Week 3
Hi and welcome to the third development blog for Unleash!
The game is slowly gearing up for the Steam Early Access release. The general focus this week has been on improving the graphics of the game, as well as testing and improving the stability of our upcoming game modes, which I have been teasing the past few weeks. Additionally, a new monster will join the fold in the next game update.
New Monster: Rifteye
The new monster, Rifteye, will be included in the next game update. It is a monster that we have been wanting to introduce for a while. Basically, it acts as a portal for other monsters. While alive, spawned monsters can appear at the location of the Rifteye, rather than at the normal spawn area. This enables you to spawn monsters inside your enemy’s base, potentially to devastating effect. However, there are some limitations:
- It can only spawn same or lower tier monsters.
- It can only spawn ground monsters.
- It builds up “spawn charges” over time, and it costs a charge to spawn.
- It is quite weak and moves slowly, so keeping it alive can be challenging.
The Rifteye represents a ‘harder difficulty monster’, like our Munchmonster. It is only worth anything when used correctly in conjunction with other monsters, and as such is regarded as a ‘harder to use’ monster that may interest pro players, while newbies should probably steer clear until they understand how to use it.
(The new Rifteye monster is shown here as a 3D model rendering with applied outline)
Graphics Update Continued
Last week we tweaked the lighting settings and applied more image effects. This week, we have been going through the particle system VFX associated with individual monsters and towers. The list of entities having their graphics updated is too long to mention them all, but a common improvement was to increase emission and to set up shader-based ‘pulsating’ effects for the emission map of some monsters, such as the Snowripper and Magmaback.
(A short .gif to showcase the new graphical updates/improvements)
Additionally, we have changed the skybox, tweaked the light and reflection settings and finally we have discussed and tested different camera zoom levels. The dilemma is that the graphics of the game are more visible and impactful at closer camera zoom, but the tradeoff is a loss of overview gameplay-wise. Through many discussions and numerous tests, we have arrived at a new zoom level which is closer to the world (less zoomed out), but still at a point where we feel the tactical overview is maintained.
Splined Lightning Bolts
We have rewritten our lightning bolts to base them on ‘splines’, which we think makes them look much more interesting and ‘alive’. The splining algorithm utilizes ‘Catmull-Rom’ and is therefore very fast, while giving us the smooth, soft curves that we desire. The effect is minimized for connected Tesla Coil towers, but very visible for Lightning AA Towers and for Crackleclouds to some extent. The bolts are still colored differently, although we still have some tweaking to do on the colors.
(Short .gif to show the new splined lightning bolt effects)
Game Modes Release
I’ve been teasing the release of two new game modes; the Sandbox and Classic Tower Defense modes for a little while now. This past week we have been testing, bug fixing and improving the stability of the new game modes. We are planning to include both in the next game update, which will probably be released at the start of next week. The Classic Tower Defense mode is a singleplayer towers-only experience. You build up your base, while the monsters come in waves. The Sandbox mode is a completely open, unlimited experimentation box for you to test things out and play around in. For an elaborated explanation of the game modes, read last week’s development blog post.
(Shows the create menu after selecting ‘Classic Tower Defense’. Right now there are two scenarios to play, we will add more and eventually - you can add your own!)
Closing Remarks
We play Unleash every week, and you can join us for our play sessions. Next one is Tuesday the 17th of October at 17:00 / 5 PM (CET). Join us online for a multiplayer Unleash match!
If you want to see how we play, but cannot join the play session, you can watch gameplay videos without commentary through our Twitch profile. We live stream each session.
If you haven’t already, get your free Unleash beta Steam key through our website. The free open beta will run for a limited time period, so use the chance to try it out now for free with your friends!
And remember… Monsters never come alone.