Hi and welcome back to another devlog! 
This was our second week of production and we have already gotten quite a bit farther towards a fun and good looking game.
Continue reading for a run down of all our work.

Art:

This week the focus was on the creation of some more level designs and finishing all the concepts. This includes concepts for the main character, player stations, main hub, environment/landscape and vfx for abilities and effects. The main hub has the function of pumping oil to the surface and storing it so that the players can connect to it and fill themself and their bases full with oil. Currently we lean towards concept 7 combined with a pumpjack, like it was shown in last week's devlog. 

Main hub concepts

We decided on the final look of the main character. The character is made out of spare parts that were found around the oilfields. The scrap is the main building material used to construct structures in the game. On its back it has a big barrel that is used to transport the oil to the stations. It also has a little canon that it uses to stun enemy players.

Final concept of the main character 

Character model

|Now that the model has almost been completed the texturing can begin shortly. The texture will be created in a hand painted workflow and will be unique. Since there will only be one player character, it should stand out visually.

The rigging has already been started, so the character will soon be able to move around without sliding all over the place!

The rig is being created in maya and set-up for all types of animations

There has also been some work done in the new levels to create some more variety to play. These are some of the quick blockouts for our game. 

2-4 player map(can be played 1v1 or 2v2)

3 player map

4 player map

The levels are mostly made symmetrical to keep the competitiveness at an all time high. And to keep the game fair for all players involved.

We also started on some of the visuals that make stuff clear to you as a player. The visual effect concepts have been started, but have not been started to be produced yet. One of these effects we did a lot of concepting on was the stun projectile that the player can shoot to steal oil from his enemies. 

The visual concepts for the VFX of the projectile

Development:

So gameplay wise this week we focused on the main mechanic. Other than that  the main game mode has also been added.

Game mode:

The main game mode has been added, this being last man(station) standing. This comes down to the last active player station wins the game. Yes that's right, once your station runs out it will shutdown and you will be out of the game! The energy reserve of station is currently visualized by decreasing the color brightness all the way until your station is black, at which the station is empty. 

The current available builds will be a 3 player, 4 player solo and 2v2 map(the last one you play as teams sharing one station).

Main mechanic: 

So the main mechanic of the game, as you might expect, is being able to plug into any station in the game.
This gives players the ability to either take energy from the main hub in the middle or enemy player stations. Once aquired the player can bring it back to his/her station and store it there. 

Plugging in a station can be done at a small range to any of the transfer points on a station(visualized by grey spheres for now). After clicking the button to plug into a station, once close enough, the player will go into the linking stage. This is a small period of time where the player can't move or transfer any energy.
Once the linking stage is over the player is plugged in and can move at a slower than normal speed. The transfer mode will be automatically set based on the station the player is plugged into, in short: If enemy or neutral, you will be taking energy, if the player owns he will be storing energy). The player has an option to toggle the mode at his/her owned station only if they desire to take some energy back.

Multiple players can be plugged in at the same time but this will reduce the transfer speed for each individual player that is plugged in. Players can also run into other players links and unplug them, stunning them for a period of time on top of that. While plugged in a player can move but has to  watch out as to not unplug/stun themselves by running the link into any environment or the station itself.