Hello there! It's been some intense weeks but I'm back with the second extra zone (out of three): Waste Disposal. Every game needs a section with pits of glowing green goo.
WASTE DISPOSAL
You can't just store your green toxic waste in high-pressure barrels forever; there's a point where you have to dump it back into Mother Nature. And that's what SPHYNX does at the Waste Disposal area. Don't breathe too hard!
The zone is divided in two sections, connected by a small bridge, the sewers and the control rooms.
The sewer section is dark and oppressive, with three parallel tunnels leading to the first possible yellow keycard location.
The control rooms add a bit of verticality to the mix. Two ramps lead to the main control room; just outside it there's the second yellow keycard spawnpoint and a drop back to the entrance. This drop can also be taken advantage of by the Robot, but just on the way down.
This update also brings a new breakable object: railings. They're the only thing preventing you from falling into the waste pits, so maybe you should refrain from destroying them.
Because there's now two extra zones, I've finally made the switch and set "random" as the default "extra zone" match setting. This also affects the solo/coop challenges, with some of them having extra zones disabled (Beginner, Infestation) and the Expert challenge having them all active at once.
DYNAMIC SPAWN REWORK
"Dynamic Spawn" is one setting that I've always felt never clicked to me. Until now, it gave you a "dynamic respawner", allowing you to freely move (starting on the position you died) and choose your spawn point. Usually combined with shorter spawn times, this setting usually ended up in Mandrillians endlessly respawning at the spot they died, in a sort of stunlock with the VR player. Because of some of the quirks of the new section I had to take a look at this setting again, and decided to convert it to the same system I use for the Mandrillian Bots when dynamic spawn is enabled: instead of freely moving around, you'll get a randomly assigned point near the Robot's location. This shoud shake things up a little bit and keep pressure on the Robot without it turning into a repetitive loop.
PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS
As the map increased its size with these last few updates, I've been wary of possible performance issues. Small hiccups can get exponentially worse as cameras get added, and in Escape from Mandrillia there can be a lot of active cameras at the same time (2 for the VR eyes, and an extra 1 per player). This update includes some performance improvements on the GPU side, so players with less powerful graphic cards will notice some better timings. Sadly, CPU usage stays the same for now, so older CPUs can still struggle at +120Hz with two PC players active. I will still try to iron that out in future updates!
COMING UP NEXT
Escape from mandrillia is now very close to being a finished product, with only a couple more things left to do before leaving Early Access! Starting of course with the third and final zone.
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
The final zone, showing off the labs where SPHYNX experiments and tests their new inventions. While not as "unique" as the Warehouse or Waste Disposal zones, I have some neat gimmicks planned for this zone. And of course, and going with the theme, I have some shiny new toys all ready for it...
ALTERNATIVE GAMEMODES
After all zones are in place and every mechanic is locked in, I'd really like to try out some concepts for alternative gamemodes instead of the usual "get magenta keycards > open checkpoint gates > get yellow keycards to elevator > activate elevator". I won't go into much detail, but I have some stuff I'm really hyped to try out. If you wanna be part of this last stretch, don't hesitate to go into the experimental branch of the game and leave your feedback either here or at the game's official Discord server!
That's all for now. Have fun!
FULL CHANGELOG
- Added the second extra zone: WASTE DISPOSAL
- Added new "Extra Zone" settings: WASTE DISPOSAL, RANDOM, ALL
- "Extra Zone" match setting now "RANDOM" by default
- Area gates now fully open after 30 seconds if their respective zone is active (if it's not, they still take 50 seconds on Versus matches and 100 seconds on Coop matches)
- Revamped Dynamic Spawn mode for human-controlled Mandrillians to use the same system as Mandrillian Bots (you'll get a randomly assigned spawn point near the Robot's location)
- Solo Challenge "Advanced" now has a random extra zone active
- Solo Challenge "Expert" now has all available extra zones active
- All Coop challenges now have random extra zones active
- In Coop mode, Mandrillian Bots' smoke bombs will also extinguish the Coop Drone fires instead of just working for burning Mandrillians
- In Coop mode, using a Map Station will also show the Mandrillian and Insectoid location on the Coop Drone minimap(s)
- Fixed bug that prevented Insectoids from appearing on Map Stations
- New achievement: HASTA LA VISTA, BABY
- Some performance improvements for the GPU side