We’re finally here: actual in-game character customisation, new parts, a working UI, and plenty more goodies to show off. This one’s a pretty big step forward from the regular ol’ foundational work – and a pretty good taste of what’s coming next.
Customisation Compendium
Let’s get right into the meat and potatoes: a ton of the back-end scripts are finally in place, and I’ve since started wiring up the buttons, toggles, and sliders on the character creation screen. So, without further ado, feast your eyes on some fresh new GIFs showing it all in action:
1. Gender and Body Type toggles:
2. Age Slider:
3. Skin Tone Slider:
4. Colour Sliders:
This last one may be a bit hard to see, but the Facial Hair slider changes the eyebrow colour (and soon also facial hair, I just haven’t actually drawn any options for that yet). The Eye Colour slider also changes… well… the eye colour.
Now’s also a good time to mention some of the cooler quality-of-life features I’m building in, especially around asymmetrical parts and character direction flipping. In most 2D games, flipping a character to face the other way is as simple as flipping their X axis – and ta-da, job done. With rigged characters, it gets a bit more involved since you need to flip the skeleton as well (but luckily that part’s already been sorted).
However, here’s the catch: flipping the character means every sprite gets mirrored too. So if your character has an eyebrow piercing on the left side and a T-shirt that says ‘HELLO’ suddenly they’ve got a right-side piercing and a shirt that reads ‘OLLEH’ Not very ideal.
To tackle this (admittedly minor, but pretty immersion-breaking) issue, I’ve set up my part metadata to specifically account for this very thing. Asymmetrical parts use A/B variants, and whenever a character changes direction, the script automatically swaps to the correct variant – so what you see is an accurate, ‘flipped’ look, not just a mirrored image. The same logic applies to left and right side parts: when a character turns, left-side piercings, tattoos, scars, or damage will properly appear on the right, and vice versa.
It might sound a bit abstract without seeing it in action, but the image below should make things a bit clearer. Take the example of this side-part hairstyle, with the part on one side and a combover on the other. When the character turns from left-facing to right-facing, the part stays on the left side, and the combover stays on the right, just as it should. This is just one use of the A/B variant system, and I’ll be implementing the same approach for nearly every asymmetrical part; clothing and gear included.
This same metadata system does a lot more than just fix visuals. It’s how I’ll enable ‘Physics’ hair parts like ponytails for certain styles, or those extra hair strands on either side of the forehead, as well as handle a ton of other stuff related to clothing and gear.
You’ll definitely be seeing a lot more of this system in action over the next few dev logs, because (FINALLY) it’s almost time to draw *actual* clothing for the characters. After 11 months of staring at dongs all day… well.. that’s quite exciting lol.
As a final addition to this topic: these scripts also handle mod support right out of the box. Whenever a mod is installed, the system will automatically expand or override the vanilla parts, colour palettes, and sprites. That means players will be able to swap out skin tones, hair colours, or even replace every single body part – and of course, add new hairstyles, tattoos, piercings, clothing, and more to the core game. Pretty damn cool if I say so myself (which I do).
Lore Dump Incoming
One last thing worth mentioning: alongside all the actual dev work, I’ve also been chipping away at the game’s lore and fleshing out the world it’s set in. I’m not ready to fully spill the beans on the main factions or storylines just yet, but I do want to share my current draft for the timeline of events leading up to the game’s setting, as well as a short blurb at the end that gives you a brief rundown of the state of things when the game starts.
Keep in mind, this is still a big work-in-progress, but here’s the general direction I’m heading in:
Timeline of Events:
2034: First base established on the Moon.
2035: Construction of the first orbital station begins.
2042: Manned colonisation of Mars begins.
2046: Major orbital station construction completes.
2049: World War 3 threatens to break out; nations mobilise for conflict.
2050: Global anti-war movement erupts – soldiers and civilians, aided by global communication, refuse to fight; mass protests and non-violent revolutions depose war-hungry leaders.
2052: Provisional World Assembly established to draft new global governance; groundwork laid for planetary unification.
2060: Mars, Moon, and orbital colonies formally represented in Earth’s new world government.
2082: Global referendum ratifies the Unification Charter – Earth and its colonies adopt a single planetary government.
2145: Outer Solar System colonisation begins (Titan, Europa, etc.).
2202: First extrasolar probe launched to Proxima Centauri (20% light-speed, 20-year journey, 4-year comms lag).
2214: Artificial gravity device invented.
2226: First signals and images received back from Proxima Centauri – water world discovered, colonisation prospects confirmed.
2271: First generation ship launched toward Proxima Centauri B.
2295: Generation ship arrives at Proxima Centauri, colonisation begins.
2309: News of colony’s success sparks a wave of enthusiasm for interstellar colonisation.
2316: Mass production of generation ships begins, with world government and regional authorities sponsoring missions.
2401: Faster-Than-Light (FTL) drive invented after centuries of “slow” colonisation and development.
2406: Last generation ship is launched; FTL drive soon makes these ships obsolete.
[Large gap in time]
3450: Present day – the starting point of the game’s story
(Exact year subject to change)
The Situation Now:
In times long since past, humanity had surged forth into the stars, carving out new worlds and spreading civilisation, all the while fighting desperate wars against unrelenting alien forces to claim them. But after a catastrophic civil war shattered the unified Federation, most of that territory has been lost. Now, aliens have reclaimed the frontier, and humanity finds itself boxed in and surrounded on all sides. Three major factions, alongside countless minor powers, wage bitter wars against each other and vie for dominance, their infighting and rivalries leaving them too divided to halt the slow, relentless advance of the alien menace. Piracy, espionage, and intrigue run rampant across human space, while in the darkness beyond known space, a far greater threat quietly spreads its tendrils and threatens the survival of every living thing in the galaxy.
The idea here is that the game’s setting is roughly a thousand years in the future, making the timeline above basically ancient history to the people living in this world. I’ve chosen to go this far ahead because I want to stick to at least semi-realistic timeframes, and I also want the main story to have an epic, saga-like feel whilst also steering clear of the usual sci-fi clichés, like ‘World War 3 ruined Earth’ or ‘Capitalism = Bad’.
By spanning a thousands years, there’s room to explore a history full of major wars, betrayals, shifting alliances, and all the events that give a setting real depth. I will admit, I’m totally a sucker for the Horus Heresy arc from Warhammer 40,000, and while that universe is very much different to the one I’m creating, I do still want to channel some of those same themes such as loss, tragedy, and betrayal.
Of course, this is just the foundation, but it should give you a sense of where things are heading. I’m looking forward to sharing more as the world-building and character-driven storylines take further shape.
Hopefully this little primer gives you a taste of what’s to come!
So that’s where I’m at now.
All those months of groundwork are finally starting to pay off, and the pieces are really starting to come together.
It’ll still be a quite a few more dev logs before we actually get into real gameplay, but we’re definitely on the way there.
As always, thanks for tuning in, and see ya in the next one!
