Steam Release and Level 4
It's here! The Dead Containment level 4 update has reached the early access players with the game getting a public release as a Steam Early Access title on October 21st.
This update isn't just about level 4 or the Steam release though. There are a virtual ton of changes and additions that have been made to Dead Containment over the past months which should give a everyone a better player experience while also raising the overall quality of the game to a higher standard.
So let's jump into it!
Release Schedule
The new update will be going live for Kickstarter early access players shortly after this article goes out. Once the update has reached these players, the public release will follow on October 21st.
Graphics Update
The graphics of Dead Containment have had a major overhaul for this update, with everything from models and lighting to the post processing and particles in the game being looked at over. Dead Containment was also updated to Unreal Engine 4.26 to take advantage of the new GPU Lightmass tools. The product of all this is a vastly improved looking game when compared to before. Below are screenshots of the starting area of level 3 before and after the update.
How the starting area of level 3 used to look.
How the starting area of level 3 looks now.
Online Leaderboards and Local Top Scores
Online leaderboards are now fully implemented and can be viewed from the main menu. The leaderboard will save the highest score and rank a player has achieved on a level along with their highest overall score from a playthrough, which can either be from completing the game or when the player dies. Because of the major changes to the game since the initial leaderboards went in, all scores have been reset with everyone starting from scratch.
Local high scores and ranks are now kept and can be viewed from the singleplayer screen when selecting a level.
Light guns
Dead Containment has been made from the start with both KBM and light gun players in mind, from how the game plays to how the UI looks. Playing with a light gun before felt difficult with the 'weak' guns and fast paced gameplay. To help with this there is now an option to keep your crosshairs on while using a light gun. Originally it was set to off and couldn't be changed. More settings are being looked at to help light gun users.
Another indirect improvement for light gun users is how the new damage model works, which can be read below.
Reworked Damage Model
Both the way enemies take damage and how the guns deal damage have been completely reworked from scratch, which included writing up a massive spreadsheet to automatically calculate how many bullets and the time it would take to kill each enemy in the game. This spreadsheet helped balance each gun to feel powerful but balanced along with help make each enemy feel as tough or as weak as they should be.
All humanoid enemies have multipliers depending on where they are shot; in the head, torso or limbs. This also applies to non-humanoid enemies and bosses, depending on if they have equivalent body parts.
Enemies also have a co-op health multiplier, which increases their base health when playing in co-op play. This was done to reduce how incredibly easy the game became when playing in co-op mode.
Steam Cloud Support
Steam Cloud support has been added to keep game settings, scores and future unlocks safe. This was mainly done now to keep your progress safe for when any collectibles are added and the upcoming armoury system which will allow players to unlock new power weapons.
Trello
You can follow the progress of Dead Containment by visiting the Trello page here. The page is updated regularly with what I'm working on, what's planned in the next update and the state of reported bugs.
Bug Reports
No one wants bugs in their game and I try to my best to squish any I see. However, if you do find any bugs that I missed then please post a report on the official bug report thread here.
Update Notes:
- Added level 4.
- Added enemy type - Alligator.
- Added enemy type - Bat.
- Added enemy type - Falling.
- Added enemy type - Raccoon.
- Added enemy type - Welder.
- Added anti-aliasing options; None, TAA, FXAA.
- Added bullet decals depending on the material that was shot.
- Added camera shake to level 3's boss footsteps.
- Added civilian event to level 2.
- Added civilian status text above civilians' heads.
- Added enemy attack type - Single ranged attack before changing into melee.
- Added enemy material generator, giving more variety in enemy skins
- Added 'How to Play' screen in the menu.
- Added level intro title cards and animation.
- Added local high score saving which are displayed in the single player menu.
- Added new high score notification at the end of levels.
- Added online leader boards.
- Added overall stats screen when completing a full playthrough or dying.
- Added particles to boss ranged projectiles.
- Added physics objects to levels which move or are destroyed when shot.
- Added option to skip cutscenes that aren't used to load the level.
- Added Steam Cloud save support for scores and settings.
- Added stun animations for enemies.
- Added time limited attack events where players have a limited time to kill enemies before moving.
- Added player invincibility after taking damage, lasting 1 second.
- Changed AI attack patterns so closer enemies will attack first instead of waiting.
- Changed AI pathfinding to stop enemies walking in a straight line behind another.
- Changed axe wielding enemy animations.
- Changed civilians to be invulnerable to player damage after being saved.
- Changed crawlers to have random parts of legs missing.
- Changed the loading screen images to better match the current look of the game.
- Changed player name colours in co-op lobbies to the colour of their character.
- Changed projectiles materials to glow from yellow to red the more they are damaged.
- Changed the amount of spare ammo power weapons carry to 1 less magazine.
- Changed the weapon damage values of all guns.
- Changed the weapon spread values of all power weapons.
- Improved audio for all levels, including more ambience and sound attenuation.
- Improved bullet decals to glow on impact before fading away.
- Improved enemy attack timings to better sync the damage with the animation.
- Improved enemy hit boxes.
- Improved level 1's graphics and lighting.
- Improved level 2's graphics and lighting.
- Improved level 3's graphics and lighting.
- Improved level 3's boss footstep audio.
- Improved level decals with newer materials and more variety,
- Improved level file size optimization for smaller level sizes.
- Improved level light baking method to ray-traced light baking, improving the baked lighting.
- Improved player footstep audio.
- Improved weapon FX.
- Removed server browser and drop-in-out co-op play due to it being unstable.
- Reworked enemy health to include multiplier on co-op play.
- Reworked enemy health multipliers for headshots, limb shots and torso shots.
- Reworked player weapon damage values.
- Fixed biker enemy type showing wrong damage indicator.
- Fixed bullet decals being too big.
- Fixed bullet decals facing the wrong way.
- Fixed bullet impact sound not always playing when hitting a metallic material.
- Fixed buttons in UI not lining up correctly.
- Fixed camera speed being slower on event start.
- Fixed characters having flickering shadows.
- Fixed cinematic black bars in cutscenes not hiding gameplay UI.
- Fixed civilian hit boxes being desynced from civilian model.
- Fixed clients being able to see 'Change gamemode' lobbies.
- Fixed emissive materials causing frame drops when close to the camera.
- Fixed empty gun audio playing at the wrong times.
- Fixed end of level scoreboards playing twice for clients.
- Fixed enemies not correctly facing the player when getting into attack position.
- Fixed enemies taking the same path to the player, causing a straight line of enemies.
- Fixed enemy projectiles not firing in the correct direction.
- Fixed incorrect collisions on some meshes.
- Fixed incorrect roughness levels on some materials.
- Fixed infinite loading screen.
- Fixed level 2's boss showing red blood when shot on green blood mode.
- Fixed level 3's boss animation not syncing correctly when playing with low fps.
- Fixed menu camera not transitioning correctly from title to menu view.
- Fixed missing LOD's on some meshes.
- Fixed multiplayer lobby camera not setting correctly.
- Fixed online leaderboards causing crash when Steam is offline.
- Fixed pause menu breaking in co-op play.
- Fixed player ammo counters being on the wrong side of the screen.
- Fixed player footstep audio missing attenuation.
- Fixed projectiles using the same texture.
- Fixed screen resolution not saving/loading correctly.
- Fixed Steam name not saving on first time load up.
- Fixed video settings not saving/loading correctly.
- Fixed water materials flickering.