Hello everyone,
Apologies for not updating each month for the last few months. I had a lot going in my personal life. It's all settled down now, and so it's business as usual. Don't worry I never stopped working.
Solarsplace and myself have worked on a lot of things, ranging from code, to level design, to game balance, and new features.
Code
I've rolled up my sleeves began coding a bit, to help resolve some of the smaller tasks in the code.
I wrote some new code that updates the animation frame rate based the size on screen, reducing CPU usage. We fixed how the AI spawns so it doesn't unhide via behavior, it now does it in the AI code. Reduced behavior thrashing, minor optimization and cleaning AI functionality.
Added support for what I like to call World Animations, like enemies sitting down or puking etc This means that the AI doesn't turn towards the player while awakening from these states.
AI now doesn't revert back to it's awakening animation if it was staggered or stunned while not in combat.
And multitude of minor fixes and tweaks across various behaviors, timings etc of how the AI behave in game.
Fixed how enemy projectiles behave so they don't arc.
Most of the weapon and projectile code has been finished, we've got some cool new projectile behaviors now.
Game Design
Here is a short video showing off some of the upcoming things for episode 1. Some of the captured footage is from test maps.
Difficulty
Difficulty selection inside of E1M1 has been completed. When you enter the Hall of Fate, you will choose your path, which determines how difficult the game is. There is a secret optional difficulty hidden in the level somewhere.
Difficulty selection hallway, left is easiest, right is hardest.
More enemies
I've rebalanced the game a bit so enemies have fewer health points, left their damage about the same, and added more enemy spawners to the levels, mostly affects episode 1 levels, as episode 2 already has a fairly dense enemy setup. Enemy engagements are also a bit longer in pockets of various episode 1 maps.
Enemy Updates and changes
Retchid now has a total of 30 unique enemy archetypes so far, not including minor variations like the Hunter Abyss Stalker or Hazmat Human.
The general Melee Human that runs up and punches you has now changed to be a slumbering fodder focused enemy, but can spawn in larger numbers. Their brains have started to calcify, so their humanity is dwindling.
Episode 1 will now include:
Bodi Gorn
Bodi Gorn Spitters
Torso Humans (a torso that drags itself along the ground),
Tool Guy, a Melee Human variation, an enemy that wields various tools to hit you with, that does more damage than a regular punch
Chainsaw Guy, 'nuff said
Bile Human, an enemy that explodes dealing toxic damage when taken enough damage
Weapons
All the weapons are almost finished, just a few alt fires left.
A new melee weapon created for your enjoyment, a chainsaw. This can be found in episode 1 in a secret area. It has a general swipe attack, and the alt fire is a hold down and massacre until you run out of fuel.
The Map Device
You guys had been requesting a map for some time, so that whole system has been built now.
The map device is found in E1M1. The map system is quite simple and light in terms of optimisation and functionality. I went for the design where you can have the map open, and walk around, just be aware of your surroundings while looking at the map....
I had never made a map system before so it was a most excellent adventure. It was satisfying to solve some of the technical hurdles (saving the revealed map progression to a data file and reading it on load for example) that I often went to bed at 2am....
Art and Level Design
Art
All the core gameplay animations for enemies have been completed. Additional animations for world animations are still needed though where it makes sense.
Some Episode 1 enemies got an minor overhaul on their animations and additional attacks.
Most of the weapon visual effects are now finished like the AWX summoning micro solar systems that spawn rogue meteors to wreak havoc on enemies.
All enemy effects, materials, models, weapons are now finished
The game is a bit more gory, with more decals and gibs. Gibs got a bit optimised since you can explode quite a few enemies at once. Mostly a draw call reduction.
Finished making all the art work for the map and I am now going through all the ep1 levels and drawing all the layouts.
Level Design
E1M1 starting section got an overhaul/extension to include setting up the tone, and tutorials for the player.
Here is Gary, banging on the window to get your attention...
Almost all enemies now have a brief 10 second intro cinematic. It's to introduce you to them, and give you a bit of 1 on 1 time to get to know how the new enemy works before everyone else joins the part. Larger gameplay puzzle solves have a small camera demonstrating the cause and effect moment of solving the puzzle.
Episode 1 got a minor lighting, detail, particle update to bring it inline with episode 2 and 3. And any areas that lacked in detail got a little bit of love.
Enemy placement has changed slightly in some areas, new enemies have been sprinkled in.
Some security zones now come equipped with ceiling mounted mini-guns that can be turned on and off, and used against enemies. The mini-gun doesn't care who it's filling with lead.
Over all in the last few months, we've done hundreds of changes, fixes, improvements.
Gross Abyssal mass has grown and is blocking some doors... likely a relation of Shoggoth. I hope it doesn't manifest in to a self thinking walking destructive enemy...
What we're working on
There is about 15 code tasks left for Solarsplace, and well, probably a hundred or so tasks left for me in terms of Level Design, code, animation, tweaks, adjustments etc.
Solarsplace is working on a few things like tapping in to the save system to make an auto save that will trigger in the level in specific places. I'll make sure auto-saves are optional, that you can disable in the main menu. They won't work on Hard or Oblivion difficulty.
And also the weapon/suit upgrade system. We already track which upgrades you have, we're just wrangling the code to support enabling them correctly and cleanly when you find them.
I've been chipping away at building the infrastructure for the online subsystem which tells Good Old Games or Steam when you got an achievement. For Steam at least, I want to support Stat tracking, Achievements.
All of these new things I want to push in to a patch, I am just weighing up what features we can leave out for the moment, like achievements, or autosaves etc as I'd love to get this update out for you try and it and let me know what you think.
Thanks for reading. See you next update.
-Zombie