Lost Skies - Skywatch #21

What this episode is about

The latest update on Lost Skies provides insights into the game's 21st public iteration, focusing on significant quality of life improvements and a globally unified damage system that allows any object to damage another. Additionally, updates to user experience design, particularly regarding icons, aim to enhance clarity and accessibility for new players.

Key takeaways

• Lost Sky's unified damage system means trees will fear your rifle—teaching players versatility in destruction!
• Ellen's icon revamp ensures anyone can understand weapon functions—because sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words.
• The Gothic-inspired assets for Region 2 promise thrilling new adventures, hinting at a G civilization waiting to be uncovered.
• Shipbuilding improvements signal a big shift for players—because who doesn't want their flying fortress to be perfectly aligned?
• Boss fight previews are like movie trailers for gamers, building anticipation one HUD design at a time!

Who speaks in this episode?

• Unknown Host (Host) · 10 min speaking
• Tom (Guest) · 1 min speaking
• Ellen (Guest) · 1 min speaking
• Claudia (Guest) · 1 min speaking
• Tony (Guest) · 1 min speaking
• Luke (Guest) · 1 min speaking
• Matt (Guest) · 1 min speaking
• John (Guest) · 1 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 3:00: Humble Games
2. 3:00 – 6:00: Lost Skies, G Civilization
3. 9:00 – 12:00: Lost Skies, Humble Games

Notable quotes from "Lost Skies - Skywatch #21"

• What is up everyone and welcome back to another lost Sky Skywatch update it has been nearly a month and a half since the last Skywatch and the devs have finally released their newest wave of lost Sky.

  about Lost Skies · at 0:00

• Of in-game civilization might be hailed for having quote unquote created this architecture from a story standpoint it certainly could be tied to the G civilization who we've…

  about G Civilization · at 3:30

• Are able to see these screenshots is effectively an ant compared to the placeholder model of a Herold boss which is what I would guess is a mini boss possibly of some kind as…

  about Herald · at 5:24

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

Companies & orgs

• Humble Games — Company · Business focus · 2 mentions · first at 0:29
  Official publisher of Lost Skies, mentioned in the context of a big delivery from the devs.
  Let's just go ahead and get straight into the newest info on their progress first thing the devs mentioned here is the last 6 weeks they've been putting together a big delivery…

Products & tech

• Herald — Product · Key feature · 2 mentions
  Mentioned as a boss enemy in Lost Skies, indicating its importance in the game's combat system.

Concepts & topics

• Lost Skies — Concept · Core topic · 3 mentions · first at 3:03
  Central theme of the episode, discussing the game's development progress and new content updates.
• G Civilization — Concept · Story element · 1 mention · first at 3:37
  Referenced as a mysterious in-game society possibly connected to the game's lore and regions.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 what is up everyone and welcome back to another lost Sky Skywatch update it has been nearly a month and a half since the last Skywatch and the devs have finally released their newest wave of lost Sky content we're now on the team's 21st public update of the game and its progress so without wasting any time let's just go ahead and get straight into the newest info on their progress first thing the devs mentioned here is the last 6 weeks they've been putting together a big delivery for their official Publishers humble games and at their current stage they aren't adding any new brand new featured assets and instead of releasing what is effectively a Polish update while of course still sharing some of the new public info and more specifically interesting visuals for some early bosses and while I understand that this update isn't a ton of brand new assets and features it nonetheless covers a

0:50 large variety of quality of life improvements and background improvements that are both vital to the game and to its overall infrastructure and starting with one of these big improvements they mentioned Tom's work on a globally unified damage system but they have created a base system that can be universally applied to all objects within the world meaning anything can now damage anything but they provide an example of this by showing an in-game picture where a character is shooting a tree with a rifle and mentioned that while the point here isn't that this will be more efficient than something like the saw blade that we've seen before it more or less represents something that different players can use to opportune and understand and learn and utilize different damage syst systems in different ways that you may not have once thought of and on the ux front Ellen is focused even more on the

1:36 icons and which will certainly be important to the new players as clear and understandable icons both enhance the feeling of the game but also allow for a quicker and easier time starting to grasp the newer Concepts abilities functions and all the things that make up what a player can do without needing to give a detailed explanation for every individual thing where some of these icons she put together give depictions of what looks like different weapons grappling hooks hook abilities different ship bags storage functions drones ship modifications and what even looks like some kind of gas bomb thing nonetheless I think Ellen has done a fantastic job with the art and newer additions the last thing Ellen has put together for the Skywatch is some boss enemy HUD which this is actually the first Skywatch we were seeing where the devs are starting to release new content on their bosses and Ellen here has done a

2:26 great job for some of these depictions where we have to mention again fores of the serfs from a few Sky watches back with mention names for Harold and one called Harbinger we can see even small depictions on the HUD of a flying ship through the clouds and on the right a large being that's challenging that ship all of which are getting me very excited for what the devs have in store for boss fights in the future next up we have another addition to Region 2 assets where they mentioned Claudia has been hard at work creating assets for the second area of the game and that this is a mass project since she needs to effectively craft an area that feels like lost Skies but is completely distinct from the first region the work is vital here since it helps ensure that future players will truly feel like they're exploring another part of the world of lost Skies where similar in style to the clip that was shared in the

3:17 last Skywatch of worked on Region 2 assets these new building structures follow a sort of block like Aztec feel almost sort of imitating kind of a Gothic accent as well and while they haven't shared yet any info on what kind of in-game civilization might be hailed for having quote unquote created this architecture from a story standpoint it certainly could be tied to the G civilization who we've only heard just a little bit about and as far as we know from an in-game story view they were the ones behind many of the tools that the characters in Lost Skies will be using and I think because we've only been told so little amounts about them as a society it would make sense that they could be behind the second region or even AP part of further regions later on in the game's development next item of mentioned the Skywatch is ship building the devs state here that over the next 2 months they're going to be focusing a

4:05 large majority of their efforts on ship building parametric flight and combat and while all these systems already do exist in the game after having a ton of feedback from play testing the team has come up with a big list of quality of life tweaks that they want to add this video here shows some of the item rotation improvements placement and snapping among other fixes that they're working on which will be a significant chunk of work both to sift through all of the tiny specifics of what play testers have shared but also to the extent of implementing new changes to accompany them that ensure that the experience of the game actually does feel better than before in the video here it does do a good job of showing off the variety of optional placement in a test ship where the player is able to toggle Universal and directional placement even as he aims the object onto different kinds of angled and

4:53 sloped walls and even toggle grid-like placements as well which would allow for more exact placement location within your ship to ensure that you know things have proper alignment as well while Tony is working on those Luke the team's lead designer has been looking at easing players into the ship building process and breaking down progression steps for different stages of the game as they explain the shipyards will have different applicable levels the first of which allows you to build six sections maximum of a fairly small ship where you are able to see these screenshots is effectively an ant compared to the placeholder model of a Herold boss which is what I would guess is a mini boss possibly of some kind as the devastate that Herold is the first big enemy that you'll encounter in the game and that this gradual introduction to ship building will allow players to become comfortable with using this Shipyard

5:45 system where players can continue to fly on unlocking new upgrades places to explore etc etc before eventually moving on to more massive warships that both requires more experience to use and resources to build which I'd imagine over time is still functionally very much subject to change as the devs will probably continue to use active play testing to get consistent feedback for each stage of the game itself either way I think it's pretty cool to see actual sizing placeholder models for the first boss plan to be put in because you have to think that if this guy is the first large enemy you will see in the game God only knows how big these things might get which I think would be really cool to see in future content or skywatches that they might release keeping up the theme of enemies the team's AI programmer Matt has been reshaping and formatting multiple different creatures within the game over the past few weeks

6:39 working on the cave creatures which we have seen in past sky watches and apparently different variants which they unfortunately don't show off this time around which in case you do remember the sold rant variants are able to dig under the ground and appear below the players feet in order to attack additionally Matt has been working on mantas adjusting how they spawn and maneuver within a specific region between different islands where they explain that similar to Ellen's work if this process is done correctly the encounters between islands will feel realistic however if done wrong it can quickly feel disengaging and break that feeling of emerging in quotes at imagine that part of the concern is when it comes to having to spawn mantas and open Skies between islands it's important to try and ensure that the players especially in the early stages of the game aren't too easily swarmed or overwhelmed

7:28 another concerned item imagine would likely be making sure that their spawn points and locations are correctly spaced out based on the players Max render distance as well as ensuring that their combat against the players while they're actually riding their ships feels correct and again keeps that immersive feeling and saving the best for last the devs reiterate that the next few months are going to be focused on the in Sky experience in quotes which includes actually building bosses to ensure that you have a more exciting Encounters in the skies where they mentioned that John the team's concept artist has been working on some very sharp looking modular shapes for Heralds He also mentioned that by utilizing these same bodies with different legs heads and other pieces they can quickly create a sense of continuity within the enemies while still adding differences in the actual visuals for those bosses

8:15 this method will allow them to reduce development costs and potential time spent on creating brand new models for each variation which they state is crucial for an indie game Studio like theirs where devs give two arrays of different modular parts and pieces for the different seraps which I think is safe to assume that that's the official name for these large beings you know the seraps with small notes on the sides of the images that just point out the different lettered pieces that are for either Tails bodies fins heads and other objects all of which are very unique and alien looking now the coolest and last image I'm going to show you is one of white box assets that were created by John the team's 3D artist they state that once these go through play testing and they validate the experience in the encounters they will get refined and textured and just to quickly clarify since we've mentioned the terms graybox

9:06 models and white box models in the past white box models in this case are effectively an extension of past gray box model stages where for the most part it only means that the models have a lot more added detail and in some cases parts of certain design aspects that are planned to be in final model and even though in this image the models are mostly blackened out we are able to see some of the cool red glowy bits that seem to represent more the like quote unquote technological aspects of these different siif design things and while I do have to say that these models look really awesome it does once again make it even harder to deduce what some of these story directives are in this game as we talked about before in the past sky watches we know that many of the different technological tools that the players will use in Lost skies are gall in nature and that many of even the sorian tech in the dev's own notes state

9:58 that sorian Tech is to be clasping Gtech which gave the indication that in some way the sorians were in different methods building their own devices around the ga's machines that already existed now we have additionally seen that the Gaul were the ones who created the ark life boats that the devs say were made to save Humanity from the great cataclysm question now remains to be what group is behind the cause of these seraps and recently added enemy drones are they somehow connected in some way is the the ga civilization even human What relation do they have to these monsters so for now I think until future updates of the upcoming regions and if the devs continue to share any small pieces of information about how these different beings and groups are actually connected in any way possibly from more information about whatever Society existed in the second region we will simply have to wait and see the

10:51 last interesting thing I do want to point out again though before I end this one off devs mentioned before that they are making a big delivery to their Partners over at humble games and while I have literally zero basis for saying this pretty much it's important to remember that humble is the dev's official publisher of their game which when I hear that it just screams potential trailer maybe public post coming soon in which case it might be interesting to you to know that um I do remember quite a while back that in one of the sky watches there was a lot of talk about eventually pushing out an official Gameplay trailer for the game and while I'm not going to keep my expectations too crazy high cuz I know development is an up and down process it's certainly not linear straight line incline at all um you know but something could be coming so keep an eye out for it maybe that might be helpful too

11:42 either way I hope the dev's update was interesting to you I know it certainly was to me and gets me super pumped for what they have in the near future regarding Sky ships and like you know airship battles against these bosses but unfortunately that is all I have for you guys so like always stay healthy don't die if you can help it and uh have a beautiful rest of your day boys peace

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Lost Skies - Skywatch #21"?

Unknown Host (Host), Tom (Guest), Ellen (Guest), Claudia (Guest), Tony (Guest), Luke (Guest), Matt (Guest), John (Guest).

What is "Lost Skies - Skywatch #21" about?

The latest update on Lost Skies provides insights into the game's 21st public iteration, focusing on significant quality of life improvements and a globally unified damage system that allows any object to damage another. Additionally, updates to user experience design, particularly regarding icons, aim to enhance clarity and accessibility for new players.

What is mentioned in this Adrift episode?

4 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Lost Skies, Humble Games, Herald, G Civilization. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Lost Skies - Skywatch #21"?

The episode runs 12 min; the transcript is about 2,370 words in 15 timestamped sections.

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