CYCOM Weekly Update #2: New Enemy RobotCreep

​This weekend I'm off on a roadtrip so this dev update should be short, I'll try to get home and get some pictures of our progress, otherwise this will be text heavy with not many pictures. ​

New Stuff

Not too much. We've squashed a bunch of bugs and we've written out the current design specs of the first set of enemies. In fact one is already almost out of the pipeline! Meet our little SpiderBot (not final name):

It uses bread-first search algorithms to find the player and run at him with it. It has low HP but keep spawning unless you destroy its fabrication bay. 

Community Feedback

Didn't have that many big feedbacks so I'm going to go through a few quickly:

• Teleport Movement vs. Smooth Transition Movement
  • Went over this on last week's blog, which you can find here: http://www.virtualworldarcade.com/cycom-dev-blog/weekly-update-1
• PSVR or Oculus or Other Headset Support:
  • To be honest, the only reason we started on Vive is because we already had the hardware. In fact, we've run into some hardware limitations with the Vive controllers; since it doesn't have a d-pad or an analog stick, we've resorted to using the trackpad as a pseudo-d-pad. Unfortunately it gets a little getting used to. So optimally, Oculus might be the best current controller for the game. However, we're currently focusing on the game mechanics and design, but in short we'd love to give support to other systems, but we don't have the resources at the moment.
• Non-VR Version of CYCOM:
  • As of right now, we do not have any plans of making a non-VR version of CYCOM.  The game is being built from the ground up as a VR experience and to simply port it to a 2D screen would change a lot of the mechanics to the point that it would feel like a different game. That being said, if in the super late future, when CYCOM is well on its feet and done, we can look into making a non-VR game with similar mechanics, but it would be seperate game.

​In Progress

Remember that SpiderBot I mentioned in New Stuff above? Well let's just say that the SpiderBot is closely linked to the boss of this first world we're making. So we did the SpiderBot to test and jump forward in progress to the boss. This is not to say that there is only like 4 enemies in the first world just that we feel that showing off a boss would be pretty cool for you guys and the Kickstarter in the works.

Next Steps

The big next step is we're trying to make a trailer and Kickstarter video. May need to take a little bit time off development to become a cinematic director...
And that's it! Sorry for the short one this week currently writing this from a car on the road (don't worry, I'm not driving). As always I look forward to hearing back from you guys so please leave any feedback or suggestions you may have.
​
Later!
-Francisco