SEAR DevBlog week of 4/28: Sprinting into May
- Adam Nicolai
- May 2
- 2 min read
We've got some concept art this week for the digital sail, which is one of the effects the Resonator can create based on prompts from the music (assuming the player wants it) - essentially, this kite-looking thing deploys and catches the resonance wave from the song, giving a speed boost to the player for as long as it lasts (3, 5, or 7 beats depending on which precise reswave the song is throwing).
It can also create targeting reticles for an impending burst of laser fire:
When the Resonator makes one of those reticles, it means hitting the SEAR button on the prompt will make the Resonator fire at the targeted vehicle, destroying it (at least in single-player; in MP it will be a momentary wipeout). The primary target is highlighted with the green diamond, while potential alternate targets get the white X (like the Needle on the right).
However, vehicles behind you can fire on you as well. In that case you'll see a reticle on your own vehicle, and hitting the button will instead make the Resonator deploy a shield, deflecting the attack. This means that if you've got someone on your six, you can't take advantage of the reswaves that attack the car ahead of you - you have to use them to defend your rear.
All the meshes and materials for these effects are now staged up in the project, ready to go into the dev environment, so we'll have some shots of them working in live gameplay soon. Very soon, in fact - I've decided to enter the Rising Tide Challenge being put on by Blue Ocean Games, meaning we have until the end of the month to get a solid gameplay trailer finished. We are absolutely on track to get that done, and it dovetails very nicely with the goal of having a playable prototype ASAP. The trailer will take priority this month as the funding would be no joke, but nearly everything that needs to be done for the trailer would need to be done for the prototype anyway, so the goals are definitely complementary.
If the prototype isn't done this month, it needs to be done as soon as humanly possible in June, so we are definitely hitting the sprint phase here. But we're also well-equipped for it. The team is firing on all cylinders, deliverables are coming through all the time, and the schedule still looks good.
Oh, and we have a community Discord server now! It's in very early stages, not a lot of people yet, but I'm already using it to solicit feedback on a few things. Some of the contractors on the SEAR project are in there, too. I'm excited about it even though it's only a couple days old and so fairly quiet - mainly it just needs to be ready so when the trailer comes into the world, people who want to join have a place to do that.
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