Devlog #22 - Building an Entire Bar (Patreon)

We're comin' in hot with exciting news about the next update, and other things! 

First off the bar update is coming Soon. The playtesters will get their hands on it this week! Once the inevitable weirdness and bugs are fixed, then the players (you) will get your hands on it.

In another bit of good news, HTML/Mobile builds are now very possible. It'll take work, there's hiccups that I didn't see coming, but the basics of it is this: when I first made Joker's Trip, I didn't realize the graphics pipeline I was using wouldn't work on HTML builds. This means I’ll have to make a backup of the project, switch pipelines and...whoops, every shader in the game is broken. Hm. LUCKILY there are ways to convert a majority of those shaders. But a majority isn't all. Those shaders that are very custom (the rug and curtains are procedurally generated) will take a little elbow grease.

Once I finish converting everything, and make the HTML build, I'll have to do regression testing. This means that every single thing from gameplay to "does clicking the menu work" has to be tested thoroughly. Doubly so if I decide to make a dedicated android build. But that requires me buying an android phone first. Professionally, I've used android simulators to do android testing without the device in the past and there's always something it misses. So for the sake of the android players, I'll work on the HTML build first, then eventually acquire a phone to use for testing.

All that being said, I'm glad I went out of my way to future proof the game for HTML/Mobile. For example, the game has no lighting! Nor does it have post processing. And a bunch of 3D objects (which I've kept lowpoly) share the same texture map, which saves on performance. And also, of course, the game is entirely point and click, which translates really well to touch screens!

Now let's talk shop—well, more shop. Here’s the original mock up Taylor made for the bar, vs the new one!

Why the change? Well, while the original was a nice drawing, we wanted something that made sense for the camera angle and had space for three people to spawn. And also an aquarium. I really wanted an aquarium. 

Knowing I would eventually make this game portable, I had a target of 50k to 150k triangles for the bar scene.

And I managed it! I Here’s what they look like in game!

Wait a second that’s not the right image, that’s the alpha assets I made years ago…here we are!

Some cool things, first off Jesus Christ it looks a lot better. Like oh my God. Second, the texture map is shared by everything you see other than the aquarium. The aquarium is actually a PNG.

“Wow looks shit” yeah, it’s great! The way it works is, instead of texturing every model individually with details and the like, I set each face to some solid color (or gradient, to simulate lighting) and use smaller props to give it detail. In the future I’m going to add more swatches and gradients to this texture specifically, meaning more and more props will share memory and the game will remain smooth even with new models. 

As you can see, the gamblers fit better in it too. You can click them, they'll say something poignant like "hello" or "fuck off". The person with the star means they want to have a real conversation with you. Here's the view once you enter [CONVERSATION MODE]

I can't wait for yall to read these.

A few things missing are the animated fish and labels on the drinks. I actually had to remodel the fish once I realized that HTML/mobile hates transparent textures overlapping, so I physically modeled their fins to accommodate. I'd like to do that work while the game is being playtested since those are purely graphical changes that shouldn't affect gameplay.

But yeah! Things are finally wrapping up on this update. Thank you again for your patience! 

I also launched a little game site for adults, but in the "i'm at work and need to kill time" sort of way. It's called ten-cat.com! I've been using it as my way of keeping my skills sharp for the job market since Joker's Trip uses a completely different programming language.

One more thing, as a little treat, let me tell you about the next next update. Not to spoil too much, but when Taylor asked me if I approve of a new design he drew, I ended up getting distracted by looking at pictures of men in panties. So look forward to that.

-Love, LG