Dev Blog #66 - Lots of progress! (Patreon)

Greetings!

Unfortunately, we had to skip a blog post last month, so my apologies for the long silence. There's not a lot of time left to finish our Early Access build of the game, so trying to squeeze in a window of time to write these things has gotten increasingly harder. I promise I'll be back on a regular schedule after the game has launched and we begin working on the rest of the game.

But we're here now, and to make up for it, it's full of images and gifs!

Enjoy!

Ice Grenade rework

They were quite lackluster before. They would freeze and completely immobilize enemies, but you would have to do a follow-up yourself to kill them, which often involves switching weapons. In a way, this works, sure, but it's too involved for something like the Grenade Launcher; where you can use Ice Grenades as an ammo type that requires time to switch towards. We didn't like it, our testers didn't like it, so it was time for a change.

So instead, given the rarity of Ice Grenades, we've turned them into beefed-up Frag Grenades with a much larger radius and some added functionality.

Anyone close to the point of the explosion will shatter into a bunch of ice chunks; anyone unfortunate enough to survive the blast will instead be frozen (or, in case of higher tier enemies, get slowed down). Frozen enemies die in a single melee hit and take twice the amount of damage from any damage source.

Behold, ice!

During the making of this section I've backspaced 4 different ice puns, I couldn't do it.

Artwork

We want to launch with new key art, so we've got something cooking! Have a sketch

Secret Tracker

We've added a hidden mechanic to Selaco that allows players to locate secrets easier. Every level will have a Multimeter tool in it. It looks like a random prop, but it has hidden functionality.

Picking it up will cause it to beep. The frequency of the beeping is based on the distance of the nearest secret. You can, in theory, take a Secret Tracker from the first level, and carry it with you all the way until the end of the game!

Markers

Markers are now placed at the point you are aiming at, rather than in front of the player's feet. A small change, but so worthwhile

SPACE BRO rework

We've gotten to work on, arguably, the most important change we've made in recent years; we made SPACE BRO fun!

Whenever we looked at streams of people playing the demo, they never bothered playing SPACE BRO for longer than 30 seconds because it didn't feel great to play. The Asteroid-style game with tank controls where you have to defend Earth from incoming meteors never felt right, and we knew that going in, but time was short so we launched with what we had at the time.

We've turned SPACE BRO into an auto-scroller and accidentally made it pretty damn fun (and addictive). New enemy types, upgrades, a faster-paced style, and, best of all, the player gets healed for every stage they complete!

Burger Flipper

Speaking of in-universe videogames, Burger Flipper is officially finished and has proven to be a hit among testers. You can find it in one of the later levels!

Zynzu Entertainment is ready with their marketing push, too. So expect plenty of Burger Flipper posters around the world.

We showed a short video on Twitter a few days ago and everybody assumed it was an April Fools joke. Oh well.

Fruitful Computer

New voxels! Finally, Selaco is a getting a premium computer system aimed towards people with far too much money. The thousands of PHILD monitors you come across in Selaco are about to get some actual competition in the computer market.

At roughly 12 times the price, you can get a computer that's at least 8% faster. Oh, you can't play games on it, so don't bother installing Burger Flipper.

They even have packaging!

EDIT:

I could not resist. Right as I wrote this, I decided to add them to the game. Even this GIF feels overpriced.

Water Bottle

Many years into Selaco's development and we finally asked ourselves ''Wait, why does nobody drink water in this universe"

Happy to announce that Selaco now has water bottles ready to be consumed for 1HP. Thank you, Hydrocy!

(A water splash effect when drinking is currently missing)

Personal Containers

Selaconian residents can now store their belongings in nice, sturdy, colorful containers. Surely, no players will attempt to destroy these with their guns!

Danger Indicator Improvements

This one is a bit more subtle, but still something I want to mention as it has been criticized a handful of times on the internet.

Danger Indicator from incoming explosions now properly adjusts to elevation. In the demo, it's one big circle that completely ignores staircases and slopes, resulting in a gigantic floating circle that looked way off.

This new solution properly considers these things.

Casting Call

We made a casting call on Twitter asking for voice actors to voice Friendly NPC's and background noises. I was expecting roughly 50 or 60 submissions from this, but instead, we got so much more.

As soon as the next Playtest build is ready and we invited our third batch of testers, I'm going to start plowing through these auditions. I'll be honest, I am not looking forward to it, but we do have some cool stuff cooking up, including a brand new voice cameo that I cannot announce yet.

644 voice reels though... Phew, that'll be a while.

EDIT: 717 now!

Grenade Swap indicators

Swapping to a different grenade will now be properly displayed on the HUD. We've been using an ugly placeholder for far too long.

Fire Damage

Dawn can burn now, and so can NPCs!

Like many shooters, standing close to fire will cause the player to burn and take damage over time. We are not different here, but we did decide to add a small mechanic to it. Dawn can slide and do dashes, so this can be used to mitigate damage and shorten the burn timer. Just don't accidentally slide yourself into more danger, which has happened to me a couple times and that's how I knew we had a fun mechanic in our hands.

Apologies for the VAC-Bot driving straight into the flame. That was an unprompted horror :(

Level 5 - Exodus Plaza

We are currently doing a polishing pass for the 5th level. It's already completed, but we decided to give it some extra love. It is, after all, a mall! It has to be good.

Have some screenshots of the current state!

Smooth Level Transitions

As I've said many times in the past, we aim for Selaco to be one smooth, uncut journey from start to finish. Whenever there's a strange jump or teleport, that illusion is shattered.

In the current demo build, that is always the case. Loading zones are never smooth, you never stand in the same spot after loading, and any props that got damaged will suddenly be restored because they are not destroyed in the new level.

That has all been changed. We managed to find a way for these things to carry over.

Have a look at how I move this chair to a different spot, enter a loading zone, and have the chair stand on the exact same spot it used to be. Much smoother! Player position is also stored, so you no longer jump to a different spot you weren't before.

Conclusion

Less than 2 months left! Are we ready?

For the next blog post, we are going to discuss how we will continue with our Patreon moving forward, because we do have some fun plans for post-launch, if you choose to continue supporting post-launch development!

Again, thank you for your continuous support

Wesley de Waart