Introduction + Announcement
Hey everyone! Everyone here has been hard at work getting ready for our next large phases of development. We've been improving systems, adding a lot more substance/finality to environment sets, and overhauling sound design in its near-entirety.
We are currently getting ready to launch a Kickstarter for SCP: Pandemic. We are incredibly confident we're at a stage where we can finally do this... and well, do it right. This isn't to mention that we're all incredibly nervous about this, but we think it's the best course to fund the remainder of the project up until the Early Access release. We are thankful for the backings of mod.io's Modularity label, Offworld Industries (known for Squad), and the fantastic SCP and tactical shooter communities that have supported us and helped us reach this point.
The thing we're most terrified of is overhyping/unintentional misrepresentation of the project, its ambitions, and our capabilities. Affray is a great team, and we've learned a lot over the time we've been making games and tools - but we don't want people to think we're some mystical A-team. We have and will make mistakes, and we don't want people to assume this is gonna be the best game ever or anything of the sort. We're still human, life happens, and this is all a lot of work.
So, no earlier than June 2021 is when we want this game to start up on Kickstarter. We will have some exclusive rewards for the 30-day campaign, so be sure to check it out when we start it!
We are excited to announce that we are now officially partnered with Black Site to work on our Kickstarter campaign together! We have been friends with these guys for over two years now, and we are super happy to officially partner up. They will be working with us behind the scenes on more administrative tasks and responsibilities, as well as helping us reach out to other strategic partners, such as content creators and other companies. Affray and Black Site share a similar vision and see eye-to-eye on how we feel things should be done, and so far we have worked very well together. Black Site has been advocates of ours for a long time now, so we look forward to continuing our work with them in a more official capacity!
General Development
Audio
We have recently decided to migrate SCP: Pandemic's audio engine to FMOD, rather than stock Unreal Engine 4. This has been a massive improvement on its own, with far more immersive environmental spatialization, reverb, and alike. This also allows our sound engineers and composers to work outside of the editor with FMOD Studio, where the audio banks directly export to Unreal Engine. This is a massive workflow improvement for the audio team, and in general makes SCP: Pandemic higher fidelity.
Audio is incredibly important to Affray, so anything we can do to improve its pipeline and quality is always a major plus in our book.
As for specifics, we have created new sounds for:
- Hydraulic blast doors
- Existing and new weapons
- Environmental soundscapes + more
Art and Design
We have been continuing work on the environment, as well as working on crucial assets needed for the weapons of the game. Some notable work includes:
First Psi-Z concept art
Psi-Z are an artificially-made series of anomalies made by The Foundation in our addition to the SCP-5000 canon. They are being designed to infect and kill civilians in global attacks. You are a team of GOC members and Foundation defectors trying to prevent the Psi-Z from being utilized in the field by attacking Area 12, the site where they are being made.
Bullets and casings
These will be used for (big surprise) bullet casings, as well as for magazines when you are reloading.
Common Room map assets
Railings
Other map work
Programming and Gameplay
We’ve added two new weapons to the game:
- The UMP-45 - a slow firing but hard-hitting and accurate SMG chambered in .45 ACP
- The M24A3 - a powerful bolt action sniper chambered in .338 Lapua with a 5-round magazine, that can pierce through multiple zombies and their surroundings
Please note that the textures and animations currently used here are placeholders.
There have been several updates to the weapons and ballistics systems over the course of the month in order to accommodate the new and future weapons of the game.
Bolt/pump-action support has been added, as well as case ejections for each of the calibers.
In addition to this, different weapons can now have different penetration values, alongside some optimizations to ballistics to improve performance for shotguns when they arrive.
A number of animation improvements have also been made, including active ragdolls on zombies and players, third person hand IK for players, and better sprinting, crouching, aiming, and leaning.
The horde system’s backend is now finished and ready to be implemented in-game, this will allow us to have huge amounts of coordinated zombies with much better performance and AI. Expect more info on this soon as we integrate it into the game.
Conclusion
We are now entirely focused on getting ourselves and the game ready for a crowdfunding round! We have a lot of big plans to announce on Kickstarter. Stay tuned and be sure to follow us to stay updated on SCP: Pandemic's development, even if you're just here for the pictures.