The production of Sod and Steel has been coming along nicely. We're working hard to get an alpha build out to you as soon as we can. The main game loop is in place, and we’re just a few finishing touches away from having playable gameplay. This week I ran into a few things that slowed down development. One issue in particular stood out and taught me something that would have helped smooth things out if I had known it earlier.

The Problem

I noticed that when the player was walking around with the sword equipped, movement to the right felt off. Sometimes the player couldn’t even move in the same direction the sword was pointing. Since reliable movement is essential, I needed to figure out what was going wrong. Before I added the sword to the player’s hand, everything was working fine. That’s when I realized the sword had to be the source of the problem.

The Solution

I started by checking the movement code to see if anything was interfering with input, but nothing there seemed to be causing the issue. Next I looked at the sword itself. It was a static mesh with collision enabled. Other static meshes in the game can block the player, so I thought maybe the sword’s collision was interfering. I turned off the sword's collision, and movement was fixed. The player could move freely again. But now the sword couldn't damage enemies. Turning off collision entirely also removed overlap detection. To fix that I set the sword's collision to Query Only. That allowed it to still detect overlaps and damage enemies, without blocking the player’s movement. Everything worked as intended after that. Movement felt good and the sword could cut down enemies again.

Thanks for keeping up to date with Sod & Steel hope to catch you at the next devlog. May your blades stay green and your roots run deep.🌾

— Scott Wollbrink / CTR+ALT+DELinquents