iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Steven🛰️

Hyphinett @hyphinett.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Splatmap interpolation got a bit too circular on this proc gen terrain experiment whoops ':3 #Godot #ProceduralGeneration #Gamedev

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

A lot of SCP-esque games coming out, some with big gacha-money behind them. Most seem to be going for action though, which I feel unfortunately makes the topic less spooky/cool. That being said, making a liveservice-scale Big game as a horror might be tough, not sure if I've seen that attempted (?)

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

may be slight perf improvements as a side effect, as the amount of objects and scripts running in the background is decreasing. should be easier to debug as well (less code to sift through, as well as more options to fix, such as using the freed up layers, etc)

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

I keep sneaking code and project cleanup in between main tasks... good for the project overall, but it does slow my update turnaround time (as need to check for introduced issues.) A few big ones: freed up ~5 layers, removed (unused) inheritance from agent classes, and deleted a ton of ancient stuff

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Making good progress on stability and agent improvements. Need to re-check it a bit though, so update will be nearer the end of the month

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Reposted by Steven🛰️

Jim Rossignol @rossignol.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

One thing I never did was a post-mortem of Sir. Perhaps this is as good a time and place as any to talk about some of that. It started in 2010 when Channel 4 had some money to spend on making educational games. For some reason they asked me. ->thread

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

awesome, thanks for letting me know! there isn't, but I'll try to add something soon

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

Activated new demo; should be visible on the steam page. It contains a small mode with a stash, random quests, and a subset of content. It's admittedly a bit rushed, so maybe let me know here or in the forum if you experience any major issues (not launching, crashing, saving/settings issues, etc.)

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Unfortunately have to delay the demo a few weeks. Will be out of town and unable to fix bugs and don't want to leave it unattended. (Last time there were some really rough ones, totally unforeseen.) Good news is that the demo is pretty much ready to go, so I'll drop it ~early April 👍

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

working on a small demo to release this week. just trying to decide what to put in it, and work out the most obnoxious bugs and art issues. (not part of the nextfest, planning on keeping this up indefinitely and updating pretty regularly)

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

still trying to get this thing seaworthy. spending lots of time on UX, settings, and making mechanics more intuitive. I know some like opaque games, but I'd prefer for new players to be able to pick up and play. so, lots of informative tooltips, etc. (should also reduce importance of tutorials)

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

I may add a traditional sort of 'jitter' unstuck option later if I can figure it out (ie nudge the player controller around until it's free), but the teleports work well so not a huge priority

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

in other news, yesterday I managed to add Unstuck options and generalized hover tooltips (so I can add more detailed info throughout the menus.) a lot of the remaining dev work is this sort of thing: stability and ux - trying to make a smooth new player experience

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

(the mag-size ramble was partly inspired by me experimenting with adding the Sai- I mean 'Taiga' mag-fed shotgun, and being a little terrified at how strong it feels. I cut the mag from 30->20 and nerfed the fire rate already, so not too broken necessarily though

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

not that I think my inexperienced dev thoughts are necessarily peak game design advice, but may be interesting to at least force me to organize my thoughts better, and have somewhat of an archive 🤔

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

(I really should set up some kind of comfortable long-form blog so I can write this rambles in more coherent fashion. I do have a wordpress 'blog' on my site but I dislike the interface so maybe could replace it. maybe after ea release when I have more time..

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

(there are benefits to real-ish elements ofc, though. those inherited assumptions mean the player can fill in the details w/ their imagination/memory, to make the experience feel more grounded and immersive. ie; drinking 'cocoa' instead of 'void nectar' will likely give stronger feelings of comfort)

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

also worth noting is that: players come in with expectations if you use something with a real-world equivalent. but, if you make something like a 'void blaster' or an 'anti-matter cannon', you can design more freely w/o worry of player frustration their awp doesn't 1-shot everything, and so on

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

ofc there are tools to balance this kind of thing, and I'm constantly tweaking them: fire rate, recoil, pen, and so on. I suppose my point is that if you are making greenfield weapons from scratch, you can account for these issues beforehand, rather than inheriting them from the source material

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

this isn't a huge issue for this game necessarily, but I notice it when I fight bears/heavies. with the bolties/pistols it feels suitably scary: lots of kiting, hiding, often over several minutes. but, w/ an ak you can just mag-dump it in one go; so, that gun class feels very strong situationally

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

back in my insurgency days I used the mp5 b/c my aim is bad, so it gave me a chance of landing a single kill shot when spraying 30 rds (w/ that games real-esque low ttk). but, in a scenario w/ a high hp mutant/robot/etc, suddenly those 30rds means a 1-mag kill vs a >3-mag kill by a makarov etc.

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

real-esque guns in unrealistic scenarios is quite tricky to balance. ie; irl, a large mag is for long fights, suppression etc, but every round is deadly. so, a 30-rd mag is not really 6x more lethal than a 5-rd. but, if you have a ~1k hp mob, w/ each shot ~50dmg, the 30-rd will melt them MUCH faster

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

oh, no plans for one, but thanks for the offer

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

good point, I'll try to make it a bit forgiving if possible

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

friendlies also now turn on you if you damage them. (had to add this as I realized that otherwise they can be seen as walking lootboxes.) for the campaign I'll try to add some other penalties to discourage friendly fire as well

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

may need to experiment with alternate simulation approaches for distant agents to improve perf (ie, pause them, do dice roll fights base on proximity, or something). but, they are actually pretty lightweight now, even while raycasting each other for vision pretty often etc

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

sorted out the thorniest issues with the faction inter-fighting changes. now possible for 'Contested' levels (infected vs mercs), and a few friendlies regularly spawn. So, now they will fight, even if on the other side of the map, and reinforcements trickle in if their numbers get too low

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

interesting how there is often tension between systems. For example, survival craves huge landscapes, gun combat craves mid range, melee combat and imsim interactions crave short range. maybe possible to weave them with careful spaced-poi design etc, but still some tension which is a neat conundrum

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 28/11/2025

made some improvements to the bag system; can now place grids side by side, which allows more varied layouts. still experimenting with large slots, which represent placing a single item through an exterior strap/mesh. I like the idea but it's a bit hard to communicate (have a carabiner icon for now)

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 28/11/2025

managed to reuse the gun model system to allow dropped weapons to use their proper model (was previously just a box.) now agents will drop their gun as an object - a bit more immersive than being in their inventory, and also sidesteps the issue of hiding the gun model when looted

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

the idea was that handcrafted levels could supplement the procgen ones, perhaps as 'boss' areas to gate progression. or, just be fun options for sandbox play. I do want to try my hand at making some big (ie >4km²) maps, but just not yet

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

built out the logic to spawn into handcrafted levels, but in doing so I realized they need to go on the backburner. building decent and large maps would likely take far too long, so if I add them it will be further down the road.

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Reposted by Steven🛰️

Mike Cook @mtrc.bsky.social · 22/11/2025

The theme for #PROCJAM 2025 is: ❄️ ☃️ COLD PLACES ☃️ ❄️ Brr! We selected this theme using a new method: I asked community members to send in theme suggestions, then we turned them into word vectors, found the average, and looked at the words nearest to that! A little bit of unpredictability. 🔮

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 22/11/2025

no sorry lol, this is just a spectating cam on an npc. I guess it could be possible theoretically but no plans

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

one of the bigger challenges is making the melee enemies smoother while still fulfilling their role. for ex, I have a 'lateral reposition' action they can choose instead of lunging to make them less oppressive, but rn it's very jank. although, it didn't stop this guy from getting a quadra-kill lol

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

right now though the biggest win is on the dev side: I can watch agents fight and see when they bug out, look janky, and so on. although, watching them with a follow-cam like this is much clearer and damning than in FP. ie; I prob wouldn't notice the stutters here if I was watching him from 50m

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

worked in generalized targeting, allowing factions to sense and fight each other. should be many benefits: fleeing wildlife hinting at enemy positions, letting the player 'third party' skirmishes, and also the inclusion of friendly survivors like this poor guy (differentiated by their teal lights)

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

had a few family challenges recently, so may have to push release to ~Q1 2026, but still mulling it over 🤔

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

grinding away on future-proofing. although doing an EA release, I want to avoid breaking saves/continuity as much as possible. so, I'm trying to get at least tracer versions of everything in beforehand: handcrafted level support, trading interface, agents targeting other factions, etc

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Reposted by Steven🛰️

Mike Cook @mtrc.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

PROCJAM - the Procedural Generation Jam - is back for another year! Join us on itch.io this November for another week of making something that makes something - a bskybot, a videogame, a digital artwork, a dice table or something else! 🗓️ Nov 21st - Dec 1st 🔮 itch.io/jam/procjam

itch.io

PROCJAM - The Procedural Generation Jam

A game jam from 2025-11-21 to 2025-12-01 hosted by PROCJAM. Let's Make Something! PROCJAM - the Procedural Generation Jam - is a creative coding jam about making things that make things. This normally...

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

besides spaghetti, amazing how much junk you can accumulate in a long project: dozens of obsolete items, systems, scenes, canvasses. maybe the positive is that it's evidence of ample iteration, but really is a chore to sift through and clean up

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

oh nice, I guess I haven't got that far. looking forward to it

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

duckov also has a very high level of polish, which is something you rarely see in more experimental games (no shade, just this is clearly an iteration/refinement of a design.) playing a run of my own game after, I was annoyed how small some text is, how clunky some interactions are, etc 😅

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

do wish there were random spawns/extracts though, because as runs are so short you might end up taking the same route 10+ times in an hour which can get a bit stale. otherwise only gripe is I find scope-overlays in these games quite strange, feels off so I avoid using them (personal preference)

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

duckov is pretty damn good. Feels like a lightweight, casual take compared to ZS. difficulty feels coffee-break level, and the silly vibe and simplicity plus the extensive progression seems to land in the addictive long-playable spot for a lot of people, like dave the diver, maybe arpgs, mmos, etc.

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

amazing how much more work immersive ux can be than arcadey. for example, right now flashbanged enemies have a ✨particle above their head. I'd like to replace it with an animation, but that requires: anim, anim state, logic to handle transitions, logic to turn off aim/look targeting, and .., and ...

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

added the trilux sight for the fal. feels pretty neat, though I'd like to make it take up less of the screen

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

(also trying to get the cameras working better, including viewing photos in-game. if I can get it working, could use it for quests as well as flavour. long lenses can also be used to scout ofc. years ago I made a system where you could snap procgen chars and it would tag them, so should be doable

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

have a bunch more I modelled a few months back, then shelved (as obviously not a main priority.) maybe I'll steadily drop them in when I need an easy mental break. they need to be textured/rigged but it's pretty fast

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Steven🛰️ @starmotedev.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

Added black-billed magpies as an alternate perching bird (only had crows). Not in the Arctic archipelago currently, but in this scenario (~2070) there is a bunch of natural and manmade forestation. Not a huge deal, but trying to add little anchors to the setting (also just fun/quick to add)

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