Dev Blog - Taser, Codex, Model (Patreon)

Hello you wonderful patrons,

A shorter blog post than usual, but a very juicy one! Most of our time is currently spent getting the Pre-demo ready for our Admiral Tiers (which launches October 25th!).

The real challenge with this blog post is to ensure a minimum amount of typos, since our 'proofread guy' is currently away so I hope to not disappoint anybody. Here goes!

Completed - Dawn 3D model

Dawn's 3D model is completed! The next step is to rig her up, animate her, render the sprites and add them to GZDoom! We're aiming to get these done before the 10th of October.

The level of texture detail is kept relatively low in this case, given how it's meant as a reference model for sprites (which are rendered in 256x256). A more detailed version will be made later down the line, which will be used for promotional material. The model itself consists of 1.500.000 triangles currently!

As an added bonus: Here is Dawn without any hair! 

(WIP shot from a month ago)

SMG Taser

(For demonstration purposes, the duration of the shock is exaggerated. In reality is last about roughly 5 seconds before the enemy is back on their feet.)

A few days ago we announced our SMG weapon on Twitter (click here for the tweet). As mentioned before, the SMG comes equipped with a taser and we finally got around to add it.

With the SMG equipped, Dawn will use the attached Taser during her melee attack to electrocute enemies. This is a VERY powerful tool, capable of crippling an entire squad of units if you manage to get them grouped together.

When you electrocute an enemy with a melee attack they will enter a 'Shock' state, which immobilizes them for a brief period of time. However, given our ''Geometry Collision'' mechanic, we've been able to add an additional layer of power to this weapon; if you hit an enemy with the taser equipped, and the enemy collides with a nearby wall at enough velocity, it will emit a shockwave which electrocutes everybody in a small radius, the GIF above demonstrates this lovely effect.

Given how powerful this tool is, it will come with a significant cooldown. When the cooldown is active, SMG melee's will behave like a regular melee attack.

Speaking of cooldowns...

Cooldown Indicator

(Icon to the far left is a placeholder)

With the power of CockUI (See our last Blogpost) comes a new addition to the UI: Status Indicators!

Whenever Dawn has a debuff (Frozen, burned), a buff (Double Damage, Evasion) or a cooldown (sliding, SMG Taser), circles appear at the bottom of the screen with will dynamically stack up next to each other, giving you a clear idea of how long something is going to last.

Cover

Borion's voxels are about to become a lot more interactive! I wrote a system that allows the player to knock cover onto their sides for increased protection. Unlike the sequel of a game we take a lot of inspiration from, this will be a useful addition to the players toolset. Currently this feature is exclusive to Stretchers, but will be expanded upon further by giving it to other objects in the near future.

Some voxels can now be punched / slide onto their sides. Doing so will make the object more resistant to enemy fire, and the hitbox of the object will always be high enough to cover the entire body of the player when crouching. 

Remember that all cover is still fully destructible. You are not safe for long, but at least you can return fire from a safe spot.

Pro tip: When taking cover, prioritize the shotgunners. They can easily get rid of any cover you hide behind. If you see a red blinking light, run! It means he is about to shoot.

Halloween Emojis

October is upon us! So we will be theming our Discord channel accordingly. Say hello to the new Dawn emojis that will uploaded to the Discord channel soon. If you want to download all the emojis we have so far, refer to this download link to get them in their full resolution.

Closing

That's it for this week. Given how GIF's dont work on the Patreon App, I've uploaded all the gifs to Imgur!

Thanks again for keeping your pledge up. It's hard to put into words how much this means for us. You allow us to make the game we've always wanted and not a day goes by where we are not grateful for the amount of support we've gotten so far. Patreon has been a relatively slow build up, but the last couple of months have been amazing.

Next week we'll dive deeper in the so called 'Wrist Computer' that is attached to Dawn's arm and show some of her animations. See you then!

- Altered Orbit Studios