Welcome to our December Dev Log!

As the year comes to a close, we’ve been busy wrapping up some exciting developments for Hostile Mars! From experimenting with enemy sizes to introducing thrilling new traps, this month’s update is packed with progress. Whether it’s refining our systems or exploring creative new ideas, we’re pushing boundaries to make the game even more engaging. Let’s dive into the details!

Size, Speed, and Mass

This month, we went all-in on enemy experimentation—playing with sizes, speeds, and masses to find that perfect flow of oncoming threats. In the process, we defined our base enemy types and hammered out their proportions. Once locked in, these stats will help us shape trap design and progression moving forward.

If you spot some colorful boxes, don’t worry—those are just placeholders for our future mining bots, letting us rapidly tweak size, mass, and speed. Take a peek at the clip below to see our wild testing in action!

Large Enemy Pathfinding

Recently, we've started exploring different sizes of enemies and how they would move through mazes or block each other. A year ago, when the Foreman was introduced as the hover tank in devlog #25, we had to limit its size because more prominent agents would try to follow paths that went too close to walls and kept getting stuck.

This issue has now been fixed. We've revised our pathfinding system to support multiple agent sizes, so bots can now occupy a corridor's entire 8m width or even be larger than a single cell of the build grid.
In addition, obstacles can now block enemy types differently, such as a half wall that flying bots can pass over, but that forces ground bots to find another route.

More Trap Goodening

Last month we introduced a bunch of new traps, and we've continued to add and revise traps in December:

Spring Trap

Since this trap was created, the idea has been to physically simulate a board springing up around a hinge. This would have led to accurate physics behavior, but there was a huge issue: it was very unpredictable!

The number of enemies—along with their mass, shape, or velocity—would completely change where they got thrown. They would be flying all over the place, making the trap hard to balance or use.

We've changed the concept entirely from a spring-actuated board to an electromagnet, sacrificing realistic physics in favor of a more reliable launch trajectory that sorts bots by mass to some extent. Chaos remains, but it's up to the player to figure out how to handle it.

With the trajectory now predictable, preview arcs can be implemented, so there's no need to blindly guess what will happen!

Push Wall

We've had a prototype of this one for a while, but it was too unstable to be used in practice, as it would often glitch out.

Now, we're presenting a revised version that's very stable and easier to configure. It also received a facelift, including a work-in-progress model and some animations using a custom IK (Inverse Kinematics) system.

(I wonder if we'll see some other things using IK… Stay tuned for future devlogs!)

Arc Missile Trap

Walls and barriers have always stood in the way of standard turrets, blocking their line of sight and wasting precious range. That’s why we created the Arc Missile Trap—a cunning launcher that fires heat-seeking, wall-avoiding rockets right over obstacles! It’s perfect for hitting enemies you’d otherwise never be able to reach, and it turns every maze into a playground for explosive, long-range chaos.

Art

Concept Art

Here is a giant electromagnet that acts as a push trap:

Some wall design exploration:

Exploration on push trap arm mechanics:

What is this???

That’s it for this month’s update!

We truly appreciate your ongoing support and can’t wait to share what we have in store next. In the meantime, stay connected by joining our awesome Discord community: https://discord.gg/Xd88eF8Teg

Take care,
-HM Team