Hello Everyone! I took me two weeks, but finaly, first regular update for Blasted Road Terror is here! Especialy first week was quite bussy as i tried to respond to all of your feedback, explain why are things like they are, discuss possible changes and make some hard decisions.
0.52 is mostly about fixing crashes and errors you encountered during first few weeks but brings few new features as well. Be it Ghoul Hunters visits, buzzsaws, new vehicles or intercept missions. I tried to be as transparent as possible and you could watch my progression on this update by watching "upcoming update" thread in discussions section as i ve been editing it each day with my notes so you could track what you could expect and how are works progressing. 0.52 is first of three steps towards 0.6 which we should reach in four weeks from now if everything will go well.
GHOUL HUNTERS
You could allready grind reputation for this faction since game EA release and now its finaly payday as Ghoul Hunters will start visiting Achab time to time. They sell Buzzsaws and their rarity is tied to your reputation with them. Buzzsaws are meant as support weapons, sure they can bite but their use is bit problematic with their limited reach, however they grant you quite big ammount of squad stats, boosting all of the vehicles in your caravan. Sure their use is quite limited right now but that will change once support vehicles will be implemented.
ROACH & RIPPER
Roach and ripper are closing the circle when it comes to tier 1 vehicles. Now we finaly have 3 interceptors, 3 marauders and 3 attack vehicles. Dont worry, there are plans for even more vehicles! Tier 0, which are meant as cheap starter vehicles will come just before final game release and works on Tier 2 vehicles will begin right after we reach version 0.6.
Roach is attack vehicle with Heat weapons specialization making it ideal carrier for incinerator flamers or lasers of all kinds. Its fragile like every other vehicle in its class and comes with designate target ability as well.
Ripper is heaviest of t1 marauders. Have damage aura and buzzsaw(which is more or less just cosmetic, but can still bite) making him perfect maruader for highland missions(auras ignore dodge chance, so it can handle annoying bikers alone).
INTERCEPT MISSION
Intercept missions are combination of escort, resuce and assasination mission. I had to simplify the concept a lot couse my original idea turned to be very complicated and uncomfortable for 5 - 10 minutes long mission during playtesting, but the final ressult is quite satisfying even it completely differ from my original intent.
Intercept mission starts with two "dragger" vehicles armed with dragger harpoons riding behind your party and your target driving ahead of you on top of the screen. Your goal is to damage the target and bring it down to the safe zone in front of your MCV. Once target reach the safe zone draggers will charge forward and start capturing the objective.
If you lose your dragger vehicles or MCV you lose. Hope you ll enjoy this one as its something differnet and requires bit more coordination than other mission types.
Hope you ll enjoy 0.52 as it brings the game bit closer to my original vision and making Blasted Road Terror much enjoyable experience.
Early Access starts right now!
Hello Everyone! Blasted Road Terror reached great milestone today, the start of Early Access phase! After year and half long development it was about time for BRT to leave my living room and present it self to the public.
I wish the release was more glorious, packed with many more features and content, however thats what early access games are, probe in to the minds of players to help pick the right direction, learn whats important and whats not, investigate what audience likes most about your game and expand it.
The game still have about 6 months of development time ahead it self, no matter what. In following half of the year i would like to double the ammount of almost everything whats in the game currently. Be it vehicles, items, enemy types or mission types and some additional content as well.
What you can expect?
Blasted Road Terror is meant to be tacitcal looter inspired by Mad Max movies and some of my favourite games. Game currently offers about 10 hours of gameplay till you explore all of its secrets. Currently game lacks heavily in sound department and some of the ingame graphics(especialy UI) is still not final.
However game is perfectly playable as it is, you can run missions, patrols(dungeon like adventures), upgrade your base, level up vehicles, upgrade your Main Command Vehicle(MCV) through its talent tree, and most importantly loot and equip items.
Unfortunately not everything is as polised as i would love to and dont expect too much, game just entered beta stage and there is a lot of weekspots that ll be improved one after another. Instead treat purchase of BRT like gesture of support of the project.
Future Plans
First week after EA release(which will be dedicated to fixing any issues you might run in to during first days), works on first content update will begin and you can expect it on week 3 after the ea release. It will bring Ghoul Hunters faction(you can grind reputation allready), buzzsaw weapons, 3rd marauder, 3rd attack vehicle and if everything will go well - Intercept missions and some extra weapons.
Next update will be about improving base UI and base in general. I want your base to be living environment with npcs running around(some even with offer of special missions or quests), events going on and make upgrades more apparent. In addition first "handcrafted" legendary quality items will be introduced as well.
What will happen next? Hard to tell right now as im going to react on your demands and suggestions as flexible as the game core will allow so its hard to make guess, but in the end, i want to turn this game in to endless looter with lot of decisions, choices and customization. You can expect new MCVs, rare vehicles or "named" legendary items, further upgrades of your vehicles (GT version conversions), special heroes to hire once you reach exalted reputation with Sheriff and many more.
Thats it for now and I would like to thank you for your interest and support.
With regards
Tryzna
"Vengeful Strikers" - EA around corner
Hello Everyone! I know, its been almost month since last update, but i asure you its been spent mostly by hard work on the game. A lot of development time went in to the boring technical stuff but there was time for some notable improvements as well. I wont list all the changes, but the most notable improvements are:
Added squad names.
Assigned sounds to lot of interace actions.
Boomsticker weapon added.
Ghoul Hunt missions and Runner ghouls added(ll become rare once game hits EA).
Added map mission markers.
Heroes now have weapon telegraphs exatly like other vehicles.
Main vehicle level cap set to lvl 16
Exp gain is now scaling with mission difficulty.
Your drivers now tells you what they think if somethik is not quite right.
Lot of interface improvements.
Pause screen added.
All known bugs fixed. (grammar mistakes still in place, sorry)
SQUAD NAMES
Some of the squad compositions can now be expressed by simple names. Not all combinations have a name, but there is currently 81 possible compositions that have its special name. Getting the game does not give you any special bonuses or advantage and its purely cosmetic. More first and surenames will be added later.
How does it work? First name is dependat on your weapon loadout, for example having 2 explosive weapons, one piercing and one kinetic weapon will ressult in first name "VENGEFUL".
Surename is based on your vehicle classes assigne in party. Example: 2 interceptors, one marauder and attack vhicle will ressult in "STRIKERS" name.
There is a lot of combinations to discover, can you catch them all?(would you like achivement for that?;-))
EARLY ACCESS
Its around corner, it really is, right now i called stop state on new features and content and following two weeks will be dedicated for polishing and bug fixing. Only addition will be intro and post tutorial scene explaining a bit why you are, where you are. Wish me luck and if everything will go as planned BRT will hit early access on 6.10.2017
Thanks for reading and have a great sunday!
Tryzna
Ps: tester with win XP needed! Comment and friend me if you met this requirement;-)
New build deployed
Hello everyone, game is still rushing on its road towards early access and even destination is still behind horizon, this truck is not slowing down.
Nomads update was just deployed to steam for all the trusted testers out there who allready got their steam key so we can have early access launch as smooth as possible and to avoid critical bugs in the first few hours after release.
Content
Simple quest system, 3 factions with their reputations and in case of Sheriff and Nomads, its rewards. Electric damage type was added and weapons of this type are sold by Nomads(electric weapons ignore dodge and slows down targets rate of fire). In addition tutorial was improved and tutorial mission was added.
I strongly suggest all testers to RESET SAVE FILE before playing this update as not doing so might mess with base encounter system. (esc - reset save button)
Quest are aviable in your tavern and hero hiring/renting was moved in to vehicle workshop. Both tavern and workshop windows now got two tabs you can switch between to get to the desired content.
In a lot of bugs was fixed and a lot of tiny little improvements was made. Base repairs are now much more expensive to force players to use free overnight repairs and swithch their parties instead of running with the same setup over and over again. Difficulty was readjusted (patrol missions are now easier, everthing else on highter than hard difficluty bit harder) and some weapons received slight adjustments.
Hope everyone who allready can will enjoy this update and rest of got insight on game direction and whats beign worked on.
With regards
Tryzna
Frozen Tundra update!
Hello everyone! I know, this one took a while, but i belive wait was well worth it. This update brings last location of main storyline and tons of tweaks, improvements and additions. I ll try to stay as brief as possible as otherwise this article would be longer than all BRT news combined.
Frozen Tundra
Tundra, home of Purifiers faction and place where largest supplies of purified water can be found underneath frozen ground of these chilling plains. Purifiers are military like organized warband. Unlike bandits and their swarm of fast and cheap vehicles trying to stop you, or Riders with squads of cheap bikers, Purifiers drive vehicles which almost always have superior armor or fury shields and carry some very powerful weaponary like incinerator flamers or tesla canons.
While designing Purifiers i tried to make them somehow unique when oposed to other two factions and force players to choose different approach again, if he/she wants to face those effectively. High alpha damage weapons like scorpid launchers are ineffective couse of huge hp pool most of Purifers have, some of their drivers will even try to outsmart and outrange your interceptors. And in addition, Purifiers wont hestitate to use specialized vehicles with heavy frontal armor that need to be dealt with from sides or behind.
Other additions
I belive i fixed all reported bugs, if i forgot to fix anything, then i am sorry and will be fixed later if you ll remind me again. Decided to go with point list as nobody is interested in details and wall of text anyway, so here we go:
New mission mode - Rescue
Patrol mission - random events added
Added tire trails and improved vehicle bumping when off road
Base NPCs added:
Advisor - checks for typical mistakes and offers suggestions how to fix them
Scout - gives general tips and suggestions when asked
Sheriff - for now, he only comments on selected mission, telling player what to expect.
Inventory handling greatly improved(you can now use RMB for fast equip or unequip items)
New item effect added
Improved obstacle signs
Improved enemies off screen indicators
Improved mission debrief
Day effect added(will have further purpose in future)
Selling (shift+rmb) now works
Improved wasteland road
Added random material drops
Subtle "reactive" scanline filter added.
Major additions except the Purifiers and tundra is the new mission mode and patrol events. Rescue mission type is twist on escot mission as you have to split your group in the begining of the mission and slowly work your self towards reuniting with your main vehicle and succesfull end of the mission.
Patrol events are unexpected detours during patrols. "There is suspicious looking dust cloud to the west, how do we respond?" or "We received urgent message, calling for help, just a few miles east of us." are just a examples of additional choices you will have during patrols. Currently, there are just "suspicious dust clouds" whitch are always random type of enemy convoys for now, warlord intercepts, and help requests. However i have much bigger plans on expanding these, and im glad system handling these random events is in place.
Download
You can download Frozen Tundra update from IndieDB page ( http://www.indiedb.com/games/blasted-road-terror/downloads/blasted-road-terror-v03-frozen-tundra ) or from Gamejolt and Itch.
Near future plans
We are getting closer to early access, but there is still a lot of work to be done. I wont bother you with technicals and details, but will give you general points of my focus for following month:
Intercept mission mode
Factions and faction rewards system
Nomads - trading caravan, support vehicle reward and distress call ability as major rewards
Ghoul hunters - specialized interceptor, new marauder and heavy flame weapon as major rewards
New vehicles + support vehicle class
Support "weapons"
Quests + storyline quests
As you can see i ll be quite bussy in following month and half till planned early access release as there is still a lot to be improved beside these main points. However, if i ll succeed, i ll finaly be able to bring you Blasted Road Terror experience which ll be very close to my original idea when i started work on this game.
Thanks for reading & with regards
Tryzna
Highland Riders arrived!
Hello everyone! It took me couple of weeks, but im back with another update, bringing game much closer to the state i want i to be before introducing it to the wider audience. Opening Highlands was important step towards my current goal, leaving Tundra as a last location on "to do" list for planned storyline campaign. Even Highland Riders are important milestone for me personaly, this project is still nowhere near finished and its still nothing more than a "shell" that still have to be filled with features and content before beign enjoyable experience.
For now, highland missions started appearing on the aviable missions list and can be picked up any time you want. All mission modes you knew from wasteland are present including patrol missions and yes, you can finaly farm SUPPLIES currency to improve the base further.
Riders showcase
Highland is home of "RIDERS". Insane and brutal madmen who dont hesitate to use captured nomads as human shield. Relying on light armor, speed and dodging your attacks. I wanted them to be bit more than just reskined Bandits from the wasteland and from my personal playtests i am quite happy with the ressult. You need to utilize new tactics and different weapon loadouts to defeat them with ease. Lets have a look at Rider vehicles individualy.
Bikers are fast, low HP annoying insect. However their high dodge chance can ruin the day of the lone vehicle armed with high alpha, but slow firing weapon as they can dodge the fire really well. These are best dealt using fast firing weapons or mines and damage auras as these can not be dodged. In addition, they can be ran over if you have fast interceptor in your squad like Falcon or Mustang.
Hog is the only vehicle with high armor Riders use. Armed with twin linked machine guns with fixed angle limits this foe to always attack your caravan from behind. Again, use of vehicles with minelayer ability yeld best ressults.
Stinger is light vehicle armed with light flamer. There is nothing special about this one, however you have to remember flamer weapons ignores armor, so dont leave your interceptors tanking these alone for too long.
Rocketeer is Riders long range support vehicle. There is nothing too special about them. All of their attacks can be dodged, however when combined with other attacking vehicles it can hurt your vehicles really bad. Should be dealt asap, thx the engine gods, they dont carry any armor and even lone interceptor can handle these pretty fast.
Shredder carries intimidating buzsaw and have quite a HP pool. Fortunately it does not have the armor of Bandits Killer Van and it rellies on HPs and increased fury shield only. This can be threatening when cought unprepared but focused fire can stop them before their saw can even scratch your vehicles.
Crushers are heaviest vehicles Riders can throw at you. Twin linked 50cal machine guns can deliver quite bit of damage to even your interceptors if not dodged and in addition each crusher carries ligh flamer to repel any vehicle trying to distract its fire from up close.
Tinkerer
Tinkering service is finaly aviable! This little window serves as an enchanting table for your armor items. You can improve your bumpers, suspension or ornaments, sinking your materials while gaining small advantage in battle with each upgrade you make. Use is pretty straightforward, just dont forget your items there as once you ll return from mission, tinkerer will prettend he never saw you before and your item will be gone.
Main direction is obvious as adding Tundra location as a last location for main storyline is crucial before introducing non enemy factions and reputation system, but what will happen in between? Well, the "to do" list is still pretty long. For next week i want to go back and revise all the code as there is some unnecessary mess i want to clean up beofre moving forward, and to be honest that was the main reason why i did not added any new items in this update as i need to sort out few things before moving forward in this department. After that i can start adding new weapons and more vehicles to finish the initial set before implementing faction and reputation rewards and finaly move on to interesting stuff like enahncing patrol missions with sub quests, more interesting locations(like abandoned tunels, devastated cities, swamplands etc.) and unexpected events.
Thans for reading & with regards!
Tryzna
Dust storm update aviable!
Hello everyone! Im glad im finaly able to bring you another version of Blasted Road Terror. I think we can finaly consider this version a Alpha release. Sure its still missing like 80% of planned content, but most of the important systems are in place or the game engine is ready for implementing them without problem. But as i need to keep something for next article, lets talk about current build and what it brings in to the game.
New vehicles & weapons
As we mentioned in artcile two weeks ago, there are two new vehicles. Sabre - which can be called "light" marauder with minelayer ability. And Scorpion - a kinetic damage specialized attack vehicle with great mobility.
New weapon is the Scorpid Missile Launcher. It fires volleys of explosive missiles at long range, so there is finaly a effective way how to bring enemy fury shields down from the distance. Its a heavy weapon, so only attack vehicles can rotate this turret, it have low dps, but slow ROF so be prepared for enormous alpha damage.
Scorpid, even its dps is quite low is capable to bring down fury shield of any vehicle in one volley and if rng gods are with you, it can even one shoot weaker vehicles with its alpha. However its low dps will be noticable during boss fights or agains highly armored targets with lots of hp as explosive damage is weak against high armor values. I ll let you figure out its use on your own as i dont want to spoil all the fun, but it have its place in most encounters if you know how to use it.
Weather System
Is finaly in place! Its still in work in progress state and small improvements will be added over the time, but right now we have Dust Storm, Thunder Storm and Light rain events as you probably noticed from the gifs floating around this article. Right now, the weather have just cosmetic effect and does not have any effect on gameplay it self but this will change sometime during beta stage when we ll get there.
Announcers & Loot boxes & Ghoul Ambush
Added little thing i call "Announcers" which dispays event name once an encounter starts during patrol mission as i tought its good if player is informed whats going on before the battle ll actualy start. Its just a litte quality of life improvement, but i think it adds bit both to the game atmospehere and general polish level.
Ghoul ambush is first of many events which im planning to add in to the patrol missions. Its an easy event where you can earn bit of extra scrap, however you have to maneuver your vehicles well to avoid most of the damage.
Early version of lootboxes was implemented as everyone likes opening mysterious crates with purple pixel items;-) Right now, it is dropped by every boss you ll encounter during Assasination Missions. In the future they ll be awarded for completing side quests during patrols or as a reputation rewards.
Download & near future
You can download v0.22 by clicking button below. Hope you ll enjoy it even is not bringing any significant changes when compared with last release, but game is getting really near to the stage beign ready for tons of content updates. Next update will be again about adding small stuff and polishing(sorry) and im planning to release it till end of the month. However i have some big plans for summer, like giving you access to both Highlands and Tundra locations(along with its own enemies) and finaly turning Patrol missions in to the adventure-like experience i want it to be.
Hi again everyone! Three weeks passed since the release of first public alpha version of Blasted Road Terror and even the release was very limited i managed to gather some initial feedback much needed for future development of the game and i would like to say "thank you" to everyone who downloaded the game and was kind enought to let me know his opinion.
Preparing 0.21 release
I took few days off to take much needed break and used it to think about the game and direction its heading. Next release will focus on polishing the game, improving and expanding ingame tutorial and adding pieces of new content in form of new vehicles, weather system, new items and adding event or two for Patrol mission mode.
Improving Patrol missions
Added screw convoys to second fuel convoys so you can focus on gathering game primary currency if you desire to do so and to give you more choices when considering turn on next crossroad. Screw convoys works the same way like fuel carrying ones. The only difference is that they are not guarded that well to reflect the fact that they ll be your secondary objective most of the time.
Another event you will be able to encounter in next release is Ghoul Swarm. Ghoul swarms spawns randomly most of the time and bigger chance to encounter one will be during night time. Oportunity to run over bunch of ghouls will rarely open in mission selector as well, but the profit from running these is minimal and only real benefit will be "Ghoul Hunters" reputation gain once factions and reputation system will be implemented along with faction unique items.
New vehicles
Added second marauder, the Sabre. Sabre is lighter and bit more agile than Devastator and comes with "minelayer" ability. Sure there is drawback in having less armor and hit points than its tougher brother.
Another addition to your vehicle park is Scorpion. Scorpion is again, lighter than its older sister Flea and have heavy kinetic weapons specialization(+20% dmg output with coresponding weapon type) which makes it ideal platofrm for carrying minigun for example. Basicaly, Scorpion was given Fleas original stats and Flea was reworked to be bit slower, durable and was given explosive weapon specialization, turning it in to long range fury shield anihilator.
Next update will be aviable in week or two and i belive the project is walking in right direction even it ll take few more months till my vision will start taking shape and will hopefuly starts beign enojyable experience. Hope you will remain interested and help me with your feedback to make the game better.
Thanks for reading and with regards!
Tryzna
Playable ALPHA released!
Hello everyone! Please accept my warm welcome in to the dried world of Blasted Road Terror! It was a long way till the game finaly reached this stage, and as you can imagine, i am bit nervous right now. I took a road straight through uncharted teritories with this game as its my first project thats not a simple scrolling shmup or top down shooter so a lot of my experiences does not apply here. Thats why i absolutely cant guess the outcome of this release and its quite possible you ll tell me: "Dude, it sux, you just wasted eight months of your life.". Thats why im releasing this "ALPHA concept test" as i dont want to hear exactly the same, just a year later.
Content of this release
This alpha package offers core of the game, most of the base facilities are working(well in the end i think only tinkerers station is not working right now) and survival, escort, assasination and patrol missions are aviable for wasteland teritory. Vehicle park contains 3 interceptors, one marauder and one light attack vehicle. There is at least one weapon of each class and type and several variants of bumpers, suspension and ornaments to further enhance and customize your vehicles. Yes, its a bit limited, but enough for purposes of this release, to let me know if the game concept is enjoyable or complete crap. To find out just click the download button below and enjoy the ride.
Game can be dowloaded from its page at indieDB or click the link here:
http://www.indiedb.com/games/blasted-road-terror/downloads/blasted-road-terror-v02-concept-test
Gameplay video
I understand BRT gameplay can be bit confusing at first and as ingame tutorial is very brief right now i prepared simple gameplay video for you where you can see journey of fresh save through first couple of missions and successful patrol run.
https://youtu.be/zMAxiXMS3w8
What to expect in near future?
Well, complete and detailed project road map will follow in next update here on indieDB, but without writing any "point" list, current priorities are: More vehicle variety, as i want to have at least two other marauders and attack vehicles, before we ll move any further. Next priority is long-term and will follow me through entire development process and possibly even beyond the full release point - to add more items as current selection of weapons feels limited and does not represent the feel i would love the game to have.
My second big concern is the game UI, while i am mostly fine with main base interface for now and only thing i am ashamed off is the base upgrade screen, combat ui is completely different story and will need complete overhaul as soon as possible. Thats why i am asking you: " Please, be patient with it" :-)
After these will be handled, i can finaly add highlands and tundra missions, along with zone unique sets of enemies and challenges. And after that stuff like more missions, story missions, story and more things that ll give running missions some purpose can be added, but in this case we are talking about sometime mid/late summer.
Sure there is much more i would like to say, but i suspect no one is interested in chewing through wall of text and thats why we sohould end right here. Cant wait for your feedback and looking forward for next time!
