Developer Blog - New Weapon and lots of progress! (Patreon)

Good day, everyone!

Last blog post didn’t show much significant progress due to technical difficulties, but we’re fully operational again and we’ve managed to get back on track. There’s a lot to show here, so let's jump in.

This blog post is filled with GIFs. Remember that the mobile app for Patreon does not play these correctly.

Plasma Rifle Progress

Because of the demo announcement we’ve seen a significant rise in the amount of patrons (Thank you!), allowing us to move forward with the Plasma Rifle a little earlier than originally planned. The model is in the works and is almost finished. Here is what the model currently looks like.

We have shown the concept piece before, but here it is again for easy comparison!

And now for the model:

There are a couple things we are going to revise. After seeing the model, I am not quite fond of the scope. It looks too small and impractical, so we’re expanding it a bit, as well as getting rid of the tube that is also on the other side of the weapon; it’s only supposed to be on the left side.

I’m expecting the model to be finished before the next Patreon blog hits, so I’m looking forward to sharing the model!

Brand new weapon: DMR (Designated Marksman Rifle)

The Plasma Rifle was supposed to be the final weapon in the weapon roster, until we realized we have a severe lack of reliable long-range weapons in Selaco. Sure, the Roaring Cricket (Magnum) has pixel-perfect accuracy but does not have the ability to Zoom. The UC-36 Assault Rifle works, but the amount of kick and recoil makes it tricky. Railgun? Possible, but you don’t want to waste a powerful Railgun shot for a low-tier enemy who just happens to be far away. Our solution? Introducing a new semi-automatic weapon.

Before we begin our design process, we start discussing the weapon and the personality we want it to have. The key characteristics for this weapon are:

• Long range, so it needs a scope.
• Bullpup. We want to avoid similar silhouettes to the Assault Rifle, Nailgun and SMG, which all have their ammo containers in front of the gun. We lack a good bullpup, so that felt like a good direction to take for both readability and aesthetic purposes.
• Semi-Auto. It should not look like a machine gun.
• EXON style. The DMR comes from the same family as the UC-36 Assault Rifle and UC-11 Compact, so we needed visual similarities while also being unique.

From a gameplay perspective, the DMR can be compared to the Roaring Cricket Magnum. They are both semi-automatic weapons with high accuracy but share plenty of differences. As far as DPS is concerned, Roaring Cricket is the clear winner. However, the drawback with the Roaring Cricket is that it kicks like a mule which is a flaw the DMR doesn’t have. When dealing with a far-away enemy, every shot with the Cricket will kick so much that you would have to reacquire your target and line your weapon up all over again, which you do not have time for in the heat of battle. As of v0.30, the Rate of Fire of the Roaring Cricket has been decreased a notch as well, as players had a lot of trouble controlling that thing. The Rate of Fire limiter can be removed in a workshop.

The DMR, on the other hand, deals moderate damage and allows you to fire quickly with small amounts of recoil, on top of being able to zoom and having a bigger magazine. Use the Roaring Cricket if you need raw DPS, use the DMR if you need precision or want to easily pop some heads.

Let's talk about the visual design process. The first sketches are super rough and exist mainly to find a silhouette that works. Here are some sketches.

First sketches:

Second sketches:

Third sketches:

The weapon was slowly beginning to take form, but it still looked too much like an assault rifle.

Fourth sketches:

On the right track, even if the barrels are a tad bit too long.

Fifth sketches:

The team felt drawn to design E and leaned into it further.

Sixth sketches:

Detailing:

We favored B and started working on it. We are not entirely sure about the orange bits yet, we’ll see how that turns out when doing a proper render.

Mockup:
The next step is to make a simplified model in Blender and test the shapes in First Person Perspective. We do this because we’ve had plenty of scenarios in the past where a weapon looked fantastic as a standalone model, but fell flat when seen in the arms of Dawn in a first person perspective. The concept models are a great way to fix this.

In-game tests:

In-game testing versions are always super janky and rough, as these are just prototype versions to get a good feel of the weapon before we start making detailed concept art.. Sharing something like this takes some courage on my end but I’m faithful that our backers have a good understanding of either the development process or how rough first iterations can be.

We’re getting there, but I was not quite satisfied enough so we went back to the drawing table to make some tweaks. This is where I have to end this story with a cliffhanger, as we are still in the middle of the design process. Here is where we currently are and what we are going to iterate upon further:

Destructible Chairs

I promised this in our previous blog post! The chairs in ‘The Broken Seal’ can now be destroyed! As with most of our voxels, destruction is tier-based. This one has 4 stages of destruction.

GRRRRRR! I had to severely cut the video down for the sake of the GIF, so if you want a full version, here is the YouTube Version:

https://youtu.be/ocM-dseUIVo

Shorter version

Crawler Mines

Completed!

The Crawler Mines were a challenge for many different reasons. We have a small enemy type who always shows up in larger groups and they all explode when they get near to the player. How on earth do we make such an enemy fun to fight against!? Not only that, we also had to make sure everything was simple from a visual standpoint as readability must be maintained and we cannot have the framerate take too much of a hit from this many enemies.

Smaller enemies are infamous for not being interesting to fight, especially the ones who do nothing but walk towards you and jump to deal damage. Additionally, they are hard to hit! One such example is the Mechsect from Ion Fury, an enemy who has not been well received by many fans of the game. Encounters with the Mechsect gave you two choices:

• Do I waste ammo by shooting them?
• Do I use my melee weapon to kill them in a single hit and save up on ammo?

In almost every single case, melee was the go-to option and the game encouraged that strategy because the Mechsect would instantly explode from a melee hit while other weapons would require several bullets to bring them down, in a game where ammo is scarce to begin with unless you actively hunt for secrets.This takes choice away from the player and forces them to take the (in my opinion) least interesting approach. The enemies were simple, easy to dodge and easy to figure out. On paper, this is good game design, but good game design is not worth anything when it isn’t fun or gives any sort of satisfaction to the player. I never felt threatened, nor did their presence ever force me to take risks; I was safe behind cover and was only required to circle strafe endlessly until the threat was eliminated.

Of course, this is all based on my own opinion and experiences! I’m sure some enjoy this approach, but I personally prefer something more dynamic or tactical.

So, how did we make them fun? On the presentation side of the Crawler Mines, I am giving them tons of different animations, I animated 4 different walk cycles to show variety as they walk in large swarms and in order to prevent too much repetition and patterns, a whole bunch of pain reactions, multiple death animations and other context sensitive responses like having them flinch when a nearby Crawler Mines dies.

As for gameplay, there are a lot of ways to take them out. Shooting is the obvious one, and will often result in a small chain reaction where the destroyed Crawler Mine goes flying, lands on top of another Crawler Mine and kills them instantly. Some might explode when killed, eliminating another small cluster of Crawler Mines. 

You can also punch them with the Quick Melee button right before they explode as a defensive option. If you’re lucky, the force of your melee swing sends them back towards the group and they explode. Or, shock them with the SMGs taser to stun a whole group at once, making them easy targets. Or freeze them with an Ice Grenade. There are many ways to take care of the Crawler Mines and on many occasions you are required to think on your feet as you have a limited window of opportunity to respond, especially on higher difficulties where they run ever so slightly faster.

One more fun option, for the sake of it! Shoot them with the Nailgun and pin them against the floor!

Currently, I am also looking into the ability to convert them if you manage to interact with one who has not been alerted, which turns them friendly and have them charge towards the enemy. But I am still unsure whether or not this will make it into the game.

Pizza

We have pizza boxes now! Opening them up is a coin toss. You could get a full pizza, it could be missing a slice, it could miss a bunch of slices, or, in case you are very unlucky, miss the entire pizza(!). Rest assured, the chance for an empty box is 2% which, upon recent realization, probably makes stumbling upon an empty box so much worse.

Voxels

Several new things are in the pipeline!

Buttons:

(Interactive) Fluorescent Lights

Pizza

Trashbag

Kitchen stuff

And a few more which we will keep as a surprise for now!

Conclusion

We’re back in full swing and making progress rapidly again. We are currently putting all of our efforts into the Demo to make sure that it’s great and makes you a proud backer of this project.

Once again I would like to thank everyone for sticking with us and continuing supporting this game! It means a lot and you are making our dreams come true. We won’t disappoint you <3

Wesley de Waart