Language Support
The language selection for TACTICAL BANDITS has now been finalized. There is currently placeholder text for all the languages, but at release TACTICAL BANDITS will have English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Chinese (Traditional), Chinese (Simplified), Japanese, and Korean support. This is a big list, and hopefully it will cover most players playing TACTICAL BANDITS.
New Art
We have updated the art and icons for TACTICAL BANDITS... again. We have been testing which one has been getting the best response from gamers, and the latest one is doing the best right now. Hopefully this will be the last time we will have to create new artwork, but never say never in game development.
New Multiplayer Level ROAD RAGE
ROAD RAGE is a new multiplayer level for death, stock, and hunted game modes. The level layout was designed to be as simple as possible to make it easy to navigate for players. This allowed us to add in eight lanes of traffic for maximum amount of chaos. And chaos is great for multiplayer game modes, especially something that is semi-random but expected.
Players will not feel punished for dying in the traffic, as they will be going out on their own will, to either get new weapons or kill the other players. There is a very good risk/reward system in this level. The level rewards players for staying in the middle of 2 lanes, as they will be next to weapons and items at all times. But they will also be at their most vulnerable in this location from being attacked from both sides.
Game Fixes
As usual, there were lots of fixes in the game in the past month. Since there is too many to cover (and most are quite boring), we will talk about the three most interesting bugs we fixed this week.
The first bug fix was an aesthetic bug. While holding items, such as generators in Capture the Loot matches, the player could aim their gun from their back. This was weird because the gun would aim as normal with a laser sight, making it look like the bandit has a robot attached to them that shoots from their back. Fortunately, the gun could not shoot, just aim. So this was not that bad of a bug, but weird nonetheless.
We also updated the generators in Capture the Loot so that players can only pick up the opposing team's generators and not their own. This ensured that experienced players did not only steal the opposing team's generators, but also moved their own generator in a more difficult location. This balanced the gameplay in this specific game mode quite a bit, and it will lead to more enjoyable matches.
A gameplay bug, which was less of a bug but more of a missing feature, is that you can roll while holding an item again. Rolling will drop the item you are carrying, but it allows for faster getaways from the opposing team, and to better create a counter-attack. Before this, players had to drop the item before they could roll, or even shoot. By this time, some players usually end up dying as the levels are not that large in multiplayer.
Another bug we fixed is doors. Doors are known as a game developer's worst nightmare, especially considering with all the different types of scenarios you can deal with (how does it open, what happens when someone opens and someone is on the other side, etc.). Our doors had multiple issues. The first one was that if a player was too close to the actual door, the door would open in the player's face. This was a weird, and very annoying, bug. Apart from not making sense, it ruined the gameplay a bit as the door would push the player back while it was opening.
Another issue with doors was that bots do not understand how to handle them. If a door is open but they are behind a door, they will continue trying to walk forward not understanding they are stuck behind a door. We have changed it now so that they understand the basic concept of an open door and try to walk around it. If they don't understand this, we have added a code check and they will just shoot the door open.
The last bug we fixed was minor one but one that was causing lots of issues in singleplayer levels primarily. It was with resizing colliders on trees. The colliders were not consistent, and some trees had large colliders, and some had small. This led to a bad experience for the players.
To make it consistent, qw have opted with the skinnier tree colliders that cover the trunk. This is because trees are usually only solid around the trunk, while the rest are just branches and leaves, and we decided to allow players to walk through the branches and leaves. This creates new scenarios for players as they can hide there. It also makes trees less of a punishment, but more of a reward for using it well. The opposite is also true, because it is harder to get a clear shot through the trees as they can get blocked by the trunk.
Zombies
Zombies are walking again in levels. We are not sure how this happened, but zombies started to just stand static in all game modes, and then started moving to chase any targets that crossed their line of sight. Weird bug that we are happy is fixed.
New Horde Level CAMP STRANDED
CAMP STRANDED is a new horde level. As the name suggests, the level is set in a deserted camp that is in a forest. This level was designed for players to feel claustrophobic with the amount of trees in the level, but also give them the freedom to take shortcuts to weapons and items in the level. But the freedom will come at a price, as zombies and enemies will also use the trees to come out and surprise attack players.
It is also much harder to get a clean shot within the trees, so melee weapons would be preferred in that area. But not being able to see where zombies and enemies are coming from will make players feel like they are swinging in the dark.
There are also safe open routes to for players to reach every weapon and item on the level, but these are longer than just going through the trees. So there will be a risk/reward for players to decide if cutting through the trees is worth it or not.
BIC Festival
BIC Festival happened at the end of the month and it was great to showcase TACTICAL BANDITS for the first time to the public. The goal of going to the festival was seeing how players would play the game, what needs to be improved or explained better, and what might need to be removed.
The feedback on the game was overall good, but we did hope for better. This was due to players not having a chance to try out the tutorial to find out how the game works, which led to some bad experiences for players. It was also hard to convey the unique shooting mechanic, and teach players to conserve their ammo and pick up new weapons. This would have been easy to tell players, but the language barrier added more difficulty.
The good part is that players who understood this, and the game overall, had a great experience on the game, and they tended to play as expected. We are now going to use the notes made on how players played the game and use it to create a better experience for the less-hardcore audience. Even though they are not the target market for this game, it is not a bad reason to create new features that would make them enjoy the game more.
Summary
This was a busy month for TACTICAL BANDITS, with a lot of development update and the first public showcase. We will be using the feedback we saw from BIC Festival to improve the game further for the next event to showcase TACTICAL BANDITS, which is actually much sooner than you think.
Apart from the feedback fixes, next month we will be finishing the development of challenges game mode, which is something we want players to experience at the next event. The challenges have already been in development for a few months but never been the priority, which is changing for this upcoming month. Apart from challenges, singleplayer development is nearly complete and we are expecting that to finish very soon.
We are happy with the progress made this month even with the extra work of showcasing the game. The overall development of TACTICAL BANDITS is planning to be complete in a few months, which is great and also means that the porting of the game will be starting before the end of the year. We are not going to mention what other platform(s) the game will be releasing on just yet, so stay tuned for that news sometime soon.