The project that started out as “OCEAN STRATEGY GAME” has turned one year old! From its roots as a Final project for school, Buoyancy has come a long way in terms of visuals, features, and overall polish. We still have a ways to go and tons of bugs to squash but Early Access is on our horizon.
As celebration of one year here is a montage of the games progression from January 2018 to January 2019.
New Logo
Elliott
I don’t really have anything to show except the logo
Harpoon Towers
Zomawia
I made another tower. The Harpoon Tower fires harpoons made from street signs at any unlucky invader. It does great single target damage with no friendy-fire, has a good rate of fire, and is handsome.
The majority of the time this should be the player’s #1 choice for towers. It’s strength is dispatching ground troops efficiently but it’s weakness is Junk Cannons and a large enough mass of melee units.
The actual asset and name is still a WIP/Concept.
Particle Effects Update
Shawn
As the update for the old particle effects come to a close, new effects will be added at a later date. For now, I end this pass with two new effect updates: the city’s water wake trail and the storm’s rain.
Water Wake
Utilizing Kobey’s new shader additions have proved to greatly enhance our ability to make believable effects on the water. The wake effect went from a particle system that sat above the water to one that affects the shader directly. This gives the effect we were hoping to achieve – where the objects that move through the ocean will create a wake of disturbed water behind them. I also maintained a level of realism by making sure the effect simulates in the proper space and not follow the object which produces it (which, if you have been following the devlogs, you know was a trial in regards to how the world itself is simulated).
Storm Rain
While the storm will likely get further updates to its various effects, I started with what really stood out as needing updating: the rain. I made the individual drops smaller so they don’t look out of place with the rest of the world and added water ripples when the drops collide with the ocean’s water. This is also achieved thanks to the updated water shader.
Under Construction Assets
Elliott
Time is being spent to better improve the look of the building construction. The goal was to make construction (primarily the time to completion) more noticeable. Buildings will have construction phases. First starting out as a heap of junk, leading to a more defined structure.
Smelter construction phase 1 
Smelter construction phase 2 
Smelter construction phase 3 
Smelter construction phase 4
Villager Animations
Kevin
Ranged Unit, Ranger, Ranged Guard, Harpoon Guard???
Zomawia
I concepted some armor and equipment for the ranged unit. It is also using the improvised harpoon gun concept I made earlier.
The back equipment consists of a water container that holds extra ammo. In the front are extra pressurized water bottles. The headpiece consists of traffic sign armor, and optical aiming lenses in a tactical green color for maximum combat effectiveness.
And some temporary, easy animations to help testing.
Spice of Life
Keenan
Villager equipment assets for their specialist jobs
Steam Page
Zomawia
I mentioned in last Devlog that our Steam page should be up by end of the year. Well we ran into some problems and also decided to rework the logo. It should be up soon!
Community
Shawn
Keenan and I have been busy at work with other exciting features. As we approach Early Access, these upcoming features will be announced in their own posts which will detail their significance to the players, community, and the game itself.
Save and Load
Kobey
I have been working on save and load systems. We originally created this last summer, but due to the large expansion of the game we decided not to maintain it but recreate it in the future. Now that we are nearly feature complete we have begun the process again and it is nearly complete. Not super exciting, but players will soon be able to save their cities and revisit them later.
Other Updates
- Ranger Barracks building placeholder
- Nourishment and Happiness icons change color with average amount levels
- Proper icon for Junk Cannon
- Remove Emergency row button (will be in City Actions in the future)
Bugfixes
- Input resource icons not displaying for Brewery, Medicine hut
- Survivor raft null ref for collisions
- Worker outline shader not going away when closing UI panels
- Notification panel typos