Another Project Leumen Update! 9/4/2025

Another set of updates!

MONTH 3

Day 75

I'm at month 3 of game development. Looking back at what I've done over the last 90ish days (not every day is logged in here due to taking some days off to avoid being burnt out) I'm quite proud of myself. I feel like I'm actually learning how to use this engine, and I think that's awesome.

It also has shown me just how hard game dev is. Even simple things like sitting in a chair, for example, take time. I managed to get sitting (mostly) working tonight, but it still has some issues. I managed to make jumping not triggerable while sitting by swapping my jump to “on triggered” instead of on started and using a “sitting” variable, but I still need to work on the rest of the food system.

I need assets at this point, mostly animations and characters/environmentals. I also need to find someone to start making animations for some of my more unique enemies, such as the dogs. I think I'll make my second dev log, as it's now 8/1/2025.

Day 76

I added a ton of dodge animations and items that change them. A roll, a twist, a dive roll and then the basic roll. All of these are working (generally) properly, although I need to make some changes to the notifiers within the animations themselves.

We also fixed more of the sitting animation so you can't jump while sitting anymore. This is fantastic and is a great start.

Day 77

More food system stuff. Nothing insane yet, but all the basic framework is set up. Despite this sounding simple, it was anything but – and still has some issues. I basically set up a boolean to decide whether or not a table has food which changes the interaction on the chairs around the table. Need to get an eating/food animation at some point, but I'll get there when I get there.

Day 78

More edits to the food system, making it run smoother and have less inconvenient glitches. I also started messing with water sources within the actual game itself, but I need to figure out if there's a better way of spawning fish as right now they spawn but their AI doesn't work properly. I'll figure it out eventually.

Food system just needs all it's combinations.

I also set up a very basic stamina system, including variables for regenerating stamina and food variables to increase your max stamina and stamina regen amount. Right now about every second you regain 10 stamina, and 25 stamina is needed for a basic dodge. Dodging and sprinting are the only actions (right now) that cost stamina, although I think I'll make jumping cost stamina as well.

Day 79

Added crouching. This took 3 hours because I kept messing up replication.

Day 80

Today I added the baton weapon moveset. I still don't have a mesh, but I figured since I have some extra animations I should set that up. There are still some issues with certain animations I have, namely in the fingers and certain small areas. They're not SUPER noticeable and I'll be honest, I'm not entirely sure how to fix all of them. But I'm slowly figuring things out. I also added a room with water and fish in my test level, I think next I'm going to start working on water splashes, potentially.

There's also a ton of systems I have to get working. I'm noticing a lot of my animations are like 15 or -15 degrees off while players are actually aiming. I'm in the process of fixing this by just spawning in most items at a slight angle, but it actually flattens them to be vertical in practice.

The new baton animation moveset is pretty much good to go.

Player stuff on the hole is honestly VERY close to done. I need to fix spears, I need to add more movesets for different types of melee weapons, I need to finish adding some more gear functionalities and stuff like that – but things are slowly starting to come together for the actual play movement and whatnot. I also need to smooth out some animation transitions and maybe add some new “equip” animations, as well as animations for fishing (reeling, casting, etc.) From there, it's adding emotes and any “Special abilities” for unique characters if I decide to add any “hidden” mechanics

A list of what needs done (badly) still for SPECIFICALLY players.

• More melee wep animations (spears, 2-handed weapons, special attacks.)

• Fishing animations

• Player knockdown/hit reaction animations (knocked over by enemies, shot, etc.)

• Footstep sounds

• Sounds for EVERYTHING

• Emotes

From there players are basically done, which is AMAZING to think about. Then, I get to start working on things that scare the ever living shit out of me...like AI, other mini-games, save games/save states and level generation.

Day 81

I didn't get a ton done tonight, I started setting up different hit reactions (and the system associated with them) by using gameplay tags.

Day 82-84

I spent a ton of time refining this system including adding stuff I wasn't gonna add originally. For example characters when knocked down gain access to a special recovery roll regardless as to whether or not they have the basic roll item for dodging equipped. Likewise, I added a fun item called the theatrics poem which makes you super dramatically go flying in a direction.

Day 85

Hit animations are started but not finished, however the basic code is basically done. Just need to get more animations now basically. I also added ammunition (finally!) but I'm doing a more realistic system where if you use a magazine “item” to reload, it deletes all the rest of the ammo in the previous clip. This will force players to choose between reloading or saving those last few rounds to use on an enemy. However if they don't reload, they might not have enough ammunition to kill an approaching enemy.

Day 86

Today I worked on fishing and other things, I'm actually almost fully done with character functionality outside of whatever items I come out with. The only thing I need to really finish up on is jumping.

I've made

• Crouching

• Basic Walking

• Aiming

• Basic 4-combo melee

• Shooting / Reloading (still need pistol reload)

• Fishing and fishing animations

Here's what I really need to work on:

• Fishing system has some replication issues

• Fix Jumping

• Get my throwing weapon animations and throwing grenade animations

• Finish food system

• Finish healing system

• Finish fishing (NEARLY DONE, SUPER CLOSE)

• Decide on whether or not I need energy or something for magic-based items, which I haven't done yet

• First person mode

• Free Camera mode (maybe)

• Make Stamina Recovery Items

• Make fishing vendor

I'm going to start working on a menu/ui for the time being while I wait to get more of these assets done and think about what additional food buffs to provide. I'm kind of scared to do any buffs in relation to animation speed, and I'm not quite sure how I'd handle for example a damage buff with the current system. However, I could definitely add a flat % reduction to all damage taken. I could also add extra features, like higher jump height or longer dodge distance I think. Would be a lot of work, but I think I can.

Food buffs I'm considering right now (that I haven't already implemented.)

• Ethereal Energy (basically mana) (to use magic-casting items and weapons.)

• Higher jumping

• Longer Dodge

• Max Hp / Max stam variations

• Flat damage % negation

• Some form of stealth food buff? I haven't really integrated sound/sound events yet or AI detecting sounds.

Day 87

Today I squashed my final fishing bug, at least as far as I can tell – which feels VERY good.

Likewise, I started work on my throwing knives – they even stick into bodies/the ground for a bit before they get destroyed. Lots of work, lots of fixing. I just realized I'm probably nearing 100 days of gamedev. I...don't really know how I feel about that. I still feel like I know so little, but I'm also learning a lot? There's still stuff I don't understand. But hey, I'm learning slowly.

Day 88

Today I fixed jumping so that even if you jump at the end of another animation, the jump animation will play. This helps make jumping look and feel better for players while still allowing some animation cancelling in dangerous situations.

Day 89

Today I started on my “gathering spots” for materials like mushrooms. This logic will make creating other gathering spots extremely easy, and once they're set I can make pretty much any resource node I want to. This would include things like mining, as an example.

Throwing weapons are mostly done logic-wise, obviously I have to make the individual weapons effects but generally they're good to go.

Day 90-95

I've been really bad about updating this log, I think it's been over a week but to be generous I'm just gonna call this the last 5 days.

Mushroom gathering spots as well as status effects have been started. In regards to mushroom status effects, they have 4 which are pretty much entirely working except for coughing. Current statuses are as followed:

Slimed – Unfinished

Coughing – Unfinished

Infested – Unfinished

Regenerating – Finished (maybe)

Bleeding – Finished

Exhausted – Finished

Poisoned – Finished

There may be more in the future just for now these are what I'm focusing on. For example I want to add slows and some other recovery statuses.

Food buffs aren't DONE, but all the starting meals are good to go. There's gonna be like 20 meals so there's still a lot to work on. They have models and everything now. Also, the baton actually has a model now – and a second smaller baton to use for a different type of weapon.

Jumping is as fixed as I can get it.

Dodging is working perfectly.

Recovery anims are working perfectly.

I think almost all basic non-item / non-weapon specific locomotion is finished now. Which means at this point, I just have to get animations and HUD elements for the characters, as well as setting up a save system and actual fail/win states.

Day 96

ADDED MULTIPLAYER MENUS AND CONNECTIONS!