16 months in the making!

Today marks one year since I launched this blog to document the development of this project. Although I began working on this in December 2017. Coincidentally this month also marks the 22nd anniversary of TLW releasing in theaters.

I’ve put together a little video to take a look back and see how the project has progressed.

In addition to that I’m going to link the latest build for you folks to try out!

I was going to call this the “Gas Station Update” before I noticed how close I was to one year from starting this blog. So I think “Anniversary Update” would be more fitting.

Progress has been slow since most of my free time is taken up by my job. The changes and additions are significant in my eyes.

The gas station is finally in game!

Even though this finishes off the film canon buildings I may add more later. I still want to make this a hybrid of content from the film and Trespasser.

I’ve finally got a pause menu in game. Now you can exit the game like normal program instead of having to Alt-F4.

I’ve also put a lot of work into sound design. Until now I’ve had a simple ambient audio track I mixed. With a lot of programing help from my friend I’ve been able make the game much more immersive.

Edit: I also forgot that I was messing around with a free program called Stud.io to create a lego Operations building! I can even order the parts to make it IRL.

– Future Plans –

This is going to be an ongoing project. I want to have both a day and night version of the level. It’s much easier to work in daylight so I’ve been putting that off. I want to make sure I can nail that spooky, misty night time atmosphere seen in the film. That also mean rigging up lights and various effects, and that’s a whole different can of worms.

I also want to add more interactivity to the world. Currently the only thing to do is turn on the power in the ops building. I’m also considering switching from physics based doors, that have to be pushed open, to standard open/close animations that can be interacted with. I’ve noticed people having trouble with them.

Pie in the sky stretch goal would be to add some dinosaurs with passable AI. I don’t have a huge amount of character animation experience, so it could be pretty dang janky.

Here’s to another year of work. I’m truly excited to see where this project will be in a years time; and I am truly thankful to everyone’s support and encouragement.