WEEKLY DEVELOPER UPDATE #2
Welcome to our Weeky Developer Update #2. Last week was a rollercoaster full of emotions, so first of all we would like to thank to all the 3k+ people that has joined our discord community (discord.io/cosmicrafts), and of course to all of our followers of every Social Media that like and share our contents. You guys are cracks!
SCORES, DATA SAVE, METASCORE & IC INTEGRATION
Up to our last version of the pre-alpha game, you were able to play some matches but the game was unable to save any kind of progress within your account. Every time we joined a game it used to reset what you have achieved on the last login.
Recently and thanks to the connection between the game and IC, this has enabled saving all players scores from every match.
On this new patchversion we have been working with, we achieved to run everything under IC. Though we still miss some details about optimization to pull off, for example, game loading times. Within the next few days we will continue to improve things like stability and optimization to fix these small details.
Another benefit from this link with IC, it’s the integration with Metascore. This will not only enable us to save a match history and scores but also every progress the player has made so far, this means that from now on everything that the player does will be saved and won’t be lost.
Good news is that this integration will be ready in a few days, although these changes are still in the testing phase.
Finally, what we are looking to achieve is that player score not only works as a mere number, but to turn it into a game token that will be used as a progression for the player, so much for leveling its account but for some other extra features we plan to add in the near future. We are still rallying some ideas and consulting with the community about what they would like to see.
ICP INTEGRATION CHALLENGES
Just a few weeks ago we couldn’t manage to find ways to optimize the communication between ICP and the game, so we started to work and study the most common communication methods.
The idea was to maintain a bidirectional communication between the game & ICP. Therefore, we found that sending the player name to the ICP was the way to go as a first step between ICP →Game, and after that in order to save a player’s match score would be the opposite GAME → ICP.
In order to accomplish this we decided to load the game within an ICP canister so it would be native and easier to communicate with. After several tests, we manage to link both connections, leading to finally achieving basic communication between both systems.
Nevertheless it’s worth mentioning that during these tests we found out that game loading times were slower than usual, so this week we will focus on optimizing, improving, adjusting to improve the code system.
GAME DESIGN & ART
Our goal is to stretch graphics out as much as possible to find a well-balanced, optimized and super fun gameplay for mobile and desktop devices.
New iterations were added on missiles, thrusters, explosions among other VFX to make every unit of the game unique.
During some testing on environments, we were able to add 3D Planes with PNG renders of asteroids and put them to work on a battleground. Adding animations loops as they appear and move, but the fun part was that we managed to create an interaction with your Cosmicrafts units.
This opens up to more possibilities to add to the gameplay depending on the Battleground.
An asteroid challenge where your mission is to go through a survival overtime, neutral random objects that interact in different ways as of:
Obstacles
Slows down or speeds up
Range augment/reduction items
Runes (power ups)
BALANCE WILL BE TOP PRIORITY ON GAME DESIGN
As we come closer and closer to a multiplayer version of the game, we need to add balance.
We have been playing vs the AI a lot and it seems that trying new strategies may result in a loss, but we found a few ways to beat the bot.
When multiplayer goes live, we think it’s going to be huge and expect a whole new metagame with endless strategies.
We plan to introduce custom Game Modes and organize a score competition, with prize pools for a PVE NFTs Championship!
Next update comes up with a lot of improvements from previous version, UI, Graphics, Game Balance, Debugging and finally a Tutorial
Can’t wait to have sticky keys and hotkeys to spawn units and multi language for our community to have it translated to your native language.
Also, The Genesis NFT collection is coming up, auctioning all the artwork produced so far to fund the project to leave our current full time jobs and hire more people to keep up with our Community growth.
LAST SHOUTOUTS TO COMMUNITY
Last but not least we would like to thank again to all of those who had been constantly supporting this project, to all of those who donated, translators, our awesome patient community MODs, and community in general from Discord and from all of our Social Media Official accounts that share our contents and help us inform people about what’s new. It would be impossible to name you all, but you know who you are. Though we really want to emphasize that you have been our main source of determination and energy to improve and nurture Cosmicrafts. As we always said we will find a way to reward all this love and energy to all of you!
