Today I released a new video devlog showing some progress on Beneath The Order. It’s devlog number 2 because all work is based on a very early and very different prototype, but it’s the first one in the new setting, the Aegis.

The speaker announcement at the beginning aims to set the mood: the people of the lower part of the Aegis, the Subsumed, are reminded that it’s Implantation Ceremony day. The speakers are not only used for text announcements, but also to sound a deafening alarm in case of emergencies, which will play an important role at the beginning of the game.

The next part shows how the player can interact with a mine cart and how they can use an axe to mine Vitae themselves.

For the mine cart movement, I used a free asset called Dreamteck Splines. Their Spline Computer component allowed me to create a Bezier spline to reflect the track layout right from the scene view, and their Spline Projector component helped to ensure that the cart’s rigid body always stayed on the spline when the player drags it or pushes it.

Another new element was the configuration of various impact sound effects, using another asset called Impact CFX. Their demo was so impressive that I wanted to give it a try, and it was easy to set up for the most part. I had to build some workarounds for 1. triggering sound effects on trigger enter and 2. footsteps on colliders where no Physics Material is configured. I got some support on the developer’s Discord server, but one concerning observation was that the developers themselves weren’t active at all. (I completely missed to show off one thing in the video, which is how the velocity of the axe also affects the water sounds.)

The final element I showed was a first enemy and a fist fight. I am using Game Creator 2‘s Melee 2 module for the NPCs and VR Interaction Framework for the VR player interactions, and there’s no integration for both so I had to build my own. In particular, I built custom damage colliders and attached them to the hand models, hand velocity tracking logic to make the NPC block when they notice the hands moving fast along with a corresponding trigger, and triggering of melee reactions on the NPC.

Here are some more videos from my tests:

Testing these interactions felt oddly satisfying and I spent more time punching this poor guy asset than needed.