Got a new Operetta build up.

I’ve also been working on a musical theme for the game.

music

I’m trying some weird chords and progressions here that I can’t even quite describe, and I like how that’s lending a sense of exoticism without just sounding like I don’t know what harmony is supposed to sound like.

However, the instrumentation is giving is this journey-though-the-desert feel, which isn’t quite what I want… I want something more adventure-on-the-high-seas.

Well, actually what I want is a similar sound to My Name is Lincoln from The Island, better known (to me) as part of the trailer music for Elizabeth: The Golden Age. I want something that sounds both like sci fi and a period drama, if that’s possible.

gameplay

I’ve added a bit where things are only visible to the player if they’re close to the player, or if this new spinny radar thing of yours has recently swept over it.

This was a little difficult to pull off — it involves some custom shaders and pixel-by-pixel bitmap drawing, but I like the effect.

Right now, anything could be invisible if you’re too far away; that’s just for testing. Eventually, only objects marked as cloaked or hard to see will ever be invisible, and everything else will be visible at all times.

There’s a little bit of weirdness in the planet labels; apparently, Unity doesn’t let you use custom shaders with those. Like, at all. I was worried about that at first, but that shouldn’t be too much of an issue, since planets should never be cloaked.

Also, I’m not sure how I feel about the communication to the player about where the sensor is sweeping. Right now, there’s just a slight bit of darkness in the places you can’t see, and I like how unintrusive that looks… but it might be a little too unintrusive. I dunno.

Anyway, next I’ll be working on your item list, which will mean putting lots more work into my home-grown GUI system.