Glyphcaster Devlog

Tutorial, pillar, and environment updates

Sat, 09 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

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Pillar progression system

I added a new central pillar structure with 4 glyph unlock slots. The pillar is intended to become a major progression hub and magical focal point within the world.

The new pillar structure acts as a central progression system

Onboarding and early progression

I’ve been prototyping a more structured onboarding/tutorial sequence designed to teach the transmute, grab, and building mechanics naturally through gameplay and world interactions. The environment is rough, blocked out in cubes mostly, but it is a good exploration of what the onboarding process might look like for new players. The intent is that this would be the area a player would start in and would work their way through it before entering the main area, being guided to unlock their first glyph and craft their first tool in the process.

Early progression is starting to become more guided and deliberate

Procedural cliff generation

I’ve started building a procedural cliff mesh generation system for creating larger, more dramatic terrain formations without hand-modelling everything individually.

Early procedural cliff generation tests

Glyph improvements

Glyph visuals have been updated and refined alongside a number of interaction improvements.

Glyphs can now be grabbed, thrown, toggled while held, and generally feel much better to use as a PC player.

Updated glyph visuals and handling

Other changes

Improved glyph decay and renewal behaviour
Major grass rendering and terrain update performance improvements
Added support for world boundaries in the grass system
Added tree LOD meshes
Added dynamic ground clutter placement
Tested significantly larger map sizes
Added improved iron ore models
Fixed skeletons interacting with fireballs correctly again
Added a new spatial grid system for efficient nearby object queries
Fixed a bug allowing glyphs to heal beyond their maximum health

Added axe and improved terrain

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Added item equip system and simple axe

To continue moving the PC player controls closer to the VR player capabilities, I added a simple hand control to the player. It supports picking up and using an axe for chopping trees at this stage but has been designed to handle diverse item types by delegating the action to the held item. Next step is to make Glyphs respond to this sytem so the player can properly hold and use Glyphs, like in the VR version.

Added support for equipping and using items such as tools or weapons

Improved terrain shader and newly added bushes

Blueprint unlocking

Recently I added a system where blueprints are initially locked and become unlocked as the player picks up new resource types, to promote progressive discovery throughout play. I've added a simple notification when a blueprint is unlocked for now, but will revamp it in future.

Continued development of the alchemy system

The intent is that this will eventually involve dropping items and water in the top of the cauldron and activating a fire glyph underneath to turn the liquid into a potion, but so far I've just done the flask placement and filling mechanic.

Terrain painting and building improvements

Fri, 17 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Recent Updates

Terrain painting

The terrain shader has been extended with a new painting system that allows for combining automated terrain painting rules with a manual, brush-based system. Additionally, the terrain rules were updated, making for much more natural blending of dirt, grass, and stone around slopes.

Improved blending between terrain types

More natural slope transitions

Support of overhangs and edge pieces when building

I added a system for detecting adjacent building parts, allowing optional pieces to be turned on and off based on what's around a part. This allows for things like roof overhangs, end-caps, and edge beams, making buildings look more satisfying.

Context-aware building pieces (overhangs, caps, edges)

Better water

I replaced the water shader with an improved version. After experimenting with screen-space reflections I ended up using a simpler version that uses a noise texture to offset the normals, but otherwise kept it fairly simple.

Darkening terrain near/below the water level and forcing dirt underneath helps the water read more clearly.

Subtle normals + shoreline blending improve readability

Other improvements

Recipes added to more blueprints
Crystal item and resource node for Source Stones
Terrain LOD chunk support
Improved lighting and sky
Expanded health bar system support
Initial alchemy system and herbs
Terrain deformation (flattening) when placing blueprints
Dirt painting interaction when placing blueprints
Improved Circle placement (less terrain clipping)

Summons and Terrain

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Defender spirit

Added a summonable defender spirit that attacks nearby enemies. This is tied to the circle system, so you need to place a particular item in a circle with a summon glyph at its centre. Activate the glyph to consume the item and bind the spirit, then you can summon and dismiss it as much as you like until it dies or the glyph is destroyed.

Harvest spirit

Added a summonable spirit that harvests nearby trees. It will automatically chop down trees then break the logs up into wood. Next step is to get it to bring the wood back to the circle, putting it into a container if one is present. This is the first step towards automated production.

Terrain system

Continued development of the terrain system. This now uses a global heightmap for mesh generation instead of each chunk storing its own map, eliminating seams at the chunk boundaries and allowing for generation of low poly LOD meshes for distant terrain more easily, and for other system in the world to easily get the global terrain height at any point.

Grass system

Up until now all grass in the game was placed and saved in each chunk scene using a script that constructed multimesh instances. This worked well but doesn't scale once you have many chunks. A new system uses a single multimesh that moves with the player, making use of the new global heightmap to place grass on terrain anywhere in the world automatically and continuously. This means the individual scenes don't need anything in them to work with the grass system and it is much easier to control grass placement globally.

Health bars & wall destruction

Mon, 16 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Changed skeletons over to use similar target selection logic to the spirits, so they can now target walls and other structures instead of just the player. Added a small knockback effect on destructibles when damaged, so walls shake briefly when hit. I've also added a system for displaying health bars on any damageable structures. Also prototyped a destruction visual where the barricade falls apart when destroyed, which is much more satisfying than just disappearing. Next steps are to make skeletons path around walls instead of just destroying anything directly in their way.

Skeletons Now Attack Walls

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Changed skeletons over to use similar target selection logic to the spirits, so they can now target walls and other structures instead of just the player. Added a small knockback effect on destructbles when damaged, so walls shake briefly when hit. It's a bit strong currently though. Next steps are to make skeletons actively target valuable structures and only destroy walls when they are in the way, and to modify the target selection to give a little priority to the currently active target, so they don't switch targets constantly.