Last time we posted an early teaser and we have discussed in our previous blog post about 4 players splitscreen mode. More you can find in the link below.
Today for the first time, we were able to play in the splitscreen in 2 players mode. We were even more excited about this, since we haven’t seen such life simulator games, where two players can sit next to each other and share their experience directly in the splitscreen. This is a quite unique feature yet to be had. Hence the development journey ahead is quite mysterious for us. And yet we are really looking forward, to be able to play and mess with UMes characters around the world map.
Me and my GF were playing in the map editor, while editing the terrain, building basic roads and constructing early houses (alike 😝). While at the same time testing various features, bugs and the game functionality.
I was playing on the left hand side of the splitscreen, using the keyboard + mouse controls, while my GF on the right hand side of the splitscreen wanted to play on the gamepad. We started with the goal, that we take one corner of the map each and terraform the terrain. After that, we started to build roads. And finally we jumped to constructing our houses 😎
As a result, we have recorded our endeavour and have created the timelapse, which we share with you.
Various Bugs And Challenges:
No doubt there are various bugs and issues we have faced. But that didn’t stop us from having a good and exciting time. 😊
More work is needed regarding improving controls. Especially the gamepad. However, it has been presented that the gamepad provides the same functionality, as a player playing on the keyboard + mouse. This is actually quite a challenge, to fit so many features from the keyboard + mouse, onto the gamepad. While at the same time maintaining complexity of the gameplay, like building, navigating UMe character and moving the camera around.
There is a need for a life help display, what controls are currently possible and what they do. So the player knows what to expect and what functionality is available.
There is a bit of a learning curve to get just to controls, especially on the gamepad. But the challenge comes from the angle, how the camera can change while controlling UMe character. In UMeFate it is possible to move from world view and mouse controlling character, to third person view and then to the first person view, while WSAD controlling character. This respectively needs to be reflected on all control schemes. I.e. gamepads.
Terrain tools are very limited for now, but are sufficient for this stage of the development, to more than just provide proof of the concept. But also to test the functionality of the gameplay.
There are certain constraints, or smaller bugs, when two players are modifying the terrain at the same time. Otherwise not too bad. 🙂
Roads don't support joining, or crossroads for now.
Land plots generation along the roads is glitchy and throws errors in various cases. Possibly it will be reworked at some point and a different approach is considered currently, to generate land plots.
Construction mode lacks many life quality features, like snapping to the walls below. There are various bugs. But generally it showed, it was quite stable in split screen mode. There is also the option to build the same house in split screen mode. But this hasn’t been fully tested.
There is an obvious visual glitch on the second player screen (right hand side), which relates to the refreshing of the rendering.
Whats Next:
These are mostly the same as in the last blog post. But progressed much further into splitscreen, UI and controls features.
- Test split screen mechanics.
- Refine keybinding.
- Finish UI redesign and refactor, supporting split screen and gameplay functionality.
- Ensure that saving loading works for constructions on land plots. I think something broke.
- Be able to build and load constructions with characters UMes in a play mode (not in map editor).
- Fix furniture placing.
- Fix ingame and the main menu feedback system.
- A bit of polish but mainly stabilise the game for this phase of UMeFate build and prepare the demo update.
- After all that, BIG Start on character interactions and autonomy (classic AI).