Time to start some weekly updates on our progress. We always have people asking what’s happening at the Muse office so we’re going to let you see what’s behind the curtain.
We’ll go through by each team member one by one so you get an idea of how we work.
Nathan:
Since he’s still in the “indoctrination” phase, he’s been getting to know the code base by fixing some bugs.
He touched up the guns and engine’s collision boxes, so there’ll less falling off the ship.
We’ve also been soaking him in the community through dev games and he’s been playing at home his crew. Lenin’s Ghost shall lead us to victory!
Derek:
Derek has been working on the new trailer character animations. I’ve seen the first take and apparently Derek isn’t happy with “really cool” and is shooting for “completely awesome.”
George:
This week George has been working on an visual indicator that will spawn particles and effects for active pilot skills. This will make it a bit more flashy and let engineers know when they need to yell at the pilot for LEAVING THE MOONSHINE ON!
Eric:
The gun on everyone’s lips and most competitive ships, the Artemis, has been
a source of frustration because it is just too powerful! Eric spent the week testing out different numbers on it and watching as people attempted to destroy each other in the dev app.
He also changed some timing elements for Crazy King so the hour long cat and mouse games won’t occur.
Beyond Skirmish mode, Eric looked at some progression for Co-Op mode. He’s got some awesome ideas about how you’ll get rewarded for blowing enemies out of the sky.
Tom:
Tom has been putting the finishing touches on the Co-Op level and refining the attack algorithms of the aeroplane AI.
This is the fancy way of saying: We can rebuild the AI, Better than they were before. Better, stronger, faster.
Emily:
Matchmaking UI has been the main thing on Em’s plate. She was tasked with building the UI that will redefine how you get into every game.
Tim:
Tim has had his hands shoulder deep in the new trailer doing color correction, compositing new elements as they are finished, and simulating dynamics.
Howard:
Howard has spent a lot of time making sure matchmaking and the community will mesh. He’s also working on a retrospective for the entire Guns of Icarus experience. So someday soon you’ll be able to get into the head of a game company CEO and exactly what he was thinking as we released during a hurricane, fought off DDoS attacks, and gathered together this team of very talented individuals.
Alex:
Alex has been testing and debugging the co-op director, and getting basic enemies set up. We’ve been told soon it will be ready for internal testing!
This is on top of his normal stream of bug investigations and testing the game for the first time on the Steam Box.
Jerry:
Jerry Tang, all matchmaking, all the time.
With this major overhaul in mind he’s been taking magnifying glass to the code and adjusting the algorithm, making sure crew formation can be passed to clients correctly and giving the system a few crew formations to test out with.
Chang-hung:
CH has been playing neuroscience with the Co-Op unit’s combat controller so the enemy will actually repair their airships.
Matthew:
Matthew has been setting up testing for the Artemis and getting ready for heavy testing of matchmaking. Beyond dealing with the normal player feedback (Keep it coming, we love it!) He got to run the first matches of the Leviathan Seasonal and there were some amazing matches between the Gents, Hatters, and SIR.
Beyond that it’s been getting in touch with some people for some more Guns of Icarus promotion and trying to help bounty hunting survive matchmaking.