🧟 Devlog #2 — Weapons, Bugs, and Heavy Metal
Hey survivors! 🤘
Welcome back to the second devlog for Contagion Protocol, the heavy-metal zombie-crushing roguelike. Development is still rolling full steam ahead (early mornings and late nights!), and here's what I've been hammering out since our last update:
🎮 Major Progress & Updates:
⚔️ Weapon Systems & Gameplay Improvements:
- Orbiting Cleaver has been polished! It now cleanly spawns additional blades as you level up (capped at 5 blades). Each blade evenly spaces out around your character, ensuring smooth rotation and satisfying zombie carnage.
- Refined weapon behaviors for Reverse Shotgun and Radial Burst—both now correctly scale their fire rates with your passive AttackSpeed stat.
- Bullet lifespans and damage outputs are now consistent and easily adjustable per weapon, ensuring a balanced experience.
🔧 Core Game Management Improvements:
- Significant cleanup of GameManager logic: smoother weapon instantiation, better handling of upgrades, and runtime adjustments to equipped weapons and passives.
- Fixed a tricky bug where passive upgrades weren't consistently affecting bullet-based weapons. Now your upgrades pack the punch they promise!
🎵 Music & Audio Enhancements:
- Added custom fade durations and crossfading between looping tracks, but encountered (and currently debugging!) some issues where Main Menu music doesn’t trigger correctly in the built game. Audio debugging is underway, and it's top priority!
- Level-up music stings now correctly trigger, giving each upgrade selection an impactful feel.
🐞 Bug Squashing & Optimization:
- Addressed major bugs related to returning to the Main Menu after death: previously, characters would disappear and buttons broke. Now the GameManager properly cleans up stale references, ensuring clean transitions between scenes.
- Improved stability of zombie spawning waves, preparing the system for future "Horde Waves" that will trigger special dynamic heavy-metal tracks.
📅 What’s Next?
- Resolving the audio issues for crossfades and Main Menu music playback is priority number one.
- Implementing dynamic music changes during intense waves and boss encounters.
- Continuing work on additional weapons, traits, and exciting visual/audio feedback on upgrades.
- Preparing the first playable demo aiming for Steam Next Fest later this year!
🙌 Why Your Support Matters
- Every wishlist, follow, and comment fuels the passion and determination behind this project. I'm fully committed to delivering a game that's rewarding, chaotic, and drenched in heavy metal—without DLC or paywalls.
- Thanks for following the journey of Contagion Protocol. Keep the ideas and feedback coming—I’m listening to every one of you.
Stay brutal,
– Para82 🤘
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