I went into this update with the intention of doing a bunch of Uptown-exclusive content, and while there’s some of that in here, I also ended up spending like 5 days making functional Firefighters (non-playable for now!). Also, fixing a whole bunch of bugs.
My general rule is that if I catch a bug during development and it’s not necessarily easy to reproduce, I drop what I’m doing to try and fix it. This is often the case with AI bugs, which are notoriously frustrating to try and replicate from user reports. Fortunately for me, I encountered a lot of these elusive AI bugs while getting Firefighters to do their thing. So that was a nice surprise.
Though Uptown didn't get as much attention as I was planning this week, I've still made the game playable through 5-3. Expect a drip-feed of level-specific updates to Uptown and other levels throughout the game's Early Access development.
For next week, my primary focus will be on creating new Disasters -- an area of the game that hasn’t gotten much love in awhile.
In other news, March 10 marks Streets of Rogue’s 1-year anniversary in Early Access. While there’s no way to really quantify the work that’s been done in this period, the number of personally-written lines in my code base increased by about 40%. For a game with a 4+ year development time, that’s pretty hefty. (And for those interested, the final line tally was like 200,000, with 80,000 written in the past year.)
For this week’s Fortnight Discussion, I’m looking for input on how certain things in the game should function. Specifically: Fountain, Well, Satellite Dish, Arcade Game, Barbecue, Fireplace, Gravestone, ATM machine, and of course, Toilet.
Alpha 46
Levels
- Game is now playable through 5-3
Music
- New Track “Floor 5-3 Tell It To My Cardiologist, Why Dontcha” added to soundtrack owners’ libraries
Achievements
- Uptown Upper-Cruster achievement can be earned
Non-Playable Characters
- Firefighter - Yes, they will actually come and put out fires. In the future, I’ll likely be giving them some sort of water cannon bionic arm, because right now they use Fire Extinguishers, which is lame.
- Alien - Sorta hidden right now and not very fleshed out, but can you find him????
New Environments
- Fire Station
- Broadcasting Station
- Outdoor pits surrounded by fences
New Objects
- ATM Machine - Not fully functional, but check out this week’s Fortnight Discussion!
- Fountain - Also see this week’s Fortnight Discussion!
- Satellite Dish - Same deal!
- Desk - Finally, office buildings have proper desks instead of home/bar tables
New Items
- Fire Extinguisher
Characters
- Player can borrow money from any Bank, even if they are not an Investment Banker.
- Debt money can no longer be paid back to Drug Dealers, Shopkeepers, etc. It must be transferred through either an ATM Machine, or the Clerk at the Bank.
Graphics
- Pieces of Wreckage will disappear when they move over Holes or Conveyor Belt
- Fix for Fire particle effects sometimes appearing to face the wrong direction
- Fix for items sometimes having extremely bright lighting as the player progressed further into the game
- Fix for people becoming too bright when bunched up together in a group
UI / Controls
- Fix for text “E_ObjectAgent” appearing on cursor
Playfield Objects
- Sign appears at the beginning of Level 5-1
- Power Box hit points reduced from 50 to 30
- When Fires in objects like Flaming Barrels are extinguished, fire no longer returns if the player goes away and comes back
- Fires in objects like Flaming Barrels being extinguished is displayed properly on multiplayer client
- Fix for Fires continuing to spread after being extinguished
- Extinguishing a Fire no longer causes the object or wall to be destroyed
- Fix for Fireplace appearing inside walls on multiplayer client
- Fix for Fires not being destroyed properly internally when they are destroyed by being extinguished in some way
- Taking damage from status effects no longer causes the player to become un-hidden from Bushes
- Player is more likely to auto-aim at Exploding Barrel
- Fix for situations where Gas would continue spewing from vents permanently when it was not supposed to
- Potential fix for people being teleported on top of manholes
- Fix for player Cops being able to go through blue Lasers without setting off the metal detector
Items
- Fix for Hypnotizer not working properly on gamepad after first level
Combat
- Fix for Flamethrower causing knockback on dead bodies on multiplayer client
Sound
- Fix for Wall Break sound not playing on multiplayer client when Fire destroyed a wall
Events
- Fix for not being able to exit Arena if opponents are Zombified rather than completely neutralized
Missions
- Player may receive missions to Neutralize a person roaming the streets, typically with armed guards or a gang
Mutators
- Random Mutators mutator now keeps all the initial mutators you select and does not replace them with new ones
- Random Mutators now works properly when you disable certain level themes
- Fix for incorrect music tracks playing during Quick Game mutator
- Fix for Disasters not always appearing on the correct levels in Endless mode when Quick Game is activated
- Fix for bodies not being destroyed properly in the Exploding Bodies mutator if the player was very far away when the body exploded
- Fix for recently-added mutators causing the Home Base to have non-standard “level themes”
Level Generation
- Gangsters may be seen roaming the streets in gangs of 3 or 4
- Musician may be seen roaming the streets with armed Goons
- Uptown mansions may be filled with Vampires or Mobsters
- Wood walls appear more frequently
- Fix for Bouncers not spawning next to Mine Cart/Train Tracks
- Fix for Water sometimes appearing where Ice was supposed to during Mixed-Up Levels mutator
- Fix for lights above Lakes not spawning on multiplayer client
- Fix for Door, Window and other objects occasionally facing the wrong direction in certain buildings
Artificial Intelligence
- Added lots of AI revolving around extinguishing fires
- Better pathfinding around Fire Hydrant sprays
- Fix for property owners becoming Hostile toward Invisible people who open doors in their presence
- Fix for Bouncer requesting money from the player upon talking to him after completing Arena fight
- Fix for NPCs in roving gangs sometimes not fighting the player when they were too far away from their starting position
- Fix for NPCs sometimes appearing to run back to the object they were observing when they come into the player’s view
- Fix for NPCs with only one object to observe repeatedly walking away from that object for a split second and then returning to it
- Fix for instance where NPCs could get confused on what to do next while battling the player, as a result of paying too much attention to certain noises where the player destroyed their property
- Fix for NPCs running away from fire that had spawned in a different building
- Fix for NPCs continuing to gather around Television long after it had been hacked to produce High Volume
- After being hearing the hacking noise, NPCs no longer continue to search for the player for as long as the hacking interface is on the screen -- rather, they only perform one search
- Fix for certain situations where NPCs could become stuck in place while searching for the player during combat
- Fix for certain situations where pathfinding and movement for NPCs would stop working
- NPCs are slightly better at using the Flamethrower
- NPCs no longer have difficulty attacking objects that block their view, like Trees and Shelves
- NPCs are less likely to walk on Train and Mine Cart Tracks
- Supercops no longer become Hostile toward normal Cops who attack or arrest Guilty people in their presence
- Fix for NPCs sometimes not running out of buildings when the building is gassed
Text
- Bunch of Russian Language fixes and additions (thanks to the Russian Streets of Rogue community on vk)
- Added clarification in Super Studious description that this trait results in fewer Chicken Nuggets per level-up
- Flesh Feast description changed to highlight the fact that it only works on non-neutralized people
Other
- Updated 2D Toolkit plugin from 2.5.8.8 to 2.5.8.9
Alpha 46b
- Fix for “Uptown Upper-Cruster” achievement not triggering
- Fix for one of the Music Halls being able to have both Wood and Normal walls
- ATM Machines appear closer to walls
Alpha 46c
- Fix for Uptown 3 not having a disaster
- Fix for Uptown 3's title appearing as "Uptown 1"
Alpha 46d
- Fix for “Uptown Upper-Cruster” achievement not triggering (for real this time)
Alpha 46e (March 11)
- Cop Bots are hackable
- Firefighters will fight Oil Fires
- Better Fire performance
- Fix for NPCs sometimes having a psychic ability to know when you committed a crime, particularly relating to Fire
- Fix for certain things in a level not working properly when too many fires were set, easily indicated by fires not appearing
- Fix for Random Level Themes mutator not functioning properly
- Fix for Security Cameras sometimes being able to spot the player when they are in a different building
- Fix for Thief being able to steal Key and Safe Combination from the player
- Minor performance improvement to multiplayer client due to certain invisible objects not being spawned now
- Fireproof Suit is selectable in Character Creation, and may appear as a Loadout item
- Fix for walls near Uptown Pits not always being the correct type
- Fix for Supercops and Cop Bots becoming immediately Hostile toward the player during Riot
- Another attempted fix for permanently falling down Manholes
- Fix for Alien displaying an error message when spoken to
- Fix for Firefighter interaction dialogue not appearing
Alpha 46f
- Fix for certain items that required the player to target something in the environment being unusable
Alpha 46g (March 12) (Last one hopefully!)
- Fix for Hologram Bigfoot being capable of taking damage
- Fix for items sometimes not appearing in Rogue Vision mode
- Fix for Zombies having their shadows visible immediately after zombification in Rogue Vision mode