Monthly Archives: August 2016

DevBlog 23 / Responsiveness

Hi everyone!

This week’s devblog will be more technical. We will talk about some tests we made on the subject of responsiveness in Decay of Logos. Although this game is not a hack’n’slash, with very tight controls in favor of gameplay, we do take this component into consideration. It has slow paced attacks, depending on weapon classes, but still we are targeting for a fast responsiveness in the controls. In the test shown below, the frame when the anticipation of the animation kicks in will be the end frame measured, and the first will be the frame after the button is pressed. The game was running at 60fps and the video recorded at 60fps. The monitor has a 6ms (Gray to Gray) response time.

You can see that after the button is pressed it takes about 4 frames for the animation to start, and about 10 frames for the actual damage to be dealt (when the trail is visible, damage can be applied). So it’s about 66ms of input lag and 166ms of delay before damage is applied.

For comparison, we measured and made exactly the same test with Dark Souls, using the same machine, with DsFix (for running at 60fps) recorded at 60fps. The results were: 3 frames for input lag, and about 18 frames for actual damage be done. It’s about 50ms of input lag and 316 ms of delay.

We choose a short sword in Dark Souls and a short sword equivalent (our Carved Sword) in Decay of Logos for a more fair comparison.

We also compared the dodge responsiveness (jump back). Again we used the same principles as above.

On Decay of Logos we get about 4 frames (66ms) again of input lag and about 16 frames (233ms). In Dark Souls we get 4 frames (66ms) of input lag and about 19 frames (316ms) until we’re able to perform the next jump.

Another way of measuring this type of things is by attaching a led light internally in the controller and putting it next to the screen for a more precise moment of the given input.

André also made changes in some transitions and blends in animation, which improved significantly the delay felt during combat.

The Bark Armor Set

Slowed down video.

More information about this subject, the influences of CPU Logic, Rendering and Input lag can be found here: Programming Responsiveness

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail

DevBlog 22 / Armor props and screenshots

Hi there!

This week Tomé used the highpoly model from the wooden enemies to generate a bark armor set which can be looted from their corpses or found randomly in chests. Equipping the whole set gives the player bonus physical or elemental defense points. We aren’t planning to produce a very large number of armor sets due to our current manpower, but nevertheless some combinations are very interesting in terms of gains in stats.

The Bark Armor Set

The Bark Armor Set

André recently improved a lot the responsiveness in the animations and feel of the attacks, something he’s been meaning to do for a long time. He has also been tweaking the streaming logic so the player can enjoy a seamless journey.

Pichel was working hard to create an additional layer of detail for the ground textures. This is our first detail pass, and later we intend to pick up where we left off and add even more asset variety, whether it be new props, particles or textures.

Indoor Battles

Indoor Battles

Forest mood

Forest mood

Showing the discovery

Showing the discovery

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail

DevBlog 21 / World and HUD Improvements

Hey everyone!

This week we all invested some time in the first portion of the game, making a lot of tweaks and populating every space with the assets we produced so far. The shots below show how much more alive the game feels now following this collective effort.

How'd It Get Burned?!

Lumberjack hut area and companion.

How'd It Get Burned?!

The old Temple

One of the things that is still in a clear “wip” state is the texture of the hills and cliffs that limit the areas of the game. There was actually an unfortunate setback in our process – Pichel had made a lot of progress in texturing when suddenly Mari crashed and a lot of work was lost, since it somehow corrupted the backup files. But nevertheless we are back on track.

How'd It Get Burned?!

Long journey

André worked on improving a bunch of mechanics, improving the “ambush” feature, the enemies’ awareness system, and updated the HUD alongside Tomé, using new graphic elements they designed together.

How'd It Get Burned?!

New UI elements

We also got a lot of new elk animations from Iuri that really help making it look livelier. Ricardo also jumped in to assist the team with the general lighting of the game.

How'd It Get Burned?!

The Aqueduct

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail

DevBlog 20 / Environments Revisited

Hi there!

This week Tomé and André reworked and tweaked some interiors of the game using many brand new assets. Some color calibrations were done to improve the atmosphere of each space and create distinct areas.

How'd It Get Burned?!

Secret areas are easy to be missed.

How'd It Get Burned?!

Some hidden lore in this wooden house.

How'd It Get Burned?!

Another pass in populating this interior.

André did some bug fixing and polished some mechanics. He’s preparing a new test build. Also, a first new version of streaming scenes was implemented with a great performance improvement and also an easier way to edit scenes for everyone.

Meanwhile, Pichel finished the player’s companion and is working on the other characters and NPC’s and doing a more detailed version of the painted terrain.

The outdoors are really coming along, the new areas are almost complete.

How'd It Get Burned?!

Another pass in populating this interior.

Next week we intend to redo the HUD (replacing placeholders) and make some minor functionality changes in the inventory.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail