ITS FINALLY TIME FOR ANOTHER BANE MURRAIN UPDATE!
This is a big one too. Although the levels remain mostly as they were (aside from a completely rebuilt first level + tutorial) the entire rest of the game has had a drastic overhaul, reworking and rebuilding half the game from the ground up for a more professional and smoother-to-run experience!
NEW GRAPHICS - The game has been moved from Unity's HDRP to URP and every texture has been rebalanced to account for this. The game's alot brighter and cartoonish now, which suits the style far more than the fancy shading and should have the game running smoother for alot of people!
The dialogue sections in the saferoom have also been completely redrawn and reanimated to have more lively expressions. They move! They talk! Wowie!
(Cosmetics have been temporarily disabled but will be re-added later. Animation takes a long time!)
NEW PLAYER, NEW MOVEMENT - Dayne has been rebuilt from the ground up for more momentum and speed-building movement like bunny hopping and rocket jumping, providing some ridiculously quick movement methods for speedrunners while making things smoother for the slow players too!
The previous movement system used a botched, modified version of Unity's standard FPS asset. With this reworked movement system I can actively tweak Dayne's movement over updates and make better alterations / bug fixes in a simpler fashion.
OVERDRIVE PUNCH - The Fervour punch is now far more worth the risk, where gibbing punches cause catastrophic explosions that damage enemies in an entire area. Alongside this, weak points for punching enemies now have clear markers for hitting, which is all explained in detail within the game's new tutorial level! I wanted to put as much effort as I can into making the game clear and understandable for all audiences, which I'll try to uphold with the later game aspects as best I can.
There's a whole bunch of tweaks, changes and expansions to the menu screens, weapons, how the enemies work and a lot more. You'll just have to play the game to find out!
Or read about them in the changelog below I guess.
v2.0 Changelog: "The Rework Update"
MAJOR GAMEPLAY CHANGES
fancy bits:
- The game has been switched from Unity's HDRP to URP Rendering
- Rebuilt the entire Main Menu
- Also rebuilt the entire Extras menu
- All loading screens have been updated with hints and level previews
- The HUD layout has been completely altered and redrawn
- Hand-drawn font in menus have been swapped for something more clean
- The End of Act screen has been completely reworked with individual stats per part
- Episode Acts now have ranking scores to achieve
- The pause screen has been completely rebuilt, and can be used to access settings now
player rework:
- Player movement and physics has been completely rebuilt
- The Mouse Wheel can now be used to switch weapons
- The game is now playable with a Controller (ish)
- Timed bunny hops build player velocity until they stop moving
- The camera now shakes in response to weapon fire
- Weapons now have a maximum ammo count / limit
- Gibbing enemies with a fervour punch creates a fervour explosion
- Player now starts levels at a minimum of 50 health
- Dayne has been made gayer
MINOR GAMEPLAY CHANGES
item pickups:
- Picking up an Overcharge at over 200 health no longer resets health back to 200, and counts as a standard
- Picking up weapons you already have plays weapon pickup sound instead of ammo pickup
- Weapon pickup sounds are now all randomly pitch shifted
- The PULSTN now gives plasma ammo for picking up again rather than lite ammo
- You can pick up a chainsaw even if you already have one now
- The Lite Ammo Magazine, Plasma Cartridge & Missile pickups are twice as large now
- Plasma Cartridges no longer have a spotlight around them
- Keycards are larger now and glow vibrantly
- Ammount of ammo per pickup has been increased
- Essence Orbs are larger
health pickup:
- Health pickups now flash with a glowing yellow outline
- Large Health pickups now drop can-tab particles
- Unique audio added for Large Health pickups + pitch shifting for all
- Health vending machines now spawn Health Packs instead of singular cans
- Singular Cans now grant +2 Health instead of +1
effects:
- New tentacles!! Wow!! So smooth!!
- Large Gibs are chunkier now and bouncier
- Leaves now move like leaves kinda
- Petal Saws make sound and create petal explosions when they hit objects
- Dayne's face in the HUD wiggles his eyebrows faster
- Small chance Gibs will splatter on the screen when close to large gib bursts
- Multiple unused Dayne quipps have been re-added and the quipp randomizer has been rebalanced
WEAPON CHANGES
- The TRCHR37 Pump-Action Shotgun has been redesigned
- Added visual changes to all upgraded weapons in workbench
- The HRL3 has been rescaled to account for other gun sizes in comparison
- New fire sound for Double Barrel TRCHR37
- Frostbyte Chainsaw is now visually unique
- The DNK50's rocket fire sound is slightly thumpier
ENEMY CHANGES
- Enemies gain a punch icon when a fervourless punch is available
- Destroying frozen enemies now causes small fervour explosions
- All enemy projectiles have been slowed for better dodging
- All enemy sprites glow slightly for better contrast
- First frame of enemy death animations have a randomly shuffled length for variance
- Rabid Draugr health has been greatly nerfed
- New Death variation for Rabid Draugr when killed with a shotgun
- Rabid Draugr have damaged textures for half health
- Calviscera can now be stunned with bullets
- Calviscera move faster / slower depending on difficulty now (similarly to Draugr)
- Claviscera now turns into a melee enemy when both arms are lost
- Rodent Mechs now shoot randomly angled projectiles
- Rodent Mechs now visually change slightly to show damage progress
- Panopticorpse attack sounds are now pitch shifted randomly
- BloodWillows drop their horns when they die
- Flying Bastards have been reworked with new movement & different bullets
- Acid floors now deal reduced damage
OPTIMISATION
- Enemy corpses have been slimmed down to one object instead of four each
- Triggered weak point colliders now destroy themselves after use
- Health pickups have been reduced from 3 objects per prefab to 1
- Ammo pickups have been reduced from 3 objects per prefab to 1
- Keycards have been reduced from 3 objects per prefab to 1
- Changed various enemy bullets to use object pooling
- Removed volume / post-processing frame upon muzzle flash
NEW OPTIONS & MODIFIERS
- Dynamic FOV: Player FOV now slightly changes depending on movespeed
- Controller Sensitivity for connected gamepads
- Game Speed can be changed for slower or faster gameplay
CAMPAIGN CHANGES
misc
- End of Act screen now uses Space to continue instead of Enter
- Start of Act title cards can now be skipped
- Data LOGS reset on a Full Campaign Reset now
- Jeff Cole now teleports to the player if he's too far away
tutorial
- Rebuilt the entire tutorial again again
the saferoom
- Reworked saferoom workbench visuals to use physical space
- Workbench HUD uses new font and has buttons for mouse input
- Added each weapon's equip sounds to the workbench menu
- Added a workbench essence bar/meter to show weapon upgrade progress
- Fixed some Dialtone segment spelling mistakes
- Completely reworked Dialtone terminal talks to look more like a Visual Novel
- Added more button input options for continuing/skipping visual novel segments
- Visual Novel dialogue is now stereo'd around the camera depending where the characters stand
- Visual Novel segment text is typed out in an animation now
- Dialtone Monitor fade transitions back to gameplay when finished with
- Added THE RIZZ'O'METER to the Saferoom
- Fixed Zeph's Dialtone progression, which has been broken the whole time apparently
episode1 act1
- Loading Act One from the menu now boots straight to [P1] instead of the Title Card
- Rebuilt the entire level from the ground up lmfao [p1]
- Minor décor placement changes [p2]
episode1 act2
- Changed collision mesh for Herold's office table [p2]
- Fixed one-off draugr from breaking SMG pooling [p2]
- Fans on the ceiling no longer damage entities [p2]
- Added extra railings with electricity warning signs [p3]
- Increased collider to trigger Dayne lines when moving downstairs [p3]
- Endless ammo spawners have been placed in the Evil Dummy room [p3]
- The Evil Dummy's health has been halved [p3]
- Tweaked and changed various enemy placements throughout the level [p3]
- Added FX to Christine's radio com lines [p3]
episode1 act3
- Filled the area with tons of ammo [p1]
- Added a higher border around the elevator to prevent flying outwards [p3]
- Added FX to Christine's radio com lines [p2]
episode1 act4
- Stopped the crushing blockades still damaging player once fully closed [p1]
- Christine's balcony has been blocked off from the player's reach [p2]
HORDE MODE
- Original tester room horde map has been removed
- Dungeon Mode has been removed
COSMETICS
- All Outfits have been put under maintenance
- HUD Cosmetics are in the process of being reworked / redesigned
I hope y'all have fun with this update! I'm gonna crack down on making the next few episodes now, I just needed to get everything polished up beforehand so it wasn't this huge, impossible reworking task later on down the line.
This took way longer than expected, but that seems to be a pattern so far lmao.
Until next time!
-Elias