Works in Progress - Murder 1 & Murder 5 (Patreon)

Sorry it's been so long since the last time I posted progress, I kept wanting to get even more done before sharing, but that's the point of sharing work "in progress" right? So here are some of the Murder-related things I've been working on since releasing Price Guess.

I finally recovered the original Murder Unity project, and brought it into the Murder 4 unity project! I should be able to recreate all the old game mechanics with Udon/Murder 4 code, and re-release "Murder 1" sometimes soon. I basically just have to re-animate certain interactive assets like doors and furniture.

If you ever wondered what happened to Murder 1, and why it doesn't exist right now: Long ago I made a world called "Murder!! (Game)" using the old SDK (vrchat content creation tools). It didn't work too well. Eventually I just re-created everything, including modifying the map significantly, to make Murder 2. I just uploaded it in place over what used to be Murder 1, so people could find the world easier. Since Murder 2 was basically just an upgrade to Murder 1 in every way, I figured this was fine. But going forward, I realized I should just upload them separately. I didn't bother updating the SDK in the Murder 1 unity project for a really long time, until now. The world should probably be fun for nostalgia's sake or if you're curious what Murder used to look like a long time ago, but just be warned the map is really small.

Although the layout is totally complete yet (still), I started working on actual art for Murder 5's cruise ship themed map. I would like to finish this one room before working on the rest of the map, just to have something nice to show and establish a level of detail that I am happy with. I call it the "atrium," and it's inspired by the Titanic's iconic grand staircase. Since I guess every Murder map needs some kind of big main staircase room?

I finally finished programming a new system which muffles or completely mutes another player's voice if they are on a different floor of the map, or behind a closed door. Tweaking this to work perfectly in the right circumstances was important so I could tell if this 3-story floor plan would work okay. Otherwise you could just hear everyone everywhere and that would be weird.
I also completely rewrote how doors are coded and animated for Murder 5. Unlike in Murder 4, they should very rarely be out of sync between players, should work for late joiners spectating the game, and should have as little latency as possible so people don't appear to run through them so much. There are also double-doors on this map, and possibly a "revolving door" if I can get it to work well.

I also finished the death animation system I showed in my last Murder 5 video briefly. After some major changes to the other parts of the code I basically had to start over on that. One important thing to consider was that if you aren't in a humanoid avatar, you should teleport to the lobby when you die, like in Murder 4.
I have more ideas related to combat in Murder 5, like showing how exactly you died, and more advanced blood splatters, which is what I'm working on now.

I also finally have an actual idea for the lobby area, because up until now I was just focused on the layout of the actual ship that you play in. The idea is to make the lobby take place on a dock/boardwalk with an indoor ticketing/reception area. I have some major revisions in mind already, but for now I have a decent start on what the interior/exterior and seating (yes actual furniture) could look like in here.

I also finally did some play testing with groups of various sizes. The idea is to get feedback and data regarding the overall size of the map, sightlines for firearms, convenient knife spawn points, and just overall flow. From what I have seen so far, the map is almost but not quite the right overall size, and certain areas like the hallways and staircases need to be less complex.

Since I'm rewriting all of Murder 5 from scratch to be more optimized and organized and stuff, the list of features still left to do is pretty long. Plus there are new features (like the death animation and voice muting) that are pretty experimental, and I have to actually make sure they are possible. I'm pretty excited for these new ideas though-- they might make the game very different, and might prevent a lot of common game exploits.

And that's not even counting all the art for the environment, which I want to actually make 100% custom by myself (as few assets from other games as possible/reasonable, unless they're free or something). I am almost ready to continue on art beyond the Atrium, but I feel like I'm limited to certain rooms that I know for sure will be included in the map, within reason... the floor plan just needs more play testing before I can commit to certain art assets. For example, I just can't wait to start on the art for the smoking lounge, but I need to test how large or small it should be just a bit more first.

I've also tried out a few smaller ideas this last month, not related to murder... and surprisingly almost all of them were pretty great! I will make another post about two new ideas in a day or two, they should probably get their own post with different tags, and maybe a video. So check back soon, thanks!