Restitched: Recapped! | November 2023 (Patreon)

Howdy-hey, and welcome back to another Restitched: Recapped! November has been a busy month of refining features and tackling bugs - mostly due to a big change that has taken place on a technical level (which we'll be discussing further down in this post).

While some of this may seem fairly mundane, there's still lots to get through! Let's take a look...

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Git Your Commit On

We made a total of 117+ commits to the code this month! Most of our work is being done on a separate "3d-physics-experiment" branch. While this did start as an experiment, it's certainly become the future of the game as we've switched to 3D physics and have opened up all-new possibilities for development!

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Making A Scene

Many of you will be familiar with the new Wardrobe menu that we've shared plans for in previous posts. In our last Recapped, we showcased a very simple blockout, and now we can show more progress that has taken place!

The Wardrobe is now fitted with a very on-theme mannequin, and a lovely desk to uh... read a book while you're getting changed? We're sure this desk has a lot of important paperwork that Stuffy needs to get through.

For those who are just catching up, we've decided to split the Wardrobe into its own scene rather than dressing up Stuffy directly where you're standing in a level. We think this is a unique approach that lets us do even more with the character customization aspect of the game, such as improved lighting, less distraction, character rotation, dedicated Wardrobe music, and support for future features and ideas. As a bonus, this also solves several technical issues we'd have otherwise run into!

We're still working through more pressing issues first, but getting the Wardrobe portion of the game into tip-top shape is next on our laundry list! The look of the scene is sure to change, as we've not even properly created assets for it yet! (Fun fact: Stuffy is a low-poly placeholder and the curtain is a 'muscle fiber' material texture that we've stretched... but don't tell anyone.)

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Fancy Dress

What's a wardrobe without clothes? Well, if your wardrobe is full of robes, then just a 'ward'. Thankfully, Stuffy's wardrobe has much more to offer! Lots of new clothing items were modeled this month. These include French Mustache, Backpack,  and Necklace - as modeled by Cade and shared with the rest of the team on November 10th:

...and the new Aviators, Round Spectacles, and Face Mask cosmetics - complete with textures (again - modeled by Cade and shared on November 19th)!

That's right, Stuffy has more sunglasses now... 😎

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Winter Wonderland + Scrambling For Cohesion

Thomas showcased a couple of tracks this month with the team - the first being a winter-themed track titled 'Snow and Wonder'.

Speaking of the track, Thomas stated:

Grab your wintercoats, for the temperature is low - but the spirits are high! Snow and Wonder is a bonus track to tie with the Frozen Taiga background. It conveys the classic 'wintery' feeling through a celesta, it's backed up by a choir, brass section, pizzicato and legato strings, as well as a thematically appropriate balalaika.

But that's not all. Offering a rare glimpse into the creative process, Thomas shared another track titled 'Starboard Scramble' - only, this one won't be making its way into the game:

Here's a little reminder that not everything works out, and a little peek behind the dozens of failed tracks, I can't get this right or pull it into something cohesive, it was obviously supposed to be for the harbor theme, but it's rather disjointed and jarring.

Maybe, one day, we'll get to hear this elusive track...

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Woah Dude, That's Deep

You may be familiar with the fact that Restitched has five slices of depth (or "layers") to build on. Well, get ready to step into the unfamiliar, as we change that 'has' into a 'had'. That's right - Stuffy has broken free from the restrictions of single-digit layers and can now explore a total of fifteen!

We've always wanted to offer more than just five, but were restricted by limitations that we weren't aware could be altered. Of course, it would only be the mastermind that is Michael who figured out that, by doing some very clever tinkering with the code, the number of layers could be as many as we wanted! This was only possible due to our big shift toward 3D Physics support, which has been a months-long detour that will pave the way for new features and easier development.

We couldn't decide how many layers we wanted at first. After all, it's technically possible to have as many as we like! Once we tried some basic gameplay and leveraged the number against our existing backgrounds and code, we decided that fifteen seemed appropriate without being too overwhelming or too limiting. We also landed on this number for performance reasons.

Here's a picture from November 2nd as we were figuring out what amount worked best:

And here's a very familiar scene with newly added depth, taken on November 22nd:

This change, as well as the change to 3D physics, has meant that the game's core systems have undergone major overhauls in recent months. These two changes - which may seem simple at first - bring with them lots of areas that require further development and fine-tuning. This is where most of our developers' time has been spent recently!

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Re-Stuffing Stuffy

On November 11th, Ozy got respawning working with animations. See below for a scene that would usually be enough to make a grown man cry... if it weren't for the miraculous resurrection powers of the Restitched Checkpoint™ (patent pending).

As always, this is early development progress and the visuals are not representative of our final vision!

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Cutting-Edge Developments

On November 21st, Ozy began re-writing the ledge-climbing code, stating:

I'm refactoring it a bit so that it's easier for others to understand. [As you can see,] currently, Stuffy grabs the ledge - but releases it. This is because there is a second raycast done at that point - and that raycast is 2D. However, the 1st raycast works now, and I aim on making Stuffy less floaty next.

Later that day, with some additional work from Michael, all was sorted:

Ledge hanging is fixed (except for animations - they're pretty borked right now - but functionally, it's fixed)!

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More Layers Than an Onion

Updating the buildable depth inevitably means having to update all of our backgrounds to support it, too. We began working on this aspect later in the month, with The Rolling Acres background being one of the last to go through the transformation.

Upon completing the necessary works, Halston stated:

The farm is now compatible with 15 layers 🎉 - and I never wanna manually rotate pebbles ever again.

You May (Art) Pass

On November 22, Halston stepped in to help 3D Artist Evan do a general first pass for art on one of our unannounced story backgrounds. While we're not quite ready to share what/where it is, here's a look at the blockout getting some much-needed TLC:

Can you guess where this background is based on?

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Note That Down

On November 2nd, Halston added some simple graphics to make the in-game Notes system a bit prettier to look at. Aside from this small visual tweak, we've put this feature on hold, as we have bigger fish to fry!

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Pause (Paws?) For Thought

Towards the end of the month, on November 29th, Halston made some changes to the pause menu. Here's a message he sent to the development server at the time, which helps to give a behind-the-scenes look into the developments:

I've replaced the buttons in the pause menu. Using the OnClick setting under buttons, I remapped them to do the same actions as before. They all work. However, deleting the old buttons throws loads of errors related to input managers and unassigned icons. I can't make sense of it, so I've disabled them instead of deleting them. A programmer will need to look into it later and make sure they're stable when deleted.

They've also mostly been unified, so they're identical everywhere! I've also added animation effects when hovering and clicking, so it reacts like a button should.

When choosing a level from your "My Levels" list, you will get several options. Halston shared this concept of how it might look to display a thumbnail or screenshot from the level itself behind the menu, giving players a better look at the level they're about to edit!

Is this something you think we should add? Let us know!

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Icons and Labels

It takes a lot of back-and-forth and experimenting to get things to feel just right. Even small things you wouldn't think of, such as how a thumbnail could be presented. Halston drafted some quick mockups of how new level list buttons could look:

I'm trying to find a style that lets me make more use of space inside the button rather than put level screenshots in tiny boxes.

We've currently settled on this style in-game, but the main menu is still in its exploratory design stages:

Halston also created some more lovely UI icons. Can you figure out what any of these might be used for?

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Shhhh... 🤫

Okay, the Animation departments' developments are still under wraps... but here's a little further sneak peek! Don't tell anyone!

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Cutting About

As mentioned, the new layers and physics systems have created issues - many of which you wouldn't think would be related, such as this one. On November 2nd, Halston shared an issue with brush cutting:

Brush cutting is still broken. Sometimes it cuts, often it doesn't. Bug caught while using a non-axis-locked circular brush.

We traced this down to an issue with shape complexity. Because of the new 3D colliders being used on objects in the scene (like Building Materials), the shape generation tech can no longer cut through it because of too many vertex points along the edge.

We've remedied this by installing a max points limit to brushed shapes (as we've always planned for performance), and by reducing the number of points on our circular brush shape. We're still looking for ways to improve and optimize this, as cutting through materials is still unreliable whenever the Axis Lock feature is turned off.

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Let's Get Physical

...and here's another issue. Weight and gravity seem to be affected by the change in physics. Fear not, as we have our best people working on these issues right now!

Through several changes to related issues, this issue hasn't reappeared. Phew.

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Get In The Clink

The page initially worked on in November isn't due to be released until January - so, even though this is from October - here's a teaser for the first page of The Grandiose Tales of Cpt. Stuffy issue 2 - arriving later this month!

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To Conclude

Thank you so much for reading through this month's edition of Restitched: Recapped!  As mentioned before, most of the time spent this month has been attempting to tackle issues and refine the game - especially as we approach the Alpha milestone!

We hope the developments this month have brought some excitement to your day.

See you next time!