Restitched: Recapped! | April 2022

Welcome to April's Restitched: Recapped!

We sure hope you have your seatbelts fastened because you're in for a wild ride! That's right - this Recapped! is our largest feature to date. April has been an incredibly productive month for all areas of development, and we can't wait to share the highlights with you... right now!

Committing to the Code

This month, a total of 713 commits have been pushed to Restitched's code. That is the most we've ever recorded since starting Restitched: Recapped! - the second most being 216 in November 2021 (and this is more than three times that!). We told you this month was a whopper!

All Hands On Deck!

This month, the game was tested on Valve's SteamDeck! This just consisted of testing the compatibility, and no development has been made specifically for the SteamDeck. Rest assured, the game performs well on the platform! Please note, though: This was tested on a months-old game build, and for full access to Build Mode a keyboard will be required.

Playing Hide & Seek

Michael created a developer setting that allows specific Props and Materials to be hidden in gameplay. Halston further created a Barrier Material that puts the setting into action.

...and here is the Barrier Material in low-light conditions!

Living In A Material World...

...and Halston's a material girl. Uh, we mean... this month Halston imported even more Materials into the game! Some of these ones have a certain sci-fi/industrial feel to them. Are they sparking any inspiration for you? Let us know!

An additional 30+ materials were also added to the game this month, but we'll leave most of them to the imagination (and future reveals)!

Don't Be A Square... Or Do?

While a 'Grid' mechanic for Build Mode has been available in the Dev Menu for a while, Sjoerd and Jayden properly implemented the feature for the in-game UI for players! They also added the new ability to alter the scale of the grid and implemented an 'Angle Snap' feature, which allows players to fine-tune rotation properties applied to Materials and Props (not pictured).

The Grid allows for much more precise and structured creation for Build Mode, and we personally utilize it a whole bunch!

An image of the grid in action. Taken from the Steam page for Restitched.

Building To The Top

On April 18th, a new development build of the game was compiled! The last full development build was published in Q4 2021, so this was huge for our team.

Publishing a full build compiles everyone's branches together and allows developers to play the game as a program (like how it will run on your computer) instead of in-engine via Unity. Even more exciting is that we now share these builds with developers via Steam, making the final release seem even more real!

Playing Hide & Seek... Again!

Sjoerd implemented a feature that allows players to manually hide a Prop or Material to access things behind them. This is a super-useful mechanic when it comes to creating complex levels that utilize a lot of layered designs.

Stuffy's always losing things - so perhaps this will help them out! 🧶

What's New, Copy-Cat?

Michael programed the ability for Material and Prop settings to carry over when being cloned. One such setting is 'Static', which prevents Materials and Props from being affected by gravity. Below is an image of a bunch of cloned Props and Materials with the Static setting working properly.

The Highlight Of Our Month

Sjoerd made it so that Materials and Props are now highlighted on mouse hover, showing what's selectable! Additionally, all grouped or connected items are also highlighted when one in the group is selected.

Setting Settings Elements

Before now, when a player changed the settings for an asset, the menu would appear within the Craftbook. In order to de-clutter the Craftbook and have settings work more harmoniously with our logic system and on-the-fly editing, Halston conceptualized a floating settings panel (which has been featured in previous Recapped! posts).

This month, the settings panel was finally implemented by Michael and Halston, as seen below:

Below on the left is Halston's visual recreation in-engine, and on the right is the original concept! We'd say it's pretty close, eh?

...and here is the panel working in-game! Granted, there were some final fixes to apply after this:

Logistical Implementations - Again!

Logic functionality has finally started to be implemented into the game by Michael! This is hugely exciting, as it's one of the core pillars of Build Mode that will allow levels to come to life!

Please note that graphics have not been implemented yet, and all UI is currently experimental and non-final. The main goal of this early stage is to prototype the feature, get a feel for its usage, and then polish it when it's all working as expected!

...and here are wires being rendered in the engine for the first time - another huge milestone!

Additionally, a fresh set of icons have been created by Halston - many of them intended for the settings menus and logic system!

Cursoring About

Halston created some Ornament and Eyedropper Cursors to further aid clarification in Build Mode. These will appear when selecting Ornaments and Eyedropping Materials respectively.

Importations and Craftbook Categorical Shenanigans

Several new Props (such as those featured in the previous month's Recapped! by Kyran and Cade) have finally been imported into the game by Halston. Additionally, Halston further began organizing some categories for the Prop section in the Craftbook - and manually implemented icons for the newly imported Props.

Additionally, Carter created some lovely Stamps:

Pushing Some Changes

This month, Jayden continued work on the 'Pushable' gameplay mechanic. You may recall the animations from this feature were showcased in a previous Recapped!

Pushing opens up the possibility for so many more gameplay mechanics and set pieces and we can't wait to see what fun things you come up with by utilising it!

Developing the Narrative

This month, huge Story developments were made by Billy and George. This included re-writing character motives, writing sub-plots, and more. View some of the responses by the other Devs in the images below:

Developer input is essential for us while creating this game. We're a small and close-knit team, and all areas affect each other, so communication between departments is key.

Fine-Tuning The Bear

Halston, Jayden, and Michael worked on fine-tuning Stuffy's 'Gameplay Controller' to make sure that they act appropriately when situated on a slope or curve. This is something we're constantly having to re-visit and re-adjust to ensure that gameplay feels just right.

Stuffy is your gateway to the world of Restitched, which is why it's so important for us to be able to nail their movement and physics.

In the images below, you can see some of the issues where Stuffy would behave rather awkwardly on steep slopes.

And just for fun, here's a little parkour course that Jayden created in order to test out the movement some more (featuring a never-before-seen Craftbook theme called 'Crimson Charcoal')!

Cpt. Stuffy Progress

As per usual, progress on The Grandiose Tales of Cpt. Stuffy has been coming along nicely! Plus, this month Ari started designing what Cpt. Stuffy's boat would look like - both in Charlie's real world and in his imagination!

The Craftbook: Now In 'Pleasant Poppy'!

Halston created a lovely new Craftbook theme called 'Pleasant Poppy', and also added a drop shadow to the label's text. This helps to make it more legible by preventing some of our lighter accent colors from washing out the font.

Additionally, very subtle changes were made to the Craftbook graphics. A fabric texture has been overlaid onto certain panels (such as the toolbar shown below), stitching was adjusted, and so on.

Let There Be Light!

Ozy adjusted and corrected issues with the lighting for the Farm and Harbour themes, restoring their lovely moon-lit glows. Pretty, huh?

Squashing Bugs

This month our developers have been super hard at work squashing several bugs which have been reported. As the game is still early in development, and we're still implementing several big things, bugs are unfortunately bound to occur. Below you can see a list of just some of the bugs which were exterminated this month!

Some Lovely Images

From: Halston

From: Ozy

From: jvyden

To Recap!

Well, there we are. This has been, by far, the most productive month since we started these Recapped! features - so what do you think?  Let's fully recap, shall we?

• 710+ commits in April - the most ever for one month!
• Restitched has been tested on SteamDeck
• Materials and Props now have new special developer-side properties
• New 'Invisible Border' Special Material
• Several new Materials, Stamps, Props/Ornaments have been imported
• A grid to aid building has been properly implemented in Build Mode UI
• A new milestone development build was compiled and released to developers
• New cursors have been added for clarification
• Level objects are now highlighted when hovered
• Material and Prop settings now carry over when being cloned
• Floating settings panels have been implemented
• Logic has finally started being prototyped in-game
• 'Pushing' and other player mechanics have progressed
• Several large story and comic developments have been made
• Stuffy's gameplay and physics continue to receive fine-tuning
• New 'Pleasant Poppy' Craftbook color theme added
• The lighting was slightly altered for certain Level Backgrounds
• Loads of bug fixes

... and those are not even all of our developments for the month! We're still working on several unrevealed features, and a lot of progress has been made on those this month too!

The snowball has begun rolling - so what will our devs have in store for us in May? We'll have to wait and see! See you next time!