Hello! Jorden, here! I have a quick and funny story.

Last week at the conclusion of our bi-weekly livestreams (next one is tomorrow April 6 at 3:30pm EST on twitch.tv/rankwarmaster ) after going offliine Arthur mentioned that he had gotten one of our friends to playtest both of our tutorials as they were at the time. There were more than a couple things that needed fixing but the one that really stuck out to me was this friend's response to a joke I had written almost a year ago now which you see right at the start of the flight tutorial. At the beginning Ares addresses the player with the line "Welcome candidate [error, list not found]". I had thought this a somewhat funny way to show the lightly buggy nature of Ares right at the top and I figured my lack of any kind of code experience would mean that the error was obviously fake to anyone with computer experience. Both of our coders, Matt and Arthur, paid the joke no mind but our friend, who also works with computers, became very confused with the error he was seeing. I had apparently convinced him that there was somewhere for him to enter his name into our game for the purpose of the tutorial narrative (there isn't) and that he had missed this place. He spent some time trying to find it, too. Matt and Art probably ignored it because they know that there's no such system in the game to enter your name for narrative purposes (only for the multiplayer which is different) but it turns out that if you don't know the game inside and out and you do know computers that my error string was plenty convincing. So I was requested to change the error to something less convincing or remove the joke entirely.

The lesson here, if you're interested in such things, is that the value of outside judgement can never be overstated. Nonetheless I found the entire incident just hilarious and I had to share it with you all.

Hi all. This is your UI/UX Artist Paul. This week I have some new content! The game has been without a mouse cursor design of its own for too long. This is a new project so at this time all I have are preliminary concept sketches as explorations of what kind of mouse cursor might look nice on the screen.

There are going to be more than one type of cursor. The general one will likely be minimalistic, and another one, a flight screen mouse cursor, will have more decorative consideration and interactivity in mind. The teaser image shows more modified potential versions.

One theme that will be consistent is a gradient that will be symmetrical bilaterally with the cursor body. For this reason, the cursor is being built in half, and will be mirrored in-game via code. The tip of the cursor will always be visible (as in opaque) however a flow effect for the rest of its body is a potential avenue of interactivity for the player.

The texture of the cursor will be 256x256 so there won't be a lot of room for intricate detail. The variant on the left will not likely see use. Nonetheless throwing together random, complicated concept art is a useful exercise and a way to stumble upon future aesthetic motiffs.

 Further design concepts will be explored!

Hey everyone! You saw the title so you know it's me, Jorden. I'm here with another quick update on how those tutorials are coming along. The good news is, we're almost done with the first draft! The bad news is, the word "draft". To explain more, we're pushing to try and get the tutorials completely finished as soon as possible so that we can show off the game publicly more. To that end, I've very nearly completed writing the city building tutorial. What has slowed me down in the past has been the lack of certain mechanics which are necessary to the basic game and therefore need to be taught in the tutorial, but which weren't actually in the game yet. Most of these mechanics are now a part of the game and those that aren't have been fully defined such that I can write them as though they are in the game. So I expect to have the city building tutorial, the second of our main tutorials, completely written by the end of this week at the latest and by the end of today at the abolute earliest. Once that's done Matt needs to code it into the game and squash any bugs that arise (I've often joked that everything I do is fanfiction until Matt actually brings it to life). I will probably be playtesting the tutorial the whole time that he does that. Then it should be playtested by the rest of the team and any of our friends outside the project that we can blackmail into helping out.

Our primary slowdown at that stage is best described as a lack of infrastructure. I've mentioned before that my job also (mostly) entails writing scenarios and events for the player to encounter over the course of the game. The tutorial is basically just our earliest scenario which is focused on teaching the player the game while also establishing our basic narrative. Right now we're also trying to develop some tools that can allow our scenario creators to work together more efficiently as opposed to the current system where, frankly, Matt does almost all of the hard/tedious work. We're still a new team working with a custom engine so infrastructure has to be designed as we think of it rather than being in place in advance.

When the tutorial is fully written and coded it will have to be edited based on the feedback we get from playtesting. Additionally I need to go back to the flight tutorial (our first tutorial) and make adjustments based on mechanics that have been added in since it was created as well as things I didn't understand when I was first starting with the project. The flight tutorial will need playtesting and feedback-based adjustments as well. Then the tutorials will be truly complete.

Unfortunately, this is why I say we're only nearly done with the first draft. All that being said, I sincerely expect that the draft of the city build tutorial will be completed very soon and once that's done editing is much easier to accomplish. Then we're hoping to present our build with completed tutorials (which we're thinking about labeling as "Prologue") to interested parties who can play our build and review it and tell us and their followers what they think. It looks like a lot of work when I lay it out like this, and it is, but we've got a lot of skilled people working together on it. Keep your eyes peeled, public demonstrations of Rank: Warmaster are closer than you think.

This is the UI/UX Artist Paul. As artistic refinement of existing graphical elements converges to a singular vision, I find I have less unique milestones to present, at least until new content comes up demanding visuals. For now, I've been focusing on the tedium of ensuring all graphics meet a standard of transparency values, line thickness, glow intensity, color consistency, gradient angle, and so forth.

One useful trick I've found was the idea of doubling the thin white outline, increasing its thickness, and using that as an "erasure" layer in the vector art program to erase part of the inner colored glass window. This allowed me to set the gap between the glass and the outline (previously a source of constant frustration) as an exact numerical measurement using the erase layer's stroke thickness as an improv smart tool. The result: I can make an in-game window with any proportion and guarantee its body and border have the same detailing as all others without eyeballing it.

A minor little accomplishment, but time-saving and human error-removing life hacks like this are worth noting (and being self-contented with.) All the windows shown here have received this "smart line" treatment. I am still unifying the glass gradient angle and direction, but that won't take long either.

Hey everyone! It's Jorden.

I've been unable to blog for a bit since I was working on projects that we're not quite ready to talk about publicly just yet. An unfortunate aspect of game design is the number of things that get worked on just enough to become clearly unviable and then have to be scrapped. Nothing big has been tossed aside yet but naturally we can't talk about anything that might not even make it into the final game. This previous week I put together a document on some proposed personality traits for our future Warmaster AIs (the ones that control AI corporations and the ones that can control player corporations if the player chooses to take on a role with lower authority such as Admiral, Mayor, or Pilot). I'm sure Arthur has discussed the IAUS system that we're implementing for our AI decision making, or he will sometime soon, but to put it very briefly: you create a series of weighted curves representing variables. Many of these variables are environmental such as "Do I have the necessary resources?" or "How far am I from a source of resources?" or "How close is the nearest enemy I can see?" When these environmental variables are checked they return a value and when you multiply the values together it informs the AI of what decision it should make. Personality traits are a set of non-environmental variables that don't change and they basically skew the result. This creates the illusion of an individual who actually prefers to do certain things rather than a program multiplying numbers to pick an action. The fun part is that you don't have to be a coder, or even good at math, to design personality traits and assign values to them. All you need is to understand the different strategies available to the game in question. Without further ado here are (some) of the AI personality traits I've designed so far.

Assertive - Passive (How often they create encounters/Desire for interaction) Assertive AI try to always act first and will initiate encounters with other corporations, Passive AI prefer to react and be left alone

Expansionist - Developmental (How rapidly they grow their territory) Expansionist AI grab territory as quickly as possible, Developmental AI try to build up their infrastructure in the territory they already have before taking more

Conservative - Wasteful (How they manage their economy) Conservative AI value every single Refined Material and point of Power and don't build more than they need, Wasteful AI try to gain resources as quickly as possible at the expense of efficiency and will build an oversized military and power grid to get things done with more certainty

Specialized - Generalized (How they prioritize research) Specialized AI choose a few tech trees and try to reach the end of them as quickly as possible, Generalized AI try to broaden their skill set by researching many different technologies

These traits are designed in pairs and represent different approaches to playing our game. The more an AI leans towards one side of a given scale, the more it will chose those kinds of actions even if they are inappropriate to the situation. If an AI's values place it close to the middle then it will try to take whichever approach is most appropriate and become more flexible. For the layman: Being heavily one trait is more interesting but less strategically sound. Being more on the fence leads to more strategic desicions (because the weights are less skewed) but is also a little less interesting. A good mix will lead to AI that are interesting and challenging to play against.

Naturally these traits are subject to change and more may be added if the game takes on greater complexity.

Hello all! This is your UI/UX Artist Paul. This week I have updates to the Multiplayer Lobby. As before, not much to say as to show. Here are the latest visuals!

This is what the Lobby looks like presently, and is what you've been seeing on our livestreams if you follow us on Twitch.

This is the Server List screen with IP Address and Port subwindows and Password entry window displayed.

And here is the Server List screen et al in the latest visual style!

Bit by bit, it's all coming together.

Hello all. This is your UI/UX Artist again. This week I have some updates to the Nav Screen! This screen is recieving heavy attention under the hood code-wise, which means it's a good time to make sure it's up to date graphically. For context, here's a look at the current Nav Screen:

This is what the Nav Screen currently looks like in-game, using older assets that were repurposed for the sake of play testing functionality. This new update brings the Nav Screen up to the current "glass standard" that we've converged on.

Another quick one for you today, but it's another check box filled in bringing Rank: Warmaster to a unified artistic style!

Hello all! The ongoing progress with the graphical overhaul ...progresses? This time around I have the facelift of the Quick Designer! As last time, not much to say. Here are the before and after pictures: 

Featured above is the "new new" look, bringing the glassy windows and thin glowing white outline to this collection of subscreen elements.

For comparison's sake, here's the "old" quick designer, with the scanlines and silver bezel element. These are the graphical motiffs being distanced from. 

All in all, a small update, but nonetheless a benchmark of all the game's various subscreens converging on a unified aesthetic.

Hello all. This is your UI/UX Artist Paul. The progress with the screen overhaul chugs on.There isn't so much to talk about as there is to show. Further graphical refinement is taking place and more and more the various in-game screen assets are being updated to reflect a single, cohesive vision.

Starting out with the Self-Damage Screen. After a lot of trial and error, the correct levels of transparency and color have been worked out to make the background of the subwindows show against the background and not interfere with the elements overlaying it. Shown is a sample of the Self-Damage Screen's Item Sub Screen. 

Onto further beasts however, is the task of overhauling the Ship Builder set of subscreens to meet the new standard of glassy windows and white outlines. Shown here is a sample of the old aesthetic, with the thick bezels and faint hint of digital screen lines within.

Here we have a demo shot of the same collection of windows in the new style, with a false black backdrop to show the lines. All windows of the Ship Builder are going to receive this overhaul, and with that the new standard facelift will be almost complete!

Rank: Warmaster is rapidly maturing into a properly fitted, well dressed playable game. 

Hello! Jorden here with the latest on Rank: Warmaster's writing projects. The first draft of the second tutorial is almost completely finished. I've plotted the activities and I've written most of the dialogue, I'm just waiting for certain game mechanics to be implemented and tested before I can say that I'm done with it. It's hard to write instructional dialogue for things that aren't in the game just yet and even once they're in the game we have to make sure that the mechanics feel good or else I risk writing the same tutorial segments repeatedly and I'm just too lazy to do that more than I have to (Matt can barely get me to play test the tutorial I wrote, much less constantly rewrite it). For those looking forward to playing the game rest assured that this doesn't mean that I'm not prepared to rewrite the tutorial based on feedback, that's a critical part of the whole process and I really look forward to seeing the game in player hands even if it means having to endure some harsh but well-intended criticism. I just don't want to rewrite the tutorial because we changed our minds about a control scheme after the first test.

If you're interested in a sample of the tutorial, here's section 17 which is not yet in the public release. Section 17 teaches the player about turret towers and instructs them to place a couple. It is a little over halfway through the tutorial which is why a lot of the step-by-step instructions are skipped. Bear in mind that this is written basically as notes between me and Matt so that Matt can most easily convert it into actual game play. For you, the basics are:

"Anything in quotation marks like this is dialogue by Ares and will appear on the screen for the player."

A new paragraph in quotations means that the player progresses the dialogue by hitting the "OK" button.

action in Bold like that means that the player progresses the dialogue by perfoming the instructed action and the text remained on screen until they do so.

Other notes in bold like this indicates player actions which will trigger certain dialogue and events.

Dialogue: "It's time to think a little more proactively about defending your new city. After all, it would be an absolute waste to see any of these buildings reduced to rubble when you've spent so much time and resources on them."
"Turrets represent your last line of defense in the event that enemy forces make it past your fleet and into the city proper. They come standard with the best weapon you have researched but I'll show you how to fine tune them later."
"First, research the Turret Installations I technology and Turret Tower Mk I item."
action
"Now place a turret in your city, either on the edge to protect the border or you can place it in the center for broader coverage."
action
"One turret is hardly going to secure your city. If you're feeling paranoid, go ahead and build more turrets. Don't forget to build an extra reactor or two, the turrets don't draw much power while passive but you hardly want to cause a blackout the first time they all fire! That would be embarrassing. Press OK in this dialogue box when you're satisfied."
Extra Dialogue: If the player builds five turrets trigger this dialogue, if they hit OK on the box proceed to the next section
"Being prepared is all well and good, but we have plenty more to cover. You can't afford to spend too much time wrapped up in one activity. Why don't we move one to the next topic?"
Extra Extra Dialogue: If the player builds seven turrets trigger this dialogue, if they hit OK on the box proceed to the next section
"Your single-minded focus on turrets is being counted against your potential candidacy. This is your final warning before you face summary action. Please move on to the next topic."
Final Extra Dialogue: If the players builds nine turrets trigger this dialogue and then exit the tutorial
"It is clear now that you are not a good fit for the company. You may consider this to be your Notification of Employment Termination. Your employee benefits, including life support and access to any company assets such as pressure suits and ships, shall shortly be revoked and you are expected to vacate the bunker you currently occupy within the hour. We wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors."

Our game's tutorial is actually part of the main story in which the player is a corporate settler stranded on Mars. In the story the player messes around with the commands in their bunker and eventually triggers the training program, which activates Ares for the first time. Ares refers to the player as "candidate" throughout the training. Candidate for what? You'll have to see for yourself. Section 17 of the second tutorial actually marks the second area where the player can actually fail the training and be terminated from the company. The first is in the Flight Tutorial, which is currently part of the available release on Game Jolt. If you want to go looking for it I'll give you a hint: If the only way you could lose is intentionally and you still do it, maybe you aren't a good candidate. Have fun!