BiB//D:_R PPoC 3D – Final update & User Testing 3

https://noyoru.itch.io/reminiscence3d


Play/Read the prequels here:

BiB//D:_R Web-Project

BiB//D:_R PPoC 2D


My final version is ready, though i lost a lot of time in the middle of this semester and didn’t get nearly as far as id planned, im still more than satisfied with what i’ve got. There was much more i wanted to add, especially lore and dialogue, but as it is, this demo only offers the partial lore of the opening and ending sequence with a large plot hole in the middle. But those were all stretch goals, so as long as the game offers some player experience in its jankiness then I have accomplished a large portion of what I needed to.

The consensus usually was that the game could run in windows, much improvement and optimization was needed throughout the project, and a few of the mac builds came out broken, but as i do not personally own any macs it was difficult to see if i could debug and test it myself. otherwise the feedback i received in working builds was positive and much of the early feedback on lighting and performance were vital in what i needed to focus on.

Headbob was also a lasting issue, i had added it and intended on making it toggleable but something wasn’t connecting with how i scripted the headbob so in the final update i opted to remove headbob entirely and disable the menu option. And though some of the terrain is still fairly complex, i did a quite heavy smoothing of all the deepwoods terrain when trying to generate smoother nav meshes so this review was also inadvertently addressed and i hope makes a significant improvement

lighting and player speed was another vital part of my game because i really wanted to get the narrative exploration horror experience, and for the most part the lighting turned out great after a few rounds of major tweaking and testing, but in all im glad the reviews for that also came out positive in the end, especially when combined with the rain and HDRI environment i struggled with at first.

In all, this was another great experience and helped chisel out a lot more of the deep narrative for this timeline in the background that isn’t/wasn’t going to be included in the game, and eventually i hope maybe that i would revisit many of these projects and rebuild them proper in the future when there is more concrete thrilling narrative to include. So thank you professor and everyone who’s been at least slightly interested in my style.


Screenshots

BiB//D:_R PPoC 3D Devlog 10

https://noyoru.itch.io/reminiscence3d


Play/Read the prequels here:

BiB//D:_R Web-Project

BiB//D:_R PPoC 2D


– new short user testing form on discord
– further optimizations
– full occlusion culling added
-nav meshes added
– final forest areas added, Deepwoods map “complete”
– opening scene script added added starring french AI voice for Harlow from ElevenLabs, translated with DeepL
– skip button for cutscene script added
– portal working correctly
– key & molotov in survivors camp
– brief placeholder dialogue with Harlow added
– Wendigo model updated
-Enemy patrols


New level of detail on bachelor base mesh

Opening Narrative Sequence

BiB//D:_R PPoC 3D Devlog 9 – Trying to catch back up

https://noyoru.itch.io/reminiscence3d


Play/Read the prequels here:

BiB//D:_R Web-Project

BiB//D:_R PPoC 2D


-Main level split
-Level 1 – Cave Milo
-Level 2 – Deepwoods
-Missing scripts finally starting to be implemented
-Added more lighting to survivors camp
-Closed off several areas to fast track progress
-key to deepwoods added
-Placeholder for portal to the deepwoods, functional but is not locked behind key requirement for some reason
-Main menu added (WIP)
-UI added (WIP)
-Dialog plugin installed, not yet implemented


Screenshots

BiB//D:_R PPoC 3D User-Testing 2 | Developer Update 3

Developer Note

Due to a series of misfortunate personal events, I haven’t really been able to focus or work or do much of anything I’ve intended on doing for the passed few weeks in any of my classes. However, I have chipped away at some of the last details needed to finalize the world building process and am eagerly trying to get back on track so I can quickly start implementing many of the missing features that are to be included in my game

User Testing 2


I still haven’t received much direct feedback through the user testing form itself being at 2 submissions, but after some in-person testing and conference I’ve finally been able to fix the two most glaring issues with my game; Being the extremely low exposure levels on some players’ computers resulting in a pitch-black, unplayable experience, as well as an apparent broken mac build for the game.

So exposure levels of all light sources have been drastically increased, the player flashlight has also been readjusted for a very wide cone with increased fade distance to further enhance player comfort, and the mac build has been rebuilt and rereleased and was shown to be in working order.

I’m also going to work my way around another layer of heavy optimizations at the professors recommendation and possibly create a doorway for the Cave Milo entrance that will require a key so that way I will be able to completely split Cave Milo into a separate level and instance from the Deepwoods, which would then become level 2 while heavily optimizing both scenes due to all those reduced assets.


As for actual progress in the game design itself that I’ve been able to do, I have finally replaced the cave systems placeholder coverings with a singular crafted mesh, and have applied the cave texture to it, as well as added the missing collisions to all the structures within the Survivors camp. A few of the main story points that were intended to be included in the early starter tunnels of the cave have instead been sealed off with custom bunker door meshes I made in order to begin fast tracking my way to many of the missing elements of my game. After I finish up the last few details of the main cave body, I will start the official catch up on implementing scripts, patrolling enemies, game mechanics, level branch outs for the Forward outpost research center (main story) and possibly some bonus areas if I work fast enough to get to a satisfactory point, and finally start on some draft dialog.


Screenshots

BiB//D:_R PPoC 3D Developer Update 2

I haven’t got up to much the last week, been too busy and too bogged down with catching up and getting through midterms. But as far as planning goes my next few marks to hit on this are going to be more cave progress on the early tunnels; adding all the relevant collisions to all the new structures; replacing the blockout cover for the cave with a final cave mesh; getting models in for the lost village so i can throw down the foliage and officially complete the deepwoods region and shift to working on the key areas; implementing enemy AI and maybe even going back over the bachelor wendigo base mesh too; setting up UI and menus; and starting to think out more area triggers for level transitions and events. I’m getting to a spot where i’ll be more comfortable really starting on one of the planned interior levels but in general i might tone back a few of the features and just keep the game development going as far as it can go in the semester.

BiB//D:_R PPoC 3D Devlog 8 – Extended Demo Area

https://noyoru.itch.io/reminiscence3d


Play/Read the prequels here:

BiB//D:_R Web-Project

BiB//D:_R PPoC 2D


Development Video

Music: Transistor OST


-cave system has been sealed in with a placeholder ceiling
-sculpted survivors camp in the milo cavern and added some structure
-lighting added throughout survivors camp
-light and shadow adjustments and culling
-expanded demo area to survivors camp
-new custom soundscapes added for cavern and the rest of the exterior audio
-other audio and environmental additions
-environment adjustments
-distance culling adjustments to foliage, margin added to eliminate pop-ins
-player now spawns in the survivors camp outhouse
-nifty tutorial text added outside player spawn
-player speed adjustments
-camera adjustments
-Hazy DoF added
-flashlight adjustments / off by default
-new bundle of assets for survivors camp and more, no collisions
-new character placement, Harlow “Red” Gagnon
-POI placement, monitoring room in the survivors camp


Screenshots

BiB//D:_R PPoC 3D Devlog 7

https://noyoru.itch.io/reminiscence3d


Play/Read the prequels here:

BiB//D:_R Web-Project

BiB//D:_R PPoC 2D


Development Video

Music: Jazmin Bean Playlist


User Feedback

In the user feedback I got there were a few good details I was able to improve, though the specs were also very strong like my own PC im lucky I decided to dig up one of my old laptops to test the optimizations myself. The load time has gotten better and overall performance much higher after a few hard passes of optimization but then there were the little aesthetic details I touched up as well like improved rain and an overhauled flashlight (with toggle). and lastly what bugged me the most as well was the HDRI, the one i put in now is much better but i wish it had more cloud coverage.

One other thing I intend to touch on is head bob, ive made some player adjustments but id like to see if i can make headbob itself a toggleable setting when we start covering more UI functions


-game files cleaned up

-UV textured a flamethrower model from sketchfab as a collectible and non-functional weapon

-flamethrower walk animation

-sprint added to player script

-player size adjustments

-wrote missing scripts

-remodeling/texturing progress on abandoned cottage

-base mesh for collisions and nav mesh generated in abandoned cottage

-remodeling progress on researchers camp assets

Screenshots

BiB//D:_R PPoC 3D Devlog 6

https://noyoru.itch.io/reminiscence3d


Play/Read the prequels here:

BiB//D:_R Web-Project

BiB//D:_R PPoC 2D


-more scatter adjustments and optimizations

-heavy culling adjustments and optimizations

-weather and environment adjustments and optimizations

-culled all terrain outside playable areas

-minor progress on lost village area landscape

-smoothed out all road edges

-replaced environment HDRI

-flashlight overhaul

-gave player physical flashlight

-added flashlight toggle w/ sound to player script (F key)

-slight head bob nerf

-can now hear Rin’s breathing

Videos

BiB//D:_R PPoC 3D Developer Update

「おしらせ」

I am aware that my game may be unoptimized or unplayable on certain systems, if you have tried to test the game and it does not run please let me know in my user feedback form.

I would like to try further optimizations to see if its possible to get my game world in a stable condition but luckily I do have a failsafe. I’ll do more internal testing with more optimizations on 3 systems I have here at home, but if need be I’ll be consolidating to the games planned interior hubs within the Deepwoods and do away with the cave/open world segment.

for reference ill be testing on:
PC (Very high-end)
Windows 11
RTX 4090
Ryzen 9 7950X 16-core, 32 Logical Processors, 4501 Mhz
64GB RAM

Laptop (high-end)
Windows 11
RTX 3050
Ryzen 5 6600H 6-Core, 12 Logical Processors, 3301 Mhz
32GB RAM

Laptop (low-end)
Windows 10
GTX 1050 ti
Intel Core-i7 7700HQ 4-Core, 8 Logical Processors, 2808 Mhz
8GB RAM

UPDATE
Internal testing shows that the game will run even on my low-end, albeit at choppy frames. This makes optimization sound more viable but I could still do with some outside feedback.

BiB//D:_R PPoC 3D RELEASED


https://noyoru.itch.io/reminiscence3d

I am aware that my game may still be unoptimized and performance intensive, if you encounter performance issues and low FPS I would appreciate if you fill out the relevant system information on this form so I could try further optimizations.

User Feedback Form


Play/Read the prequels here:

BiB//D:_R Web-Project

BiB//D:_R PPoC 2D


​game released

-created debug branch

-added trees to scatter objects

-removed unnecessary grass from scatter objects

-scatter settings optimizations

-weather adjustments and optimizations

-environment adjustments and optimizations

-frustum/world culling adjustments and optimizations

-retouched base model for abandoned cottage

-more terrain sculpting around lost village ruins/mushroom processing

-added demo area boundary

Screenshots