look like forward progress
There we go
Still a long way from done, but this already feels like somewhere (also there's only two models here - it's amazing what a little rotation and scale will give you for "free")
Quick and dirty, quick and dirty
Another one
Mmm, shrubs
Bit of sand
A little snow
Boulderiffic
Knocked together something quick to help illustrate Fossil Sweeper's Dig->Assembly->Museum gameplay loop
Here's the even-more-late-than-last-month "mid-month" status update post for March \o/ https://www.patreon.com/posts/80800973
March Fossil Sweeper status update | Patreon

Official Post from Josh 'Cheeseness' Bush

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And the accompanying video, which includes a visualisation of the flow of fossil chunks through the game's various gameplay phases now that the bare bones (ho ho ho) version of the Research phase is implemented.
#gamedev #indiedev
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wwu7GPdw8tI
Fossil Sweeper Progress Update X

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Here's a more concise overview of how metaprogression in #FossilSweeper works
#gamedev #indiedev
I've been a bit slack on posting progress to social media. Not much has been happening that's visually interesting (and balancing contract work has been tricky). Here's a little something I did today. The temp chunk selector UI for the Research phase is now paginated (loads way faster) and has a nice spinny effect when mousing over chunks
Running very late again this month, but here's the regular mid-month progress update post. Topics include the Research phase background and a few quality-of-life tweaks https://www.patreon.com/posts/82270020
April Fossil Sweeper status update | Patreon

Official Post from Josh 'Cheeseness' Bush

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And here's the accompanying video talking about development across the first half of April
#gamedev #indiedev
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3AKwIrxt5E
Fossil Sweeper Progress Update XI

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I've been slack with posting #FossilSweeper progress lately. Amber now gets rounded/polished after being sorted, and might have some different things (still placeholders for now)
Almost on-time with the mid-month progress update post this time! Topics include misc fossil gameplay and Research phase UI https://www.patreon.com/posts/83235903
May Fossil Sweeper update | Patreon

Official Post from Josh 'Cheeseness' Bush

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And here's the accompanying video talking about the past month or so's worth of development #gamedev #indiedev https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVIVji_6c6U
Fossil Sweeper Progress Update XII

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Between Hive Time's World Bee Day update #LinuxGameJam2023 and #AdvJam2023, *and* contract work, progress has been pretty slow on the Fossil Sweeper front for the past few weeks. Have been working on display cases for misc fossils, though!
Moody
Here's the mid-month progress update. Not a lot of work over the past could of weeks thanks to other commitments, but I was able to make a little forward progress on some important museum stuff
https://www.patreon.com/posts/84750897
June Fossil Sweeper update | Patreon

Official Post from Josh 'Cheeseness' Bush

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And the accompanying video - a nice short one this time!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYF-yVBGck4
Fossil Sweeper Progress Update XIII

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Getting skeleton mounts into the game
Rodney! RODNEY! You're too big, mate!
Initial Rodney clip from yesterday's stream (I hadn't considered that Rodney might be a diamantinasaurus)
Shipped new test builds for the first time in over a month last night. Nearly got skeleton mount and display case interactions behaving
Here's the mid-month progress update for July! Specimen placement/positioning is in much better shape.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/86482874
2023 July Fossil Sweeper Progress Update | Patreon

Official Post from Josh 'Cheeseness' Bush

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And, as always, the accompanying video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-lnSqHI6zM
Fossil Sweeper Progress Update XIV

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Been working on being able to select multiple items at once in edit mode. Makes rearranging things a lot more comfortable!
Today I spent time on drag selection. Turns out that Godot's camera's far clipping distance to project_position() technically represents a point outside the frustum and gives weird values - makes sense, but it took a while to realise what was going on :D
I spent some time earlier this week improving my click and drag box selection implementation. To avoid redundant calculation, when multiple input events are received per tick or when no relevant input events have been received, but I'd forgotten an important line :D
Still need to do some stress testing with a ton of objects, but it's already a lot snappier than it was!
Here's the mid-month progress update for August. Avatar footsteps, new music, and museum interactions \o/
https://www.patreon.com/posts/87884067
2023 August Fossil Sweeper Progress Update | Patreon

Official Post from Josh 'Cheeseness' Bush

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And as always, the accompanying video with my handsome face doing handsome talking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJH2M7VlncI
Fossil Sweeper Progress Update XV

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As part of assessing how the current museum music implementation is likely to scale/map against a growing museum with a diversity of themed rooms, I put together a little example museum with a dozen or so rooms full of placeholder models and varied the lighting a little.

I think walking around the extended space does a better job of communicating where this is headed, but still feels empty without customiseable light placement and wall displays. This'll do for now though!

Here's the September mid-month progress update for Fossil Sweeper, a palaeontology game I've been making in #GodotEngine for a while now. Mostly museum work again this month! https://www.patreon.com/posts/89483806
2023 September Fossil Sweeper progress update | Patreon

Official Post from Josh 'Cheeseness' Bush

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Fossil Sweeper Progress Update XVI

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Here's the (late) October mid-month progress update for my fossil diggy-uppy game Fossil Sweeper. Mostly focused on museum music UI and implementation stuff this month!
https://www.patreon.com/posts/91445864
2023 October Fossil Sweeper progress update | Josh 'Cheeseness' Bush

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Fossil Sweeper Progress Update XVII

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Put together a little marquee implementation for long names in the music track selector today
I also updated the temp lighting controls to work like the music HUD so that lighting can be changed while walking around the museum and looking at the specimens affected by that lighting.
Here's the November mid-month progress update for my fossil diggy-uppy game Fossil Sweeper. Composer Peter shares some thoughts on music process, and I've been doing more museum UI work https://www.patreon.com/posts/93156944
2023 November Fossil Sweeper update | Josh 'Cheeseness' Bush

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Fossil Sweeper Progress Update XVIII

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Got temp UI for viewing info on the individual bits that make up a skeleton - where they were found, when they're from, etc. etc.
I wanted to better highlight where fossil chunks are within an assembled skeleton, so the chunk icons are now clickable. It's neat!
#gamedev #godotengine #indiedev
Updated how selecting nearby items works for gamepad and keyboard controls to make it less fiddly - being able to select something you're near to without having to walk around to make it the *closest* nearby item is heaps nicer
Here's the December mid-month progress update for my fossil-diggy-uppy game Fossil Sweeper. Dig site size tuning, temp museum UI work, and some more TTS support https://www.patreon.com/posts/94804689
December Fossil Sweeper progress update | Josh 'Cheeseness' Bush

Patreon is empowering a new generation of creators. Support and engage with artists and creators as they live out their passions!

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@Cheeseness
Lots of exciting things!

This caught my attention in particular, though: "updated mouse controls so that players can click on a door they're already running to in order to just jump straight to the next room". ^_^

@cavalcadence You can also bring up the museum map and click on any room to go there, which is even faster, but less... immediate
@Cheeseness @lashman Lovely updates; keep going, it’s looking great :) πŸ’•
@aral @lashman Thanks! It's slow going at the moment, but I hope things will pick back up before the year is out

@Cheeseness @lashman Nothing wrong with slow and steady. A little bit of progress everyday is still just that: progress :)

πŸ’•

@aral @lashman It's complicated when there are stakeholders and other oblications in conflict. I am looking forward to the current period of divided attention being over before the year is out.