Hi, since some of you folks were worried about this project, I decided to give you a little update. First of all, I can relieve your minds: Monomyth is still very actively under development. Things are still happening (almost) daily. However, as you can probably imagine, this year went a little different to what we all expected. As a result I had very little vacation time, which is what I need to really prepare the updates that would push the alpha forward. Instead I focused on level design / content creation, because if you get interrupted there - say, for a couple days - it's not so dramatic. So here's a little overview of some of the things I've been working on over the last couple months: [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//33913785/5282e1549c90831d9c1e38418c409197ba51aa54.png[/img] [i]Lysandria is a coherent environment. Naturally it needs a sewer system.[/i] [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//33913785/dcdb283556b9871db2831904face6463baf8a1b8.png[/img] [i]Magic devices may sometimes reveal things you were not supposed to see.[/i] [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//33913785/efdf89df79d1215799f6391d6ddfd6d6c9ae5486.jpg[/img] [i]Long ago Lysandria was a center of trade. The mines underneath brought wealth and prosperity.[/i] [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//33913785/2053ddbdbd4e7856d9e92766ad440e8d3a4f224c.png[/img] [i]Verticality plays a major role in all areas.[/i] [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//33913785/1239c633ed7915c185243b2c2676228697c9f99c.jpg[/img] [i]Not every corner of Lysandria is dangerous. Some places are peaceful and allow you to relax for a while.[/i] [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//33913785/a61a4fcfbb71a5dfb6cceac9910cc2d805816281.jpg[/img] [i]The Lysandrians were rather devout. The whole area is filled with shrines and temples to worship their ancient gods.[/i] [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//33913785/f01eaf94fa2176f457462d00d4b2f53ea1a9a86a.jpg[/img] [i]The roots of the fortress reach deep down into the underworld.[/i] I also improved the level design workflow quite a bit. Some of it is now handled through a tile map interpreter which makes it easier to block out / prototype simple dungeon environments. Basically, with this method I "draw" tiled environments on a layered image, which is then interpreted as a 3D environment (z-axis information is coming from the layers). Here's an example on how that works: [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//33913785/abfe5abad7187dd52b39141d808a2d57da94d26f.png[/img] [i]A tile map drawn in UE4's internal tile map editor[/i] [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//33913785/d2a8c5cff77239d9ce19f049ebb5ed859d8d1106.png[/img] [i]The interpreted 3D environment (early)[/i] [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//33913785/3f3cdc462588fd01f6894d361f9335558181e283.png[/img] [i]A more complex environment produced with the same method[/i] I've also been overhauling the character animation setup. Many NPCs now share a single animation rig, which is again (essentially) a workflow improvement because it allows for modular characters. I posted an example for this over at [url=https://twitter.com/rattower/status/1254326174039322625]Twitter[/url]. My main gripe with Steam's update section is the size limitation on gifs. Then again those are absolutely terrible on twitter as well (plus the compression is awful), so I might look for an entirely different solution. Further, I also put some time into making friendly NPCs attackable. Attacking them naturally has a negative effect on your faction relationships. I will have more information on this (and other stuff) in the next update(s). Talking of which, I'll try to keep this place more up-to-date in the future (haha, whoops!). Sorry for that! See you soon! Yours, Rat Tower