Hello there! I'm very happy about this update, as it gets rid of the last big placeholder left in the game: the Victory Room. With this, the general experience of a match from beginning to end is pretty much what I envisioned -I think it's safe to say the game is now on beta as I inch closer towards out-of-early access release.
ENDGAME ZONES
In Escape from Mandrillia there have always been three ways of ending a match: the VR player died, the VR player escaped, or the VR player killed all the Mandrillians.
At the very beginning, after finishing a match the VR player used to get sent into a featureless room where they could choose to repeat the match or go back to the menu, with the PC players left behind in the facility.
Then, the "Victory Room" placeholder was added, a sandboxy place where both sides could check the match statistics and mess around for a bit before playing again. One thing stayed the same: it didn't matter whether the VR or PC side won, you would always be sent to the same place, with only the statistic screens changing. The Elevator Update did at least add some extra satisfaction to the Robot's victory, but overall the game didn't really seem to care if you won or lost.
Now, with the Firing Range/Sandbox scene around the corner, I thought it was the right time to get the placeholders out of the way (it only took several years!)
ROBOT LIMBO
You're gonna see this place a lot.
Losing should make you feel bad, and this eerie place is designed for that. Revisiting the concept of the original endroom, It retains the Victory Room's statistic screens, but all inside an eerie black void where the mangled Robot can just decide to try again or go back to the menu, all while being observed by the PC players.
SURFACE LOBBY
On the other hand, you should feel like you achieved something for winning instead of ending up in the same place as if you lost.
Taking place right at the end of the final elevator ride, you'll get here if you escape or kill all the Mandrillians.
The scene starts as a VR-only section, with the PC players having the third-person spectator view. However, generous VR players can allow Mandrillians to spawn just like in the old Victory Room.
There's some cool stuff I will be adding to this area, but this update includes all the core stuff I needed before I start building on top of it.
ENDGAME CODE CLEANUP
Because the "game over" mechanics are one of the first things I coded for the game, they were an absolute disaster of pure spaghetti. They still are, but at least I've managed to clean some stuff up and make it look and feel better.
One thing I was very unhappy about was the lack of feedback for when the VR Player killed all the Mandrillians. You just waited a few seconds and got yoinked into the Victory Room. With this update I've decided to revisit the "bootup screen" you get at the beginning of each match and rework it to give some critical messages to the Robot within matches. For example, after the Mandrillian headstart has ended, the text will say that there are hostile lifeforms in the area. When the last Mandrillian has been killed, the text will tell the player all major hostile lifeforms have been neutralized, and you'll get a nice fade to black into the Surface Lobby.
Doing this also made me aware of some funky interactions when playing with both human-controlled and bot Mandrillians. Bot Mandrillians could pick up 1-ups that would add up to the human spawn pool, potentially saving them from game overs (which is extra unbalanced because after all Mandrillians died they would get the VR player's view). Now, Bot Mandrillians will add 1-ups to their own spawn pool, and human Mandrillians will stay with the VR player spectator view after depleting all their lives if there are bot Mandrillians left.
FIXES AND TWEAKS
This update includes a bunch of fixes and tweaks not related to endgame stuff; most related to players' feedback.
A tester discovered that it was quite the strat to boobytrap sentry turrets by covering them with mines. Because the mine explosion has reduced radius damage and the sentry turrets are semi-resistant to blast damage, you could do that and keep the turret alive. Now, the strat is still possible, but you will end up with a destroyed turret.
Insectoids used to -always- start spawning 5 seconds in the match, which had the side-effect of often hearing the insectoid spawning sound very consistently at the 5 second mark. Now, insectoids start spawning randomly after 60%-80% of the selected Mandrillian "headstart" setting, which means they'll usually start ~20 seconds after a match starts.
I noticed the flamethrower weapon had a bug that could cause the fire rate to decrease when playing at 80Hz or lower. I fixed it, and also improved the fire stream FX a bit, in loving memory of a certain other game that recently ruined their awesome fire FX. I also increased the fire speed (and range) slightly, as I felt the flamethrower was underperforming a bit compared to other longarms.
Speaking of underperforming, the poor Crossbow was in need of some hefty buffs, so I increased the regular bolt damage from 30 + 70 bleeding to 100 + 50 bleeding, meaning it should consistently 1-shot Mandrillians, and dramatically increased the explosive bolt radius and damage (which can be dangerous in close quarters -use that scope!). Feedback on this one will be greatly appreciated, and I'm guessing lots of tweaks are yet to come for this weapon.
Remember you can always join the Discord server to share your feedback and get people to play with!
Finally, I fixed a bug that was causing ammo crates to sometimes spawn nothing when the Super Shotgun was the last longarm you used.
NEXT UP: FIRING RANGE/SANDBOX... AND A FINAL SPLIT AUDIO ATTEMPT
As this update removes some of the most sandboxy features of the Victory Room, I'm going full throttle into making the Firing Range scene as soon as possible. The Surface Lobby served as a great test bed on how to make a simplified version of the regular match Mandrillian Spawning and systems that would still allow for most of the features to stay, and I think it will do for a great training option for both VR and PC players.
I'm also finally going to try a last ditch attempt at implementing split audio, having in consideration Steam Remote Play limitations regarding it. This might go pretty well or might be a disaster and another waste of time. Stay tuned!
CHANGELOG
- Added the "Surface Lobby" area as a new section when the VR player wins a match
- Added the "Robot Limbo" scene when the VR player loses a match
- Removed the placeholder "Victory Room" you got sent to whether you won or lost a match
- Mandrillians are no longer stuck with the last used upgrade at the Victory Room (now Surface Lobby)
- Incidentally, fixed the Victory Room bug that caused the Robot's IK rig to jitter
- Fixed wrong collisions in the holes on the walls at Observation Chamber 3
- Reworked and polished all the "endgame" situations and transitions (the code was a mess)
- If playing on "timed" mode, killing all the Mandrillians does not finish the match; the Robot player has to actually get out of the facility before the countdown ends
- If playing with both human and Mandrillian players, the camera will switch to spectator mode after human Mandrillians deplete all their spawns
- Mandrillian bots can no longer get Mandrillian players back to the match after they deplete all their spawns: if a Mandrillian bot takes a 1-up, it will increase their own spawn pool
- Reworked the Robot's bootup screen to be actual text fields (for potential future translations), and made it lore friendly
- Robot player now gets a text warning when Mandrillian's headstart has finished
- Robot player now gets a text warning when all Mandrillians are dead
- Mandrillian players get a text warning when the Robot has died
- Insectoids spawning start now tied to the selected Mandrillian "headstart" setting: they will start spawning at 60-80% of the headstart time
- Flamethrower rate of fire no longer slower when playing at 80Hz or lower
- Flamethrower range/projectile speed slightly increased
- Flamethrower fire stream FX improved
- Crossbow regular bolt damage increased from 30 + 70 bleeding to 100 +50 bleeding
- Crossbow explosive bolt damage and radius substantially increased
- Folding chair damage buffed x5
- Folding chair collisions now produce noises
- Folding chair no longer breaks environment stuff like explosive barrels
- Mandrillian armor upgrade buff: head armor piece is now level 2, making most non armor-piercing projectiles ricochet
- Mandrillian armor upgrade now reduces both poison gas and electric shock status effect times
- Changed the "Special" setting name to "Berserk", as it only affects berserk charge (or disables it)
- Setting Berserk setting to 0 no longer prevents normal upgrades' cooldowns to be shortened by picking up vent items/connecting attacks
- Reduced Berserk explosive damage reduction (you could tank several direct grenade launcher hits!)
- Mandrillian armor upgrade now gives a slight (10%) explosive damage reduction (combined with berserker, it will still give less damage reduction than just berserking until now)
- Mine explosions now damage turrets to discourage turret boobytrapping
- Fixed bug that could cause crates to spawn nothing if the last held longarm was the Super Shotgun
- Mandrillians' Plasma Gun shots (and hits) now count for accuracy stat
- Fixed bug that caused Player 2 Mandrillian's Plasma Gun upgrade to not damage certain objects
- Fixed "RTFM" achievement, now actually needing to close all the tips in both the menu and match in one session
- Fixed "EASY WAY OUT" achievement activating just by dying before 30 seconds pass, now it triggers if dying before the Mandrillian headstart has finished
- Mandrillian's Plasma Gun upgrade now counts towards Mandrillian accuracy stat
- Fixed annoying visual bug that made the resolution setting display the actual full monitor resolution instead of the window resolution when starting the game on windowed mode