Hey guys,
Long time, no see.
We've been pretty quiet on the development side of things recently. We'd like to say it's because we've been hard at work, but honestly we've been experiencing some troubles on the development and personal side of things, so we thought we'd finally drop a line about the state of things and where we plan to go from here.
So the most important thing to address I think is the performance.
We've heard everyone's feedback and we've been seeing a rumor circulating that the game is a bitcoin miner or a virus. The actual issue is a lot more boring, we discovered a memory issue in the game's environments after the latest update caused by the additional fidelity we added to the levels. This causes the game levels to use SIGNIFICANTLY more RAM than it has any right to. We can confirm that we've fixed this issue on our side and when we release the next update (no ETA) it'll include a fix for this issue. We're incredibly sorry for the frustration this issue has caused and didn't intend for it to persist for such a long time.
Things we have done
So one of the reasons the game hasn't had an update in a very long time is that we've implemented a new movement system for the player and bots. This has unfortunately caused a variety of snowballing issues as the character controller is tied to a significant amount of mechanics and systems, which means that upgrading those systems to work with the new controller is no easy feat. The upside is that once we're done with this, the player will be able to vault terrain (no more getting stuck in trenches), play in third person and handle much more realistically! The bots are also getting this treatment, meaning they'll be able to navigate terrain more intelligently.
Another huge addition is a complete rework for all the character models. Our plan is to prepare them for when we add in character customization, so all their clothing is modular and relatively easy to interchange. Currently we have a preview of these new models and animations below!
And finally we have the situation on a more personal front. As a 2-person team, TrenchesWIP is very affected by the circumstances of it's developers. Currently both of us have experienced a relatively turbulent time due to Covid and a change in our personal employment, meaning development has been turbulent and infrequent. We hope to get back into the flow of things ASAP, but we don't want to offer a timeframe for when that will be. We both are 100% set on continuing development of Trenches, as we both believe it to be a very promising game concept. We have an update in the works, but at this stage we don't have an ETA for when it will be released.
We thank everyone for their patience and apologize for our lack of communication and the state of the game. As repayment, we present you some lovely pictures of our new German character model.
-Big OOF Games