Monthly Development Update January 2025

The start of the year has been bustling with progress as we push forward on multiple fronts to bring the Warped Universe to life. While we’ve been busy on all sides, major focus was spent on the following this last month:

• Technical & Integration Enhancements
  • Collaborations with Mysten Labs and Beamable Teams have advanced dynamic cosmetics and streamlined our backend for smoother experiences on multiple platforms, and in our evolving battlepass system.
• Game Development Highlights
  • Major in-game developments including enhancements to the Nexus Station and immersive environments, underscore our commitment to delivering a standout gameplay experience in and out of missions.
• Character Customization Evolution
  • Extensive experimentation and creative exploration led by our Art Director have culminated in a unique, refined customization system. This system features dynamic armor variants and mutable cosmetic options that capture the essence of light and gravity that is so prevalent in the game design.

GAME DEVELOPMENT

Nexus Station

• Luminary faction area created
  • Holographic terminals around Luminary Core
  • Luminary styled ceiling art and lighting
  • Luminary Core meshes converted to Nanite
• Fully animated Planet Creator below mission map
  • Area below the galaxy mission map now shows planet being created
• Foundationalist faction area and bar area roughed in
• Added walk ways between Luminary and Foundationalist faction areas
• Other additions
  • Character customization terminals
  • Seating areas / lounge
  • Wall assets with holographic decals and terminals
  • More detailed themed floors for various areas
  • Ship landing platforms added to display spaceships in the station
• Added new master material to use as projected decals

Character Itemization and Customization

• Character model of Echo suit pieced out to test cosmetic customization
• Added new leg armor variants
• Set defaults on character customizations
• Female head adjusted to fit the character model
• Mutable character customization initial setup, integrated with items
• Character armor variation assets
  • Static meshes
  • Skeletal meshes
  • Textures
  • Materials
• Setup for pieced out customization and animation
• Painted vertex weights on chest, boots, and gloves
• Added paint edit weights to head bone — Editor’s Note: Skull?!
• Added skeletal mesh version of concept helmet to test with new customization system
• Resize and fit concept helmet to fit head
• Physics asset scaler for characters
• Realtime characters now affected by equipment stats
  • Speed
  • AC (smaller hit box)
  • Dex for better base gun accuracy
  • Con for hit points
• Characters switched to standard base hit box so that the visual customizations have no impact on hit chance -i.e. Elaborate cosmetics won’t affect your chance to be hit
• Continued development on itemization
  • Base stats and attributes
  • Sparks
  • How they translate between game modes
• Data assets updated to standard modifier system
• Ability scores added to stat component
  • Turn-based uses equipped items to display on character
• Added more armor parts for the character
• Added pistol and shotgun base weapon types (pew pew blam!)

Facilities

• Added two more agriculture instanced facilities
• Added testing facility
• Created new instanced blueprint for planters
• Cleaned up the test planter instances
• Packed level actors to reduce actor count and provide greater optimization
• Added another science grouping to the research facility in the facility map

Engineering

• Connection address input field
• Fixed package build to create stable builds in UE5.5.1
• BuildEditor script updated to help automate build process

Web2 / Web 3

• Ongoing work with Mysten Labs and Beamable Teams
• Continued on Web3 flows
  • Closed Loop Token
  • Game vault vs personal vault
  • Dynamic NFTs and Battlepass creation tests
  • Testing on Sui Testnet (local)
• Designing graphics to establish the Warped Universe Steam page
• Mapping out architecture for Steam Store integration
• Refining backend API prototype development
• Designing frontend dashboard UI
• Tweaks to our battlepass system for efficiency

Business & Marketing

• Released the Warped Universe Whitepaper in English and Chinese
  • Announced new utilities for $WARPED
  • Buybacks for $WARPED burns and rewards
  • Stake $WARPED for Koju
  • Detailed how we will integrate with the Sui Network
  • Outlined our plans for the Warped Universe economy and player progression
  • Unique Battle Pass utilities
  • Explained Warped Universe’s market appeal based on rising trends and player preferences
• X Spaces
  • Farcana and Sui
  • Multiple Gaming on Sui spaces
• Updated CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap with Whitepaper links and Made in USA tag
• Featured in BGA weekly newsletter