Dev Log 3: The Emerging Tech Behind the Terror in Meowt of Tune & A Look to the Future

Welcome back to the dev log for Meowt of Tune! The team - Ali, Brooke, Jayden, and Komo - are excited to dive deep into a topic that defines our game: the consideration and implementation of emerging development techniques. For us, this isn't about a single flashy feature, but rather how we use modern, interconnected systems to create a truly tense and dynamic atmosphere. The terror of the giant rat isn't just scripted; it’s the result of a living, breathing technological ecosystem built within Unity.

The Heartbeat of Fear: Our Systemic Noise Engine

At the core of our game is the noise system, which functions less like a simple variable and more like a central, event-driven engine. Every sound the player makes feeds into this system, creating a direct feedback loop between action and consequence. When the player lands from a jump, our player's character controller registers the impact. This, along with collisions with certain world objects, sends a value to our central noise-handling system.

This central hub accumulates the noise and instructs the UI's noise bar to update, showing the player a visual representation of the danger they’re in. This is where modern, event-based architecture shines. When the bar fills, it doesn't just set a variable; it fires off a specific "noise maxed out" event. Our noise handler listens for this event and, in response, begins the process of spawning the enemy. The system is built to be robust, checking that an enemy doesn't already exist and respecting a cooldown to manage the game's pacing. This interconnected system creates a palpable tension that escalates organically with the player’s choices.

Intelligent Terror: A Multi-Layered AI System

The consequence of making too much noise is our primary antagonist, but our goal was to create an AI that feels more intelligent than a simple homing missile. For our world to feel alive, we developed a multi-layered approach to AI.

The main predator's behavior is governed by a state machine, which manages its entire lifecycle through spawning, chasing, idling, and despawning states. For pathfinding, it uses Unity's NavMesh technology for direct pursuit of the player. Its senses are tied directly into our other systems; it checks the distance to the player and, crucially, queries the global game state to see if the player is hiding before continuing its chase. Even its arrival is systematic, using a dedicated spawning system to find a logical location based on the player's current platform.

For the smaller creatures in our world, like the mice you must catch, a simple pursuit logic wasn't enough. They needed to navigate complex spaces while also reacting to the player's presence. To solve this, we implemented a more advanced context steering model on top of the base NavMesh system. This navigation system constantly weighs two distinct desires: the desire to follow its patrol path and the desire to flee from the player. It then blends these two behaviors into a single, final movement direction. By manually controlling the agent with this blended result, we can create much more dynamic and intelligent-looking movement. This allows for smoother, more believable avoidance maneuvers, making the world and its inhabitants feel more dynamic.

The Physics of a Feline: An Advanced Character Controller

Underpinning all of this is the player's interaction with the world, managed by our comprehensive, state-based character controller. It handles multiple states, including standard 3D movement, crouching, and object dragging. We directly manipulate the game's physics engine to fine-tune the feel of jumping and falling beyond the default settings, giving us precise control over the player's momentum.

Ultimately, these systems - the event-driven noise engine, the multi-layered AI with context steering, and the responsive character controller - are more than just lines of code. They are an interconnected web, a modern approach to development that allows us to create the dynamic, suspenseful, and emergent gameplay that is the heart and soul of Meowt of Tune.

A Look to the Future - Tech We Could Have Used

That covers the core technologies driving Meowt of Tune today. But as developers, it's exciting to look ahead and ask, "What if?" While our immediate focus is on perfecting the systems we have, exploring what emerging tech could elevate our core pillars of atmosphere, stealth, and AI is a valuable exercise.

Deepening the Atmosphere with Next-Generation Lighting

Our game is fundamentally about the interplay of light and shadow. While our current real-time lighting is effective, a truly next-generation version could leverage Real-time Ray Tracing. This technology simulates the actual path of light, which would revolutionise our shadows, making them incredibly soft and realistic. Imagine seeing the rat’s silhouette deform perfectly as it rounds a corner or catching its reflection in a dusty mirror. This, combined with Volumetric Lighting to make light beams tangible, would push the game's atmospheric tension to an entirely new level.

Evolving the Hunt with Smarter AI and Audio

We’ve put significant effort into our multi-layered AI, from the rat’s direct, state-driven hunt to the mice’s more nuanced avoidance logic that uses context steering. However, there are several emerging technologies that could make this simulation even more convincing.

AI Director: Our current system, where the rat spawns when the noise bar is maxed out, is effective. A more advanced approach would be an AI Director. This is a high-level system that analyses the player's situation - how often they're making noise, their location, and the time since the last encounter - to dynamically alter the game's pacing. It could hold the rat back to build suspense or spawn it at an unexpected moment, making the tension feel less predictable.

Advanced Audio Propagation: We had early ambitions to use the player's microphone to detect noise. A future version of this could use more advanced audio processing. More excitingly, we could simulate how sound travels. Instead of noise being a simple radius, a propagation system would mean a sound made in another room would be realistically muffled. The rat wouldn't know your exact position but would instead investigate the doorway the sound came from, leading to more believable hunting behavior.

Expanding Interaction with Advanced Physics

Our puzzles currently rely on established physics, like dragging objects to use as platforms. Looking forward, more advanced physics simulation could open up new gameplay avenues. Imagine puzzles involving real-time fluid simulation, where you might need to spill water to create a reflective surface for light, or a puddle that makes noise when stepped in. Soft-body physics could also introduce new stealth mechanics, such as finding a soft cushion to throw to create a silent distraction.

While these are all "what-if" scenarios, they show how fertile the ground is for innovation. For now, our focus remains on making the technology we have implemented as polished and effective as possible to deliver the tense, challenging experience you're waiting for.