Progress, Death, and Premiums

First off:  I wanted to apologize to anyone who tried to watch last night’s livecast later on in the evening. The demo went off pretty well, with the usual few hitches (and the usual solid minutes of me rambling in a manner reminiscent of Grandpa Simpson.)

However, I had to delete the broadcast very soon after finishing, because there was a BIG spoiler displayed onscreen for a couple of seconds. 

I tried to edit it out within YouTube studio, but as the video was 2 hours long, it was going to take literally hours to process.  I was forced with the necessity of pulling down the entire livecast, because of those few seconds.  I will try another livecast in a week or so - and this time, be a bit more careful.

In the meantime, it gives us time to add more polish & content.

The magenta artifacts in the BG - those are the result of a few missing textures that somehow got lost over the past couple of weeks.  We have someone on the matter, and should have it fixed in short order.  The few remaining bugs in the “follow” AI are likely to be resolved within the next week or so, as well.

Over the past week, we have been able to add Laura’s interiors to the main project - we can hook them up, while we do our second and third passes. 

Here’s a little background info on how this is done, and how Peace Island is constructed, so you have a better understanding of the process:

If I were to show you the “Main Scene” of Peace Island, you would be confronted with a rather bare spectacle…

Aside from the UI elements, and a few “universal exterior items”, there just ain’t much there.  However, this scene contains EVERYTHING that makes up Peace Island - every square inch of dry land, the boundless ocean, every tree, every prop, every interior, and every building exterior.

Essentially, each individual 150X150 foot block of land (and that which sits upon it,) along with each separate interior, exists as a unique “world” unto itself - which are stored as prefabs. These prefabs are loaded and unloaded as the player moves, ensuring that the engine only has to display what is immediately around a given cat.

When you take another look at the scene with gizmos on, you can see that there are actually a LOT of elements going on in that main scene.  It looks complicated, but placing everything into that one central scene ensures that after the initial load, transitions are relatively quick.

Bringing this back to the interiors:  They are initially designed in a separate scene, to ensure that we can work on them freely without danger of disturbing any other aspect of the project.  Once they have gone through about three iterations, they are converted to a prefab, and brought into the main exterior scene, so they can be accessed by players.  I am sincerely hoping we can include at least a single new interior in the upcoming alpha (there will be five in the Beta!)

Now - I wanted to talk a bit about the subject of Death within Peace Island - specifically the question:  Can the cats die?

Our simple answer is:  “No!”

Our more complex answer is:  While there are exceptions, games conventionally require a “Fail State.”  This is a state in which the game’s current iteration effectively ends, because the player has no means within the game’s rules to continue.  

In Chess, the fail state is “Checkmate.”  
In Poker, the fail state is when one player proves to have more valuable cards than the others.
In any online shooter, the fail state is when a player gets their health depleted, and as a result…

Dies…

I don’t think it is an understatement to say that Death is the Fail State in about 95% of video games.  From a superficial plot-building perspective, it is not hard to see why - there are no higher stakes than the termination of one’s entire existence, and the common fear of such is one of the few things that is near-universal.

However, to use Death as a Fail State in Peace Island would be impractical, and not consistent with the scope of the game’s story.  You see:  What is at stake in Peace Island is not the life or death of any one single individual, but the future of life itself on this planet.

Doubtless, there will be players who will try to neglect/abuse the cats.  We will be creating a Fail State JUST for them…

So- premium shipments have hit a snag - we’re out of postcard sets!

I will be ordering a new batch, in coming days.  If you have yet to receive your premiums, please message us here, or contact us at peaceislandllc@gmail.com

See ya'll next Monday!