Our goals for 2024 (Patreon)
Content
Hey dear supporters,
We hope your year is off to a good start. In this post we want to communicate our general goals for 2024. This will be a great year and you'll see a lot of progress.
Combat System
One of the first things we will be tackling is the combat system. Our design team will clear the last questions and then code and animation will be implementing and finalizing the whole thing and we will be blocking out sound and visual effects for the combat system.
This is one of the last big elements we are still missing to have the game be fully playable in terms of systems. Our goal for this year is to have a fairly polished human x human and human x monster combat ready so this will include us finishing all the animations required for this for both humans and monsters.
Movement Animation System
Along with that we will also be concentrating on the character movement animation system. Under the hood it has bloated considerably and it's time we clean it up, simplify it, improve its editability for animation and finish the last remaining features such as the swimming and grappling hook.
NPC Routines
For the world to feel more alive, one of the most important tasks will be to finalize and implement NPC routines with routine destinations and animations. So the world can have plenty of spots for its inhabitants to work, sleep and relax.
Level Art
We are aiming for blockouts of all locations to reach B state and bring 50% of locations to A state after that. For a better description of what A and B blockout states are, check this post. The landscapes of the world will also be in focus of our efforts to move to a look that better resembles the final result. This includes:
- Finishing all rocks, cliffs, and mountain models and textures.
- Final placement and new iteration for water material of all rivers and lakes.
- Fully dressing the complete game world with blockout plants and trees.
- Having the main space-ship designs and blockouts ready, including the Blackrock and Federation landers.
Character Art
The faction and NPC outfits will also reach completion by mid-2024 and the NPC body models will be completed by the end of the year.
We also want to re-work and finalize the character skin material with its final feature list. This includes things like better wetness effects, tattoos, dirt layers and customization. This should be an improvement in both performance and looks!
Sex Minigames
Sex content is one of the aspects Wild Life isn't really lacking, but of course we will continue to produce nice animations. We are still missing around 7 sex minigames and our main focus will be to flesh out the Maya x Max romance. Naturally we will be constantly adding new animations to the sandbox viewer.
Story Mode
We plan to fully implement the game’s main-story quests and reach at least 80% of the side-quest implementation and sex-minigame integration as well as design and blockout 80% of the game world’s mini-locations (such as caves, campsites, ruins, etc.).
We also want to finish item design for all items and implement them in the game at least with blockout models. This includes things like consumables, weapons, routine items and quest items. Monsters and their spawning logic will also be something that our designers will be figuring out so exploring the world has some challenges too.
Performance
Performance is always on our radar and this year we plan to make several performance-improving adjustments to the game both in art and code. We want to look into VRAM usage, optimizing material setups, texture management and nanite improvements in the art department and various game-system optimizations in code.
Sandbox
Last but not least, the Wild Life sandbox will of course continue to be improved, features added and new content implemented.
We are looking forward to this year to finally see the world of Wild Life reach a state that could be considered a playable game.
Thanks for all your support,
- Wild Life Team