Hi folks!

A few weeks ago now, we made sure the intrepid delivery bots could shoot down the incoming marauders. Now, they are shooting back! From a gameplay perspective, we needed the bots to be a little less at ease on the ship. Once they had their cargo assembled nicely in the middle of the deck and there was no enemy ship in sight, there was usually nothing much to do. Those times are gone, since the ship will be constantly threatened by incoming bombs.  A brave crewmember will need to grab the bomb and throw it of the ship, before it explodes and slings the cargo of the side.

When playing the game, a good observer might notice the atmosphere got a lot more intense. We started putting in music! But just some background noise won't cut it. We made sure there is the right mood for every situation. Whether you are soaring through the air heroically protecting cargo from gusts of wind, or trying to save a crewmember that's holding on for dear life, the music will certainly add the necessary gravitas!

A major change has occurred as well, can you guess what it is? Probably not because it has to do with the render pipeline we were using. We have now switched from Unity Standard Render Pipeline to the Universal Render Pipeline. This will allow us to use more advanced rendering features as well as make our game look that much better with a bit of post-processing. As a result of this change the outline when interacting with objects in the game has unfortunately taken a hit and doesn't look as good. But fear not as we will attempt to restore it to it's former glory if not make it better.

On the art-side things have also not stood still. With all character rigs done now, the animations are being baked as you're reading this. They will all be out of the oven shortly and an implemented animation system is very soon to come.  The cannon's animations are also presto and ready to be implemented! Although the cannon's animations are handcrafted, all character animations are downloaded from mixamo and cleaned up at the feet, shoulders and hands to work better with the meshes and avoid clipping. Particles have also been moving and thus soon every hit, jump and throw will finally come to life.