Dev Blog #42 - Gamepad Support, Demo Update release date and more (Patreon)

Good day everyone,

It has been.. *gulp* -- 16 days since our last blog post! Apologies for the slight delay, we’ve been working really hard at work getting the demo updated ready and are pleased to share a bunch of things we’ve been working on! It’s been quite a productive couple of days.

Demo Testing

We’re gearing up for testing and are planning to get the demo ready for active Patrons by the end of the month. A Steam Beta Password will be emailed to you with the email address you provided to Patreon.

The demo test is pretty much what the public is going to get, minus some additional fixes and improvements. The goal of the test is to see if the new build runs properly for everyone. If you are experiencing any problems, do not hesitate to let us know! We will try to get it fixed before going public with the build.

Gamepad Support

Phew, this one took a while, but full controller support has been added!

Before we launched our demo 6 months ago, it was originally our intention to include Gamepad Support on demo launch. We figured adding controller support to the game would be easy since GZDoom largely already has gamepad support built-in, but as any programmer or designer may know, nothing is ever as easy as it seems. While we never wanted to pull our hair out (we got close to it once!), it did end up being quite a bit of effort but was generally quite a lot of fun to work on..

Before we started working on it, we both bought a ‘next generation’ controller. I got a Dual Sense and used my old DualShock 4. Cockatrice got an Xbox One controller. According to Steam, these are the most popular controllers so we wanted to ensure these controllers were properly supported.

Aim Assist

This was the first hurdle. Selaco is quite a fast-paced action title where enemies are constantly moving around and some enemies are also capable of flying towards the other side of the room in a heartbeat. Unless players have their aiming sensitivity at a very high value, players will have a hard time keeping track of mobile targets.

We managed to implement an Aim Assist solution to GZDoom that allows players full control over their movement while also guiding the player just enough to be helpful. If you aim over a target, the aiming sensitivity  will ease up a little, making it easier to stay on the target. Additionally, if the target is moving, the game will slowly steer you towards its direction as long as your crosshair stays near the target.

We’re also including an Assisted Mode, which makes the camera tracking stronger and requires far less aiming. We expect this to make the game much more playable for less experienced gamers or to those with a disability.

Button prompts

Up next is button prompts. First and foremost, GZDoom cannot detect what type of controller is being used by the player, so we cannot make the game decide whether to show Xbox or Playstation controller icons. The second problem is with the way GZDoom handles fonts, which is designed around letters and numbers, not gamepad symbols.

For the time being we had to rely on a manual solution for the button prompts, where we allow the player to manually select whether they want to see Xbox or Playstation buttons. This is far from ideal and goes against our ‘Plug & Play’ approach, but until we can figure out a way to properly retrieve Gamepad information, this is how it has to be. Thankfully, it’s just a minor inconvenience.

The font problem was fixed a while ago, but we managed to improve it further ever since adding a Fontmap system; where we have a PNG consisting of all the required icons and use a reference table with coordinates to display the correct icons to the player. The original intent was to speed up loading times (since it no longer has to load 3500 files of individual symbols) but it came with the added benefit of streamlining our icons as well.

Rumble (Vibration Support)

Oh did we have some fun with this! So much so, that the word ‘Rumble’ has begun to sound like a goofy word. Rumble was not originally supported in GZDoom, but thanks to the power of Xinput (an API that makes implementing modern controller support easier) we’ve been able to add it to the engine.

I’ve always been a big fan of good rumble in a game. While you may not notice it directly, good vibration support in a videogame can greatly improve the ‘feel’ of a game. With Selaco’s focus on immersion, we wanted to go all-in with rumble. Every explosion, every earthquake, everytime you land on the floor after a jump.. Everything had to vibrate the controller accordingly at different intensities. While most of them will be gentle (like sliding), some of them will be stronger (like firing a powerful weapon). We’re happy with how this one turned out and are amazed by just how much it adds to the overall experience.

DirectInput is also available, but is not recommended at this time. It will most likely require some manual tweaking on the technical side of things from the user. Do let us know if you need help setting this up!

Making it actually work

While I am personally a huge fan of gamepads, Selaco was always designed with Keyboard & Mouse in mind because I knew GZDoom’s gamepad support was far too limited to actually make the game work properly.

Thankfully, now that I no longer have to do the coding by myself, Cockatrice and I managed to each cover a wide range of tasks to get controller support done together at a much faster rate. While he kept busy with the UI and the technical side of things, I went to work on Aim Assist and general gameplay. Many little quirks suddenly became a problem when using a gamepad. The way Dashes were coded was that it would look at a bunch of fixed directions the player was traversing and a specific set of instructions would be triggered based on that information. A joystick is much more precise in that sense, making it impossible to dash unless you managed to hit one of the fixed directions. I had to do some rewriting here and there to ensure that these systems work. UI is another issue, the entire Wrist Computer is largely designed around Keyboard & Mouse so required some tweaking to streamline on a controller.

Weapon switching is another problem. Currently the Left and Right D-pad buttons are used to cycle through weapons. Not a problem for the demo, since you only have 4 weapons, but the full game will have a full arsenal where this solution is no longer ideal. We will be looking into a Weapon Wheel in the future.

Customization

As an added bonus, we made sure players can tweak everything to their liking. We’ve added a checkbox that unlocks advanced features like these:

Pathfinding

I can say with full confidence that everybody who spent at least 30 minutes with the demo has noticed a few occasions where soldiers got stuck on geometry or tried to run through the walls. And if you haven’t, they were probably doing it without you knowing! We we’re aware of this prior to launch but did not manage to find the time to fix the problems. Nowadays we have ReformedJoe to take care of level design, allowing me more time to iron our problems and improve core systems. I’ve improved pathfinding significantly where soldiers spent less time running into walls or searching for stairs, and more time actually getting closer to the target!

At this time of writing, I’m working on a communication system where soldiers can share their route with each other and avoid using similar paths, resulting in everybody taking a different route towards the target. This will greatly improve flanking opportunities for soldiers and make them seem more dynamic.

Work in Progress voxels

A while ago we shared screenshots of a Science Lab level. Borion got to work on some voxels that we can place in lab areas of Selaco.

Remember that these are blockouts and will look much better when finished!

New enemy type: Alien Sentry Turret

[GIF may not play correctly on a mobile device]

We’ve shown the voxel model of this turret before, but now they are added into the game and are capable of shooting things. Alien Turrets may not be as technologically advanced as the friendly ACE Security Turrets, but still pack a good amount of punch.

Damage of the Sentry Turret is only slightly lower than the ACE turret. This little machine is one of the very few enemies in the game that uses hitscan instead of projectiles, meaning that every shot fired by the turret will hit its target. Fear not, there’s a short windup before they are able to fire and this will be telegraphed accordingly. Ignoring them will severely limit freedom around the battlefield, so if you want more free space to move around, find a way to take them out.

New obstacle: Alien Landmine

While Dawn is able to deploy landmines of her own, Aliens have their own little gadgets. The Alien Landmines are built like a truck and cannot be destroyed by conventional means, so your grenades or bullets do not damage or destroy the landmine. Rumor has it it only makes them angrier.

There are multiple ways to take them out, but the most common one will be to find an object that has plenty of weight (e.g. an office chair) and toss them on top of the landmine. This will trigger the detonator and clear the way for you.

New ammo pickups (Plasma Rifle, DMR)

Work in Progress illustration

Other improvements added this week:

• New death animations for all enemy types, and improved effects on the Juggernaut.
• Further improved the general detail of the game, both in terms of audio and visuals. Enemies will now leave a trail of footsteps behind when stepping on a pile of blood or slime, updated all of the Weapon artwork in your Wrist Computer, revised some
• in-game art and more
• Further improved footstep system but adding more sound categories (Metal Boxes, thin wood etc)
• Progress on some very spoilery enemies
• Progress on a spoilery weapon type
• Optimization and stability improvements.
• …And so much more!

Conclusion

Tough couple of weeks, but damn was it a rewarding one! The game is becoming increasingly more polished and the general game-feel keeps on improving. We are beyond thrilled to get you this new demo soon!

Have a great couple of weeks, see you in a few!

Wesley