Hello again!
For this playtest update, we focused on making more interesting and challenging levels that are also more visually appealing.
To achieve that, we have redone the road navigation system, which now supports a new feature: branching paths. This feature means that at certain milestones, players choose which direction the caravan should take, and each path has its own challenges and theme to make the level feel different. As a playtest version, we have only introduced this to one level, but we have experimented with the road navigation in other levels as well.
We have made night levels scarier and more challenging by exploring a new game mode where Mom's vehicle will not stop until it reaches the final destination. Can you keep up with her and keep her safe?
Lighting has also improved: we changed our workflow to use baked lighting, which should enhance performance and allow for more immersive, detailed light and shadows.
Finally, we designed and added new upgrades for the Campervan that will make Mom a formidable tank when fully upgraded! There are many more upgrades that we have designed and would love to make available in a later release.
That’s the highlights, here are the high-level patch notes:
- Added new levels, each with its own special theme and mechanics.
- Added new road system that allows for branching paths and more organic vehicle movement.
- Added diagonal animations to the playable characters.
- Added turret upgrade. This replaces the placeholder sentry but has more power and visual upgrades.
- Added side turret upgrade. This can be placed in front of the vehicle and shoots to the sides at enemies close to Mom.
- Added over 30 new assets for the new levels (trucks, containers, new pueblo houses, construction props, signs, vehicles, decals, points of interest) and many more.
- Added cinematic camera panning when entering a level.
- Changed how enemies spawn; now they should not spawn so close to players.
- Changed how points of interest spawn interactable (fuel barrels and scrap boxes), now more predictable and avoiding unreachable areas.
- Changed players’ physics material to improve collisions with the environment.
- Fixed sentries not shooting enemies that were too close.
- Fixed pathfinding where enemies could get stuck on small corners.
- Fixed missing radiation map for enemies; only some were radiating at night.
- Fixed issue with loading screen text being visible when the loading screen was fading out.
- Fixed cactus pivots spawning in the middle of the road.
We want to keep the change list short and focus on relevant and visible points, but there are MANY more changes, tweaks, balancing, fixes, internal tools improvements, and more that we have been working on!
Our focus is to create fun and challenging levels with meaningful progression. There is still much more to do, but we hope this update is a step closer to achieving that!
We would appreciate any feedback you can provide!
That’s all for now! Greetings from Mom!