SEAR DevBlog, week of 8/25: Achievement unlocked - Shipping Build!

Needle "loads in" at the start of the level, compliments of Lukas Schmidt's end-to-end art implementation.

Huge week. First and most critical, the incomparable Mayank Singh finished smashing enough bugs to get us a fully playable shipping build of the prototype. This is still a very early version without a title screen, replayability, tutorial, or pause... but it's fully functional and if disaster struck tomorrow, we could submit it to Epic in time for grant application. Massive, massive milestone.

From here through the deadline, it's polish and final implementations. There are still a couple of huge elements I really want to have in the prototype we submit, chief among them the animations for the resonator. Gonna be 7-day workweeks for me from here to submission day, after which I will take a well-earned break.

Other big features that went in this week: pause works (and, critically, unpause works), the cinematic intro pieces are all fully functional, the rank lights on the vehicle are working (accurately showing your rank as 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or worse), polishing elements are in place for transitions... - oh! The first half of the tutorial level is built out, with the second half underway. We've got box art narrowed down to 3 candidates. We started on the Art Style Guide and began work on the website redesign. Significant advancements on physics stabilization. Results screen is finished and controller/kbm input is working on menu screens.

Like I said, huge week. New gameplay video going up on the site here and in the community discord. Talk to you soon.