Dev Blog - The road to RealmsDeep and a new Weapon (Patreon)

RealmsDeep

We shared our submission for RealmsDeep two weeks ago. You can see the video here. I want to take a moment to reflect on how the process went.

With the rising popularity of Selaco (thanks to you! <3) we knew our chances of getting a RealmsDeep showcase would be relatively high. As such, we planned what we were going to show beforehand. Knowing how many developers are showing their games at the event, we needed to come up with something that would stand out and make us different compared to many other showcases. A trailer was originally planned (we even already wrote dialog for it!) but soon realized that most developers are probably doing a cut action trailer, so the decision was made to go for a raw uncut gameplay video. The goal was to create a brand new level that we have not shown before and use that level for our video.

We assumed that the deadline would be around September. Mostly because that was when RealmsDeep was shown last year and we assumed 3DR wanted to avoid doing RealmsDeep close to QuakeCon, so September still made sense. Unfortunately, after being invited to the super secret RealmsDeep Discord chat, we soon heard that the deadline for our video submission was 2 months earlier than anticipated; July 14th. We did not hear this until about a little over a month prior. Given how we did not want to rush anything and maintain a high production quality to whatever we are doing, this became a problem.

To be perfectly honest with all of you, this hit us with a ton of bricks and was the main reason I needed to take a break a while ago (https://www.patreon.com/posts/development-blog-53048492) . This was our first chance to show the game to an audience that wasn’t Twitter or Discord, so we had to make it count, there was no time to take lenghty breaks. We had a lot of things we wanted to wrap up before recording the video, but even with insane crunch (which is all done by the team's own initiative. I never ask the team to work overtime), this would not have been a realistic target to hit. To top things off, exams and the final stages of an internship also got in the way, meaning I (the lead developer) did not have as much time as I’d like to work on the video.

We made a list of things we needed to do and got to work immediately. The Weapon Upgrade menu you see in the video did not yet exist, the nailgun did not yet exist, the background track did not yet exist, an earthquake system did not yet exist and it was not yet possible for AI to detect if they were alone or not (which is where the ''They are all dead!" line came from) . Everything was made as quickly as humanly possible. For most of us, this was obvious in many cases as we not quite satisfied with a lot of things; the Nailgun’s model did not match the quality of the other guns, the Weaponbar was completely broken (you can see it when I switched to the Shotgun or Nailgun), we had a bug where pieces of Seaweed would randomly show up on undesired locations (the table in the conference room for example) which was secretly kind of hilarious, and many other things that occurred because we rushed things.

I prefer to have some leeway, so recording began 3 days before the deadline. The biggest challenge was completing the demo run in less than 3 minutes, which was how much time we were allocated. To make this work, many things had to be cut. Including a combat snippet against the Juggernaut. I still want to show a ''Directors cut'' of the gameplay trailer at a later point, exclusive to Patreons. But for now we just wanted things to get back on track.

We don't like having to rush things. Submitting the gameplay video gave all of us a bit of a weird aftertaste in our mouths. Selaco has been very polished game for a while now, but weeks before the deadline we got sloppy with the game's development due to pressure. For the past few weeks we have taken our time to polish everything up and fix all the problems that occurred while getting the video ready. We are back on track, the polished gameplay experience has been restored! Let's start with the nailgun.

Nailgun

I mentioned that the Nailgun did not quite match up to our quality standard. Mostly because of how plain the back of the weapon looked. We fixed that! We’ve added some additional doodads on the back and added a small scope on top of the gun (which can be used!) and added a satisfying sound effect that plays when your nails miss their target and end up penetrating the wall. We then proceeded to improve the feedback of the weapon by adding proper death animations. You can now pin enemies onto the wall!

Full HUD Rewrite

Originally, GZDoom uses a so-called ‘’SBARINFO’’ lump to control the HUD in the game. This works in many cases, but ended up being relatively limited and disallowed us to make what we wanted to make.

Even though Selaco is a (mostly) low-res pixelart game, we wanted the HUD elements to appear crisp and sharp. SBARINFO gave us many problems with the scalablity. We love Ultrawide gaming but the current implementation did not allow us to scale things correctly (the visor borders, for example, would break when going Ultrawide). We also wanted the HUD to feel more dynamic. We wanted the HUD to react to whatever is happening to the player. Such as a gentle HUD shake when landing on the ground after a leap or when taking damage. Or HUD effects like hexacons showing up when your armor gets destroyed. You can see some of the effects in our video, but these we’re mostly ‘’hardcoded’’. Playing at any resolution below 1080p or switching to a different aspect ratio would break things. We don’t want that.

Cockatrice is currently rewriting the entire HUD system using Zscript, allowing us full creative freedom and proper HUD scaling. Ultrawide / 4:3 users out there, we got you covered! The essentials are done, we’re currently adding the other bells & whistles. We will share some video later on!

New weapon: SMG

While the Nailgun is mostly finished (outside of some little bugs that still have to be ironed out), Silvia and John are working on the next weapon: The SMG.

The SMG is a standard issue weapon used by the ACE Security force. With a high rate of fire and limited recoil, this weapon will be a reliable choice in close range encounters and semi-reliable in medium range encounters; capable of dishing out more Damage Per Second than the Assault Rifle at the cost of ammo efficiency and a much higher spread.

Below the barrel we have a mounted Taser! All guns have their very own melee attack, most of which knock enemies away from you. The SMG however, has the added benefit of also shocking the enemy during the punch. This means that stunned enemies will need more time getting back up. Granting you more time to eliminate your target or to deal with the strays while the other guy is still trying to get back on his feet.

Just like with the nailgun, we will show video when it’s done!

Studio Name

Next week! :) After RealmsDeep, we will continue development of Selaco as a game studio, rather than an individual (currently Selaco is credited as a game by ''Wesley de Waart'' (me)). But the game is a team effort these days so it no longer felt right to credit myself. We will announce the name and logo on Patreon next week.

Revising Old Assets

Selaco changed a lot. Many of our past assets did not age well, so we are diving back in to revise these.

Frag, Ice and Poison grenades.

DISCORD GIFS

To all Patrons who are not in the Discord Chat, we often post development videos in the Showcase channel. If you are interested in seeing that sort of stuff, remember to join our server (https://discord.com/invite/qDvNcMmSee)! The gifs below come from the Discord channel.

Testing Earthquakes

Pipe Bursts - All brown pipe textures spawn steam. When the pipe runs out, steam will no longer spawm.

Discord Emojies. Because obviously!

Unused Sketches for the end-trailer banner.

That's it for this week! I would like to do a Q&A soon. If you have any burning questions regarding the game or any of it's developers, comment below or send me a DM on Discord! I will answer them in the next Patreon Blog post.

We hope to see you again next week! Tons of exciting things coming up that we cannot wait to show you!

As usual, massive thanks for backing us!

Kind Regards,

Wesley de Waart