Howdy!!! It is that time for me to once again update you on...
Wait... it was Viscerafest's birthday May 20th... which was like...
20 days ago... Uh...
Idk here's a complimentary birthday mime... I guess...
Um... Regardless, it is once again time to update all you wonderful folks regarding the goings-on of Viscerafest's development! From tweaks, changes, and minor additions, to brand-new content,
Here is what we've been cooking up as of late!
Bunnyhopping
One particularly obvious hurdle a lot of new players struggle to overcome is wrestling with the game's movement, or more specifically... bunnyhopping. Bunnyhopping is effectively mandatory if you want to have any hope of surviving on the game's harder difficulties, and I think that is in part why Viscerafest has such a fearsome reputation as a brutal game. The muscle memory required to build up and maintain the game's faster speeds just isn't something most average players have baked in.
To address this, holding the spacebar to bunnyhop, rather than tapping it, will become the new default.
There will still be an option to tap rather than hold in the options menu, and some tweaks will be made to holding in order to make sure the act of doing so isn't as touchy as it is now. But our hope is that this change will ease up the experience for new players, without actually compromising the game's difficulty.
Enemy Stuff
So this last month I've been going through and making a bunch of refinements to our enemy roster.
Aesthetically and mechanically sprucing up the gang in a variety of ways, so here we'll quickly go over
what's changed, what's been added, and all the goings on with everything that's trying to kill you.
Impact Effects
As of the current public build of Viscerafest enemy projectiles tend to just vanish upon impact with the player or any given surface. BUT NO MORE!!! From sparks, to smoke, and explosive lil poofs, enemy projectiles now go out in a more stylish fashion. They also now feature audio for their impacts and even sounds as they travel through the air.
New and Tweaked Attacks
The Enforcers and Blitzers of Viscerafest's first chapter have some new tricks up their sleeves!
Enforcers on top of their rapid-fire flurry now have a precise burst that they shoot with a slower firing rate. Unlike their standard projectile spraying which now lags behind the player, they lead their aim with this shorter burst.
Blitzers in addition to their projectile volley attack now have a very mancubus-style bullet-pair attack that shoots 2 projectiles, one to the left, and the other to the right of the player.
With that said the majority of the game's roster have had their attacks tweaked in a variety of subtle
and minor ways. For example, some enemies which prior would shoot fast-moving projectiles now fire
slower and easier-to-dodge-projectiles that they lead their aim with. There has also been a slew of more minor tweaks and balancing changes to things like enemy movement speeds, attack frequency, etc...
Chapter 3 Enemies
The road to wrapping up the Chapter 3 enemy roster was a bumpy and experimental one, but the deed
is finally done. Whilst there is still work to be done on the enemies themselves, which foes you will be facing in Viscerafest's final chapter have been decided upon and are all indeed very much functional.
There are 11 new enemy types introduced in Viscerafest's final chapter, as (save for a handful of
cameo appearances) the friendly U.S.C. faces you've known and loved through chapters 1 and 2 will be getting replaced and upstaged by a group of more strange and deadly opponents.
Throughout the development of Chapter 3 I was routinely running into the feeling that our new roster was missing a few things, enemies that were originally planned got cut due to obsolescence or story changes, old foes were tweaked and refined, and new members were added to the fold to try to find the right balance of Fodder, Mid, and High-tier threats.
Whilst I don't want to show you guys too much yet,
I thought I might more properly reveal an enemy you've already seen plenty of.
Behold the Willow Bairn!
She's been featured in the game's main menu art for a long... long time now, and I thought it was time you finally get a taste of what she actually does.
The Willow Bairn is a close-ranged Mid-Tier monster that lets out an AOE concussive blast when in proximity to the player. She's a fast and moderately chunky opponent, being able to weather a good few shotgun blasts with a health pool of 800. She's also a thick-skinned girl, resistant to melee attacks.
In addition to her concussive blast attack she also regularly gives birth to children (The Saplings) in the midst of a brawl, and if gibbed she births Quintuplets, all of whom will bear down on you to avenge their mama!
Carcosa's Wrath
Viscerafest's final weapon has undergone a lot more in the way of iteration since we last showed it, both in terms of its visual, and mechanical design. Once again, we're not willing to show it off in action before release. But the gun is in pretty much its final form, and save for some cleanup work, it's ready to hit the runway.
The Opening Cinematic
Back when me and Sara started work on Viscerafest's opening we didn't have much in the way of reference material for Caroline or... much else in the game to be honest. It wasn't until later that we established a more consistent look for our protagonist. But as a consequence, Caroline's appearance in the opening cutscene is very different... not only that, but her appearance tended to change from shot to shot, and I wanted to address this.
Sara had just recently become available to do a little more work again, thus she and I went through the process of updating and re-animating the game's opening cinematic. Some changes are major, some more subtle, but overall I'm very happy with the end result.
Chapter 1 Rework
In case you missed it, I very recently posted a video comparing the old C1L1 to the new one we have in-house! You can check that out here.
But since our last update, the new prelude level has been pretty much finished. C1l1 and C1L2 have been getting some more polish and love, and C1L3 is just about ready to start being imported into the engine!
Chapter 3
Viscerafest Chapter 3's final level is almost done! Once it is we'll be moving on to the game's Finale, following which we'll be doing a comprehensive sweep of the game's final chapter, polishing it, cleaning it up, adding fun little details, putting all the story stuff in place, etc...
As for what's left after all that, I posted a slightly more comprehensive breakdown of the remaining work in the last update, so be sure to check there if you want more details.
We'll Meet Again...
Thanks for reading! Once again thanks to all the awesome folks in our community, wherever you mayest thou lurk! We hope you have an amazing... nay an awesome day! See you in a month!... or however long it is until our next update...
Ciao!