Hello there! Many things happened during last month, so here's a quick roundup.
First things first, Remote Play Together Fest starts today... and Remote Play Together might be straight out broken for every VR game on the current Steam Client.
THE REMOTE PLAY TOGETHER SITUATION
Valve broke Remote Play Together with the Steam Client update of January 11th. It seems to affect exclusively local asymmetric VR games, which might explain it flying under their radar.
THE CURRENT FIX
Fortunately, going into Steam's client beta (Steam > Settings > Interface) seems to fix it. This might indicate they are at least working on it and that it will be fixed by the next main branch client update.
Only thing that I can do right now is add this ugly warning next to the remote play friend invite screen; hopefully I will be able to remove it soon.
Combined with the split audio situation, this issue is making me a bit sour about Remote Play.
THE SPLIT AUDIO SITUATION
Good news: split audio is doable (and pretty fast!). It works, and I could potentially port the entire game to split audio in a matter of weeks.
Bad news: Steam Remote Play Together doesn't work at all with any kind of split audio. It is hard coded to just pick every sound coming from within the streamed application, mix it up, and play it on the client's side. This means that any split-audio solution will always work nicely on the host (in this case VR), while on the PC side it would mix both the VR and PC audios.
Other asymmetrical vr games on the store that have proper split audio also have this issue. The problem with Mandrillia is, as the VR and PC players are supposed to be far apart a lot of the time, it's way more noticeable.
This is, however, an issue that ONLY affects Steam's Remote Play Together. Split audio would still work nicely when playing it locally, and even other remote play solutions like Parsec allow you to target a specific audio output device. Which leads me to...
THE FUTURE OF SPLIT AUDIO: SEPARATE BRANCHES?
Now that I know for a fact that I'm capable of adding split audio, with its main drawback being specifically tied to Remote Play Together, this might be the approach I'll take for it.
The idea is finishing the game with shared audio in mind until it's feature locked (hopefully before this year ends). After that, I would make a separate branch with proper split audio. That way, people will still be able to play it over Remote Play without the double audio stacking, and at the same time, there would be a "proper" option for people playing locally or over alternative remote play systems like Parsec. It's not optimal, but it's the best I can do unless Valve gives us devs some option to target audio devices with remote play together.
Alternatively, I might try my hand at having a single build with split audio and hope that it doesn't sound too horrible in Remote Play Together, but I don't have much hope on that.
THE NEW: CHEAT SCREEN AND PORTABLE ITEM SPAWNER
It would be sad if this update brought nothing so here's a little gift.
The old item spawner on the main menu / starting area has been replaced by a cheat screen.
Enabling the item spawner is now a "cheat" instead of a match setting. Cheats will be stuff that's too crazy or broken to be a regular match setting.
Now that the physical item spawner is no longer at the starting area (you can still find it on the victory room), typing SPAWNER on the cheat screen will give you a very handy portable spawner.
You can store it in your inventory, and it will give you access to all the items of the old item spawner, but in a way more convenient way. Use it responsibly!
COMING UP NEXT: INSECTOIDS
Next big gameplay update will bring the long-awaited Insectoid enemies.
Current Insectoid concept art
Currently the only spawnable computer-controlled enemies are the Mandrillian bots. Mandrillian bots are meant to be a somewhat faithful representation of a proficient player; they are out to get the Robot also programmed to coordinate if the maximum of 2 are present in the map.
Insectoids, on the other hand, will fill a more brainless role, mostly passive until disturbed by either the Robot or the Mandrillians. Being just bugs, their tactics won't be much more complex than swarming whatever they think is a threat, which might lead up to interesting situations where players can use them as a sort of an organic landmine.
I'm looking forwards to work on these little guys, as their first concepts started around late 2022 (!) and it's become almost a running joke that I keep focusing on other things.
Original insectoid design from late 2022
ROAD TO 1.0
With the big unknown of split audio being at last settled (even if the solution will be a bit of a hassle for me), I feel confident mapping out the final additions to Mandrillia: proper tutorialization, finishing up the map (including better menu and victory rooms), polishing of current mechanics and exploring a coop mode.
Early Access has ben great to see what works and what doesn't for the game, and 2024 is the year where I want to have the full release. As always, a big thank you to all of you who have helped to shape up this weird little game.
FULL CHANGELOG
- Added temporary warning about the broken Remote Play situation with the current fix (switch to Steam Client beta)
- Migrated Steamworks integration from Facepunch to Steamworks.NET
- Added the Cheat Console to the main menu, replacing the Item Spawner
- Added a portable Item Spawner
- Added Cheat Console code: SPAWNER (will give you the portable spawner)
- Added Cheat Console code: PUMPKIN (will unlock the pumkin helmet -previously unlocked via the scrapped halloween challenge)
- Improved robot damage FX, making it clearer (and more satisfying) for the Mandrillian players (and spectator view)
- Added particle FX on the Robot's head while being fully blinded by a flashbang (can be seen even while cloaked, so even more reason to try and not flashbang yourself)
- Fixed bug where berserking Mandrillians would stay berserk'd on the Victory Room after winning
- Increased default gamma value from 0.25 to 0.3
- Slightly increased intensity and cone width of weapon flashlights
- Decreased initial sound fade-in start from 3 seconds to 1 second
- Fixed gates having sound notifications in the minimap when operated near dead monkeys
- Fixed visual bug where the Healer upgrade's charge indicators on the canisters weren't updating along the HUD charge meter when doing charge-increasing actions
- Fixed some clipping geometry in the Observation Chamber door that leads to the corridor
- Minor occlusion culling tweaks