Asides from slowly adding to the quest database, the only things that stand out this week are my attempts to fix and enhance Shelter's renderer. They both failed.
The first was an attempt to fix the game not restoring itself properly after ALT-TAB. Managed textures, reinitializing Direct3D, nothing worked. Conclusion: I will cheat and make Shelter run in a full-screen window. This way you can never completely ALT-TAB out of it, and the game doesn't have to restore itself.
The second was an attempt to integrate pixel shaders into the engine, for a grittier look, a la Left 4 Dead post-processing. The attempt failed miserably, despite me doing everything by the book. Wasted hours looking for a solution, found nothing. Oh, it ran, but the end result mangled the image in unholy ways.
For instance, this is the result of applying a cookie cutter shader that was supposed to post-process the image into black&white:
So close, yet so far. Gorramit :(
In other news, we're limiting Shelter ambition and scope, saving a number of features for the sequel, should there ever be one. Driveable vehicles is one such feature. Dynamic (reactive) quests may be another casualty.
Mind you, by the very nature of our quest design, the quests only activate when context appropriate. They don't activate based on "status of other quests", but based on the state which the other quests impacted onto the world.
For instance, when someone needs an item, they need it not because the quest is marked "incomplete", but its the other way around... the quest is marked incomplete because they don't have the item, and will remain so until they have it.
But, I also planned to have reversible quests, and framework for that has been both in and out. Quests where say, you put someone in prison, but then you freed them by doing another quest, which fails the first quest (it becomes red), but then if you put them in prison again, it will all get reversed again, etc.
THESE types of quests may be too far to shoot for right now. The scope of the game has to be maintained, as we're trying to make its release in a feasible future, sometime before a bright light and a series of low concussions render our world obsolete. We're sticking to Fallout scope for Shelter.
Now, in the sequel, "Shelter II: The Awakening: Origins - Resurrection: Redemption - Wrath Of The Transformed", we'll have driveable vehicles, more weather effects, more ambitious quest system, and more, well, emergent gameplay.
