Game Development Life Cycle

Our team is very proud of the progress we've made on Sacred Tenet so far, and yet we're keenly aware of the progress that has yet to be completed.

As of the time of this writing (Feb 2021) we have three artists and two game developers on payroll working part-time. Additionally, we have four volunteers contributing cloud infrastructure engineering, web design, Discord organization/moderation, Patreon design/moderation, and organizational support such as scheduling and managing payroll. This is all overseen by a lead game designer who is responsible for vision-casting, quality enforcement, and funding.

Below are the features that have been completed to date.

**September 2020**

* Created a UE4 game client with a simple level and movement logic
* Created a cloud infrastructure using Google Kubernetes Engine and Agones.
* Began development and testing of grappling-hook movement physics

**October 2020**

* Added health and inventory logic to the player controller
* Added logic to support Mixamo animations on player characters
* Refined grappling-hook movement
	+ Added secondary grapple mode
	+ Added cooldown display for secondary grapple
* Prototyped several level design elements:
	+ Dynamic fog that responds to player-held lights
	+ Custom gravity to simulate planets
	+ Orbiting lights to simulate miniature star/moon for each planets
	+ Hazard objects that cause damage upon impact, based on speed and weight

**November 2020**

* Added custom "android" character model
* Refined grappling-hook to allow unfixed objects to be pulled toward the player
* Prototyped fist-person perspective mode
* Refined custom gravity to allow players to properly rotate as they walk around planets
* Added replication logic, so online players can successfully see eachother moving and interacting with objects
* Completed first test deployment of the UE4 game on the GKE+Agones infrastructure

**December 2020**

* Implemented Unreal's Gameplay Ability System to streamline the addition of future abilities
* Refined zero-health logic:
	+ Death animation w/ fade-out
	+ Text on screen
	+ Respawn after set amount of time
* Created level-design resource for "Press E to interact" story nodes
* Created infrastructure API to list available gameservers
* Added game menu and associated gameplay options
	+ 'Name' entered from menu hovers above character's head in game
	+ Color selection on game menu customizes each player's character appearance
	+ Gameserver list populated from API allows players to join the selected server
* Added placeholder visual assets and hand-built a demo level
* Added music from *Echo the Author* to game menu and in-game audio loop
* Wrote a story scenario and added associated lore nodes to demo level
* Hosted a public multiplayer event
	+ Approximately 60 players across a 12-hour period
	+ Hosted server in the EU and then NA after the halfway-point of the event
	+ Garnered feedback from players pertaining to movement, game client reliability, and server connectivity

**January 2021**

* Added night-vision view
* Refined character movement sound effects to take impact speed into consideration
* Added fields to the menu:
	+ Text field to allow Patrons to enter special codes to further customize their character appearance
	+ Sliders to allow balancing of music and SFX
	+ Toggle for Fullscreen/Windowed views
* Refined gameplay replication to reduce jittery character movement on slower connections
* Prototyped ship movement, with replication
* Added a sitting pose for players who are controlling a ship
* Created demo level for ships
* Bugfixes:
	+ Some character color materials were inconsistent
	+ Grappling while emoting would cause character to be immobilized