Lots Going On, Not So Much To Show… Yet!

We’ve been really busy lately with game development.  Unfortunately there’s not much to show right now!  I’m hoping we will have some pretty pictures and maybe a video for our next update, hopefully within the next couple of weeks.  I do have a list to share though:

• server networking investigation – Been spending a huge amount of time on this, and we’ve pretty much decided on MuchDifferent‘s uLink and the UnityPark Suite.  It’s awesome because we can build authoritative server apps right in Unity, and they are physics-aware, and can be deployed to remote server hardware.  Since we need to host an authoritative server for our persistent world that pretty much eliminated any of the pervasive and generic “cloud server” solutions out there, although we did check out other packages, including Photon.  Photon does also have a self-hosted server solution, but it would have required us to deal with physics outside of the Unity game engine.  We love uLink’s ability to build server logic right in the Unity editor!
• PostgreSQL database server – up and running, and integrated with Unity.  We think Postgres is really important because it offers a very permissive MIT style license, unlike MySQL.  Postgres will play a huge part in our server logic and data security.  It will also be vital in the way we deploy all our creative content… dynamically.
• programmed spawn points – We can now drop one of our spawn points into pretty much any demo scene and our code will automatically add a player character and camera into it, enabling first-person exploration, and eventual game play.
• streaming runtime asset bundles – proof of concept successful – We created an asset bundle with a custom configured animated monster, and we’re able to stream (and cache) that asset from a URL on the web and place it into our game scene using code or a GUI button.  This is how we’ll be deploying assets in the game world, allowing us to distribute a very thin client application that updates all the creative content dynamically as needed, at runtime.
• lots of new assets!  It seems like there are more and more quality asset producers out there in Unity-land.  Some of our favorites are from Protofactor and xiaolianhuastudio .
• new original cave dungeon area nearing completion – It will have goblins, rats, spiders, and maybe an ogre boss or two.  It’s likely going to be one of the very first adventuring areas available to players upon our initial release later this year.