This one took a little longer than normal, but the Final Days v0.23 update is now out! There are a lot of changes in this update, but the main focus is on game play modes.
- Changes to Last Stand Mode
Last Stand mode has got a bit of an overhaul. Here's a summary of the main changes:
- The levels are now broken into "days" and each day has 5 waves.
- Once you complete a day, the following day will be unlocked and you can now continue or even start a new game from that day. Progress will even be synced with Steam Cloud!
- Revamped how enemy progression and scaling works to give a more fun (yet still challenging) difficulty progression.
- New Game Mode: Campaign
The basic idea of this mode is that your base has been overrun by mutants, and now you must evacuate and rendezvous at the extraction point in 7 days time. It basically strings several Last Stand maps together with each one representing a day that you must complete to progress. - New Game Mode: Escape
In this mode the idea is that you're trapped in the lower levels of a bunker, and you need to fight your way to the surface and escape. Rather than having to kill all enemies like in Last Stand mode, you instead just need to find the exit for each floor. However, you don't know where the exit is and the mini-map uses fog-of-war to hide it from you. The levels are also procedurally generated and will be different on each play through. - Made several changes to try and better balance item drops. This should hopefully make the game a bit more consistent, and avoid the "feast or famine" situations that could previously occur with item drops.
- Added a radial ammo selection menu. This should make ammo selection a bit easier (particularly for controllers) when you have a lot of different types. To open it, hold reload.
- The total ammo clips you're carrying is now shown in your HUD. This should hopefully make it more obvious how much you're carrying, and why you can't pick any more ammo up. This info is also shown above other players heads so that you can tell if they might need some additional ammo.
- Partial ammo clips can now be dropped. So now you can make space in your inventory without having to empty a clip by shooting.
- Replaced the field of view effect with a new rolling fog effect. This new effect fits the game a little better than the old "TV static" effect and creates a bit more atmosphere.
- Added an option to manually control the camera zoom. When enabled, you can toggle the camera zoom level using "Left Ctrl" on keyboard or "D-Pad Up" on controller.
- Menus are now scaled based on your resolution.
- Added an option to unlock the frame rate. (I recommend locking to 60fps for the optimal experience, but the option is at least there now for those that like to run at max FPS.)
- Several fixes!
There were also many other changes and fixes. For further details, you can view the full changelog on the forums.
Please be aware that while I did my best to play test this new version as much as possible, there may still be some issues or things that need tweaking. So if you do come across any issues, then please let me know and I will work with you to resolve them as quickly as possible.
Also, while I have done a lot of work on "Escape Mode" so far, I still consider it to be in its early stages and requiring some more work. So I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts and ideas about this mode.
As usual, the best place to reach me is on the forums. For other ways of contacting me, check out the "Welcome to Final Days" forum post. I will endeavour to read and consider everything you post.
By the way, now that this update is out I'm planning on organising another official multiplayer session very soon. Subscribe to this new forum thread to receive notifications about any upcoming sessions.
Thanks for playing, and I hope you enjoy the update! :)
Cheers,
Mike