Graphics Are Not Everything | Devlog 

thank you so much for making a game i can run on my toaster of a PC

I think each object should have their own animation when placed, tweaked to make their animation just right. For example, the well could slam to the ground and make the screen shake, or the scarecrow can drop into the ground and rattle back and forth a bit like an arrow making impact.

Congratulations on hiring an artists, I can't wait to see what yall come up with! Also, the terrain looks much better now!

Glad to see another video! I'm not quite skilled enough to make my own game, so I've been using your series to offset the urges that I have to just dive into trying it before I can even code properly.

You know one thing that always gets me is how games from 2010s manage to both look and run well and also feel amazing. Batman series is a great example. Those games look amazing and run surprisingly well on my potato and they are one of my most favorite games of all time. Good luck on your journey and I hope you achieve that perfection of looking, running and playing well

The animation for objects is more suitable for fences, for the other objects a different animation will be suitable

Great video as always. I feel like for placing the turret robot, you could try animate it slowly mechanically opening up and folding into place like its slowly building itself?

The robot looks amazing! I feel like it could use a little simplifying to fit with the feel of the game and to not visually overload ya but either way, awesome!

a cool animation for new items might be some form of "unpacking" animation. like the player tosses out a cube or something that can work like a pokeball. and when it hits the ground the item could either assemble itself(alot of animation effort) or atleast do your stretech/grow thing you got going on now. i feel like it would go well with that fact that a robot carrying large items makes less sense then magical space holding storage cubes holding it and in the long run if you added a "survival" mode it could be a way to implement more consequences where to move items you need to manufacture the cubes to pickup the items.

yo that robot is amazng. love the playfull little details. pls show it in more detail in the next devlog so i can take a closer look ^^ to who ever the artist ist. Good fkin job! cant wait to see all the other things done by that artist. its gonna be great.

I think sound design is often an overlooked part of survival games, visual feedback will take you so far for item placement but having audio that scales/adjusts to the percieved "weight" of an item will make it feel more immersive. Simple solution would be to give each buildable a weight float and material type. Then use the float to make a adjustments to the specfic material sound when it is placed.

There is a lot of cool animation and ability ideas to implement on the character since its a robot. Tweak the design a little bit so that so its slightly like a transformer in that there is a safe/shell animation mode. Where the robot can tuck itself away in the armor and be safe/hide/take less damage. It would be pretty neat to see how the armor plates/details all tuck away into a nice shell surface. And for movement, depending on the overall robot design, it could transform into a mode like a ball or a wheel shape and roll faster. Or in a comical cartoon way, its feet magically transform into wheels or tank treads. Or like when going into construction mode, a 3rd arm or and a cute lil hard hat is added when it transforms into the "construction state." Or when repairing, one of its hands transforms into a hammer. Maybe even the tools in game could actually be a tool kit upgrade system for the character with dedicated slots that are built into the robot itself. Ive always wanted to play a game where the player character is a robot. You start of with a base frame, and a goal is to upgrade your kit/tools/abilities. Rather than a conventional survival tool inventory system. For added depth, certain large tools/abilities take up dedicated slots so you have to switch it out and plan ahead before missions or tasks. I think this would play into a similar satisfaction as searching for/earning/crafting upgrades for weapons or cars and what not. Sorry, just spittin out ideas ;) Im looking forward to your progress!

Nice juice! Also, I think you should keep the hands on the new robot. Rigging looks complicated and difficult but once youve done it a couple times its pretty easy! Also, since the game isnt first person you wont have to animate the hands very much. You just need the fingers to grip around tools or maybe make a fist when punching. Good luck!

An idea for the construction of objects! Every time you put a new object, a smoke can be created around it along with sound effects of construction like saws, screwdrivers or something like that. It can be very light, but it's a cool effect nonetheless!

Fantastic video, thanks for sharing. I've been reworking my grass for the last 3 days it's been so stressfull. It was tanking my fps. Finally came up with a solution and switched from bilboard grass textures to a single grass blade triangle. The shader calculates the distance from the camera and shrinks it on the y axis exponentially when the distance is above a specified threshold. It also moves in the wind using a sine wave. It seems we're both making similar games and are at a similar stage of developement. I wish you all the success in the world and if you want any help or feedback id be happy to. Also I like your method for removing the grass when an object is placed, I haven't gotten round to that yet but that will help thanks.

graphics are absolutely important the issue here is making realistic PBR isnt the end goal your graphics should be, zelda wind waker taught me this lesson as a kid.

Good job so far! I had an observation. When the robot is running, it's chest section is static. Yes, it's robotic in nature, but physics require some movement. You could remove the animation of the legs running, modify the feet of the robot to be little tank treads, and springs around the upper legs. Then as the robot is cruising, have random number determine a little compression of the lower legs and tracks bounce up and down, simulating rough ground. The upper body stays static with the camera view.

I think the model should show a little feedback and there be a metallic sound effect when getting hit. When low life maybe the robot makes little electrical noises, and when hit at low life it makes a zap sound. I also don't think the effect that pops up when hit should be red, since its a robot and red signifies blood.

3:53 this SpaceDave guy feels familiar... I wonder what he's up to 🤔

Suggestion: What if you made the placing animation have different parts of the model your building come out from the ground or around where you build and have a fun sound effect play after its done building :)

Binged your entire series. Excited to see where this goes

Loving the process. I'm excited for the sound part

I'd like more detail on how you changed your terrain code and did the new grass and how you update it when placing items, etc -

Love the look of the new bot!

Make the placing.. instead of stretching and squishing after you place.. do it in the outline before you place, so when you click.. it stretches and squishes then fades into the actual placed object

The new robot is awesome. And the squishy animation is also pretty nice.

Ayo! That robot looks kinda sus, I wouldn't trust the guy that made it

It is getting so cool. I love the devlogs and the game.

A slight delay while adding objects into the world? Like it doesn't place instantly, it takes 2s and you can add a placement animation?

Yeah I think that's a great effect for when you place things, and a message that explains why you can't place something would be great. What do you think you're gonna price the game at?

That robot is boss!

Use a burst job to combine multiple grass meshes into one mesh. The speed up will be huge.

I love the new robot, but i'm kind of sad about losing the old one, its like, you're maturing! and i don't know if i'm ready for you to grow up :P

the game is starting to look very cool, keep up the good work !

The rate of the squish on place animation should be faster + smaller for smaller / lighter objects, and slower + larger for bigger / heavier objects!

the character looks so good

On getting hit: both screenshake and red flashes are annoying and among the stuff I turn off in every game I can. I'd suggest model knockback and/or hurt sound.

New robot looks great

Hey overphil how did you make the cool flowers and bushes you made them in blender?

New Robot IS SO COOL

Nice game bro! been a while since I was here.

you can also add so everything you cant see does not render

i have to agree they arent like THAT important they do play a part, only superficial but the main thing is still ur game, the core, the idea and etc

Just wow! Amazing progress! I don't have any suggestions, but I'll still write a comment to please the algorithm gods.

Nice work! but please improve the UI! that has always got to be a pretty big priority! anyway looks awesome, maybe continue adding juice to your game, like knockback or animation when hit and particals when placing, or a little emphasis on your selected item in the inventory.

If we really want to talk about the FEEL of a game a handcrafted map always feels so much better then a procedural landmass. You mentioned ARK in your first video they have procedural maps too but they could never live up to the feelings that comes across from a fully fleshed out beautifully crafted world.

Honestly this graphics topic is very specific, i feel like its more satisfying to see your work taking shape early on, as i mainly use Unreal Engine, that comes out of the box, which Unity does not, it takes significantly more effort for Unity to look good, but i understand what you mean, Though the issues you mentioned primarily cyberpunk is due to rushing of release, companies need to learn that when the developers say its not ready, its not ready.

Gets better every time!

idea: what if the boy controlling the robot was sitting on the bed in the house?

bro i was grinding my punch lvl in valheim and u used it in the vid

instead of the the current anim used to place items you could, if possible you can make parts fade in piece by piece

absolutely love this series, keep it up! 👏

The new robot looks great.

Looking good! I think sprinklers should regrow the dead grass

When you take damage your screen should crack sense your a robot

You should improve the building system so stuff actually needs time to build and an item like a hammer to use on it. Late Game you could also add construction robots

awesome robot. really, just wow.

Hey Overphil! How many days will it take you to upload the next video? Like 20 days, or 30 days😮

Can anyone please tell me how to install this game

You can make a robot that collects all the materials around it?

tbh it looks way better with the new robot

where to download

I think you should make enemy robot modern house camps for loot

I started playing games when only 2D games existed. The jump to 3D was amazing and after that it was all about the new console and how amazing the graphics were. Later I got into PC gaming and it was all about getting the next GPU so I could play games at higher and higher settings. At some point I realized that I was just getting bored of games. Doom Eternal was a definite moment of realization for me. Looks amazing but I felt was a worse game than Doom 2016 and despite all the technology, the original Doom (and Quake) games still pulled me back and gave me more enjoyment. My current list of games lined up to play are Hotline Miami, Noita, Spelunky, Risk Of Rain, Terraria, Vampire Survivors, Celeste and Valheim. All cheaper than AAA games and all give much better gameplay and value for money.

you can give some structures diffrent animations like scareow can look like you are erecting it

Yes but also some games straight up make it impossible to play because the graphics make it so distracting.

I was thinking about the boy in a previous video, and I had this ideia that I find amazing. What if, in de end game, it is revealed to the player that he is the boy this whole time! Maybe it would bring a more imersive experience and also a good plot, cause like: we are controling a robot that is controled manually by a boy, it makes a lot of sense if the player was the boy. For me, it doesn't make much sense if we are controling a robot that is controled by another person. It makes me question "who is actually controling who?". Anyway, sorry for the long comment 😅, I am training my english.

nice video! I agree with the graphics is not important things, and game feels is the most important. well people nowdays discuss about the ai involvement in game dev, to me I'm okay with it, cause it don't matter that much, game feels is still the most important, without game feel, players will be confused of how the game works, and starting questions their intention to play the game, if the game feel is too bad, player might think that they're wasting time instead of playing games. And that's why game feel is the most important aspect of game dev to me.

looking great

Amazing dev log would love to play the game

Amazing!

bro i have waited for month just to see a very short video of yours

Graphics are not important -- unless you're trying to build an audience through dev logs on RU-vid. Then they are essential

I have watched 4 seconds and I know your just spitting facts

Its been a while

Popup's are not the way to go. They are interrupting gameplay, it's better to stick with audio/visual feedback

dont devide detailMap Res & HM map res hardcoded by 4 my bru, do something like this, float newX = x * ((float)detailmapRes / (float)hmRes); why i say this is when you ever change those values, you will forget about hardcoded values and will have to debug again what you just debuged, waste of proper Dev Time. no saying you are doing this wrong, in coding there are many ways to kill a cat, but sometimes small things like this make life easier, Keep it up

Congrats on th14 Phil✌🏻

To be honest i liked the old model of the character better

that is true :)

Algorithm

YES YES YEEEES

I know graphics it's not everything In fact graphics dasn't even nessery means to have better lighting in my opinion one game that have different art style and not realistic it may look better in some cases even if they don't have the best lightning reflection ECT

You should fire the artist

they are

The first game you showed looks uncanny, terrible video.

great video pls do never stop uploading i love your videos

have to also agree on the specs part, like if a game cant run on gt710? it is too much and i mean minimum spec gt710, at least you should be able to get 20+fps with lowest settings, hitman 3 craps itself with single digit fps with gt710 at lowest settings and resolution, while genshin is playable with gt710 at lowest settings 1080p with this, even 1030 can play the game good have to remember from steam hardware survey that many people still use 750ti 1050ti and etc