HTH STUDIOS — DEV LOG – 9.4.26
Moving forward, we’ll be producing regular developer logs to document our progress, explain the systems being built, and provide a clearer look at how each project is progressing. These updates will cover completed features, technical improvements, current experiments, and the decisions shaping the games as production continues:
• Replaced the original world-space navigation controls with a dedicated 2D overlay navigation system.
• Added location-based node control, allowing each room to determine exactly which navigation directions are available to the player.
• Added independent Left, Right, Back, and Forward navigation controls.
• Added the new center-forward navigation arrow and connected it to the existing node structure.
• Added per-direction transition settings, allowing individual movement paths to use either smooth camera travel or immediate relocation.
• Added adjustable camera movement speed.
• Corrected the transition failure between the Tavern and Balcony that temporarily disabled navigation controls after an immediate move.
• Added live editor reporting for the current navigation node and movement speed, making it possible to trace the active state without dismantling the system.
• Corrected Penthouse-imported navigation behavior that initially failed to reveal the proper directional controls.
• Added camera-relative parallax adjustment to reduce excessive background movement during room transitions.
• Expanded the navigable environment with transitional doorway spaces between the bedroom, bathroom, closet, and outdoor patio.
• Updated the sprite-based GUI so the main logo and its attached controls can fade and reveal independently.
• Prevented child controls from falsely activating the parent logo’s mouse-over behavior.
• Corrected accumulated transparency and partial “ghosting” in automatically fading interface elements.
• Added timed opacity restoration so interface elements cannot remain stranded in a partially faded state.
• Preserved the deliberately lightweight, sprite-based interface without replacing it with a Unity Canvas system.
• Implemented ordinary video playback for environmental televisions and display surfaces.
• Implemented chroma-key video playback for animated character transitions.
• Generalized the character-video system so it is no longer restricted to a single character.
• Corrected the unwanted lighting sheen that appeared across video surfaces.
• Confirmed HD transitional animation can operate between lightweight static character sprites without requiring every character state to remain a continuously playing video.
• Continued development of the NPC data structure governing character location, mood, status, outfit, wants, needs, knowledge, secrets, and current problems.
• Imported the working High Tail Hall sprite-based GUI architecture into the Penthouse Suites development environment.
• Imported the node-based room navigation system.
• Corrected the initial movement-tracking conflict that prevented navigation arrows from appearing after the import.
• Confirmed working directional travel between Penthouse locations.
• Added support for both smooth camera movement and immediate room transitions.
• Added adjustable camera travel speed.
• Added center-forward movement alongside the existing directional controls.
• Added camera-relative parallax control to reduce excessive backdrop sliding during movement.
• Added a general-purpose video display system for televisions, monitors, and other environmental screens.
• Added configurable video playlists that can be populated directly through the Unity Inspector.
• Added working Next and Previous video controls.
• Added a separate configurable audio playlist system.
• Added working Next and Previous audio controls.
• Added a functional application Exit control.
• Updated the automatic GUI fade system so the Penthouse logo can disappear without incorrectly taking every interactive child object with it.
• Prevented media controls located beneath the logo from triggering the logo’s reveal behavior.
• Separated the visibility behavior of the parent logo from the visibility behavior of its controls.
• Added support for a dedicated interaction-retention area beneath active menus, allowing the interface to remain open while its controls are being used.
• Preserved automatic hiding when the pointer leaves the complete menu area.
• Confirmed that sprite scenery, interface elements, ordinary video, chroma-key media, and audio playback can operate together inside the same lightweight scene.
• Established Penthouse Suites as a functioning media-driven game environment rather than merely a static room demonstration.
None of the code, data, systems, or technical solutions used in the modern versions of these projects relies upon work produced by previous developers.
Those implementations failed to meet the required standard, and the builds containing them have been abandoned.
The current projects are built upon newly developed systems, with no functional dependency upon those earlier versions.