Hey dudes! It's about that time again, i guess? If these updates seem all over the place I apologize, I might be on some sort of spectrum. First off:
Ideas and Suggestions
Keeping in mind my terrible track record and complete lack of professionalism, what sort of stuff would you guys like to see in PAGAN? I'm not fully sure what type of content the game will have, but I'm thinking of going places that CARNAL didn't. As a matter of fact, I'm thinking of adding things in the game that other boomer shooters don't have. Thinking of leaning into the horror aspect of the story, and while it will still be silly at it's core, the game will probably be pretty violent and dark. What sort of themes and content would you guys like to see in the game, or better yet, not see? Basically how far do you want me to go, or not go :D
Blood & Gore Systems
In the CARNAL 2 prototypes I had a much simpler gore system, where you could only destroy three parts of characters, being the head, upper body and lower body. It's been improved quite a bit, and you can now blow off their individual arms and legs too. It's not quite Soldier of Fortune levels of dismemberment, but closer to another game that also coincidentally inspired the controls for the game.
This is a basic example of how characters are set up. Left is the different parts, right is the solid gib pieces. In-game there are a ton of extra particles and smaller basic meshes that go along with these larger gibs.
"Systems" is probably too big a word to describe on and off switches. In PAGAN you can blow off limbs and eventually gib enemies. The plan is to have every AI on the active map be destructable, friend and foe, human or not. Only mission giving NPC's are spared from this horror :)
On a related note, PAGAN's general control scheme has been modeled after 2005's The Punisher by Volition. The gore system has pretty much been lifted from that game as well. If you've never played it, you absolutely should. It's WAY better than anything I'll ever make. I played that game religiously during my high school years :D
New Locations
I've added two mostly finished areas to the outskirts of the town, and managed to add border areas that function as backgrounds to tie them all together, at least that's the intention. Also added more detail and foliage where it looked too barren. Will admit that there are a crap ton of assets that still need to be made.
Making an entire small town seemed like a good idea at first. Guess it's starting to become clear just how much work that requires haha. Below is a YouTube video that mostly shows the blood and gore stuff, with the additional locations.
Anyways here are screenshots of the new areas: Hammond Gas Station
Crystal Falls Dinosaur Park
If you're from the USA, you might recognize where I got the inspirations from.
Interactables and Content Stuff
Was thinking of having the player collect money to use on vending machines and such. Like checking cash registers or picking up money found in buildings. Consumable items will give the player health, armour and replenish bullet time faster, kind of like how in the Build engine games you had a small inventory that you could fill with the stuff you collect during levels. So far the idea is that you can get health by using medkits, eating food and drinking soda. You can get armour by drinking alcohol and replenish bullet time faster by smoking cigarettes. Bit of a hare-brained concept but it I think it'll fit with the overall theme.
Soda Vending Machine Cigatette Vending Machine Cash Register
There are probably going to be various versions of these around the map that look different.
Guns
Right now there are only four guns in-game, but more are coming. The dual pistols, shotgun, tommy gun and an AR-15. If that last one seems strange, it's because it kinda is lol. I was researching period accurate guns and lo and behold, the ArmaLite AR-15 came out somewhere around '58 or '59, offically making it a 1950's gun. The US army later rebranded it as the M16 and scaled it down to use 5.56mm rounds in stead of 7.62mm. Long story short it's going back in the game. This is the "heavy" machine gun for PAGAN. Certain enemies will use this against you as well. More weapons are on the way, and though this game is not striving for accuaracy, it will make sense for the time period.
Conclusion
How are things with you guys? How's the new year been treating you so far? You guys need to remember to make time for yourselves, especially with everything that's always going on these days. As cheesy as it sounds, always be true to yourself. Honest to the point of transparency.
Until next time friends o7
PAGAN: Socials
Hey friends
Remember when I said the previous update would probably be the last?
Anyways this update serves as a way to show quick screenshots and video, and to let you all know that I suffocated my intense feelings of cringe and managed to make a developer profile on Twitter. I still don't know how it works but I'm going to start posting development updates there on a semi-regular basis as well. MercySoft Twitter
One of CARNAL's biggest problems is the fact that it had pretty much no marketing, and remains one of the most obscure boomer shooters out there. If you are one of the chosen few to have played it, you can congratulate yourself for being a hipster lol. Because of this I decided to start updating on some form of social media, just to begin raising awareness of PAGAN and maybe slowly gain an audience. Not sure how it'll work out but I'm gonna try ːsteamthumbsupː
PAGAN Update
South Africa is going through some bad energy-related issues, as in the government is turning off our electricity daily, and have been doing so for 15 years. It has come to a boiling point where for the past three months our electricity has been off for 10 hours daily.
Luckily I live in Cape Town where a different political party is in control, so they've managed to lessen the blow to the economy somewhat, but they can only do so much. Long story short I am trying to balance work and electrical down-time while making the game. The challenges have all been external so far lol.
Here are some screenshots with flavour text:
A top view of one half of the town map. Still not finished yet.
It might come as a surprise to you reading this, but I love billboards. Instead of using billboards to get a rise out of people playing, I'm rather gonna use them to paint just how ridiculous the 1950's era town of Crystal Falls really is. These are more for world-building and humour. I intend to offend people through other means lol.
This is an example of the type of references I'm putting in. I'll change the names on them before release for legal reasons but thought you guys might like this 1950's "game ad" billboard:
Crystal Falls is a town filled to the brim with hypocrisy paired with empty promises and fake smiles. The American Dream twisted. Basically a reflection of what was really happening in that time, but blown to the extreme with the Satanic invasion and all that :)
All locations you're seeing in these updates represent what they looked like before the town invasion, pristine and untainted. This shit will not be in a good way when you eventually play it. TRUST ME.
Conclusion
Look guys I don't need to remind you, I really don't make perfect or "good" games. I like to think that my games are shlocky fun times. I am trying real hard to make the best experience I can make. I'm not some artsy chode that's gonna bullshit you about how special or deep this game will be haha. Can't promise that it'll be a great game, but I do hope it'll at least be fun and memorable. Till next time friends ːsteamthumbsupː
PAGAN Project Restart
Hey guys
It's been a few months since the last update, hope you are all doing well!
What's life like to you guys these days? The end of the year looming over the horizon is always a huge relief to a lot of folks, but at the same time a huge stress inducer cause things need to get finished before then as well lol.
Hope you guys can each find the space and time to gradually relax and find closure on a very hectic year. For some reason this year in particular has gone by super fast for me personally, as if there isn't enough time in the day like there used to be.
I promised to only give you guys an update when I have something substantial to share, and I still stand by that sentiment. Difference is I kind of feel that enough progress has been made in the meantime to maybe warrant a quick update. You guys already know to take anything with a grain of salt, especially with my track record :)
I'm gonna share some screenshots and useless info below for anyone interested ːsteamthumbsupː
Project Restart
I'll be honest guys, I was pretty much out of ideas when the CARNAL 2 project didn't work out, and I wasn't really happy with the PAGAN project as a whole, and I had the feeling that the thing just wasn't unique or creative. It didn't feel good enough either.
I stepped away from the whole thing, and instead used my free time doing pretty much anything else. During this break I got "inspiration" for a better idea regarding the PAGAN project, and slowly started to iteratively build on it. I basically got these "new" ideas from playing other games, watching movies and reading weird shit :D
New PAGAN Story
This new version is a retro-styled, semi-open world First-Person/Third-Person shooter set in the 1950's. It's still basically the same plot I had planned since the beginning, but the focus has shifted somewhat. It still revolves around a bad thing happening in a town, Crystal Falls, and you the player being sent to deal with it. Difference is, the Realm Defense Force connection from CARNAL has been removed. The player character is still called Cyrus Richter (hope you like these corny early 2000's names).
Cyrus is a priest that has become disillusioned with the Church he used to serve in. Instead he now does a different sort of work, mostly involving the killing of nephilim, stopping secret societies and closing hell portals.
Weird shit right? Probably sounds familiar too :)
What's Cool?
Here are some bullet-point features of the new one:
Crystal Falls is an entire town, with each mission taking place somehere on the map.
Random events will happen during your travels
There is a dynamic weather system in place
The game uses Unity's Universal Render Pipeline...
..Which means PBR materials
True Volumetric Fog and lighting
There are NPC's from which you will get missions
The AI uses a factions system and will attack each other
The game uses a basic custom culling trick to save performance
The map will "steam" data as you move through it
Gonna go for cutscenes and hire voice actors for them
Violence, dismemberment and gore, and lots of it.
The game has bullet-time as a gameplay mechanic
Since CARNAL 2's issues, one of the major focus points for me was performance. I'm doing everything I can to ensure that PAGAN runs rock solid with perfect frame pacing. If you have a mid-range PC, I want you to get 200fps no problem. So far it's getting there, hopefully it remains the case going forward ːsteamthumbsupː
Because of this, some of the things I had planned needed to be reigned in as well. This means that while the map will be geometrically dense, it is mostly static. Sort of like how in GTA all buildings and most trees are solid as bedrock. That's mostly going to be the same for PAGAN. There will still be interactivity like in CARNAL, but nothing extravagant. Also I am considering the ability to drive in your own personal vehicle, to reduce travel times for those interested.
What's the Goal?
Simply put I want to make a game that is fun, atmospheric, funny, and possibly scary. A bigger emphasis on story, with exploration and sick gunfights.
The game inspirations for PAGAN are Quake, Max Payne, Alan Wake with a sprinkle of FEAR. Basically the games of my teenage years lol. The movie inspirations are Darkness Falls and Sleepy Hollow, which came from the same era.
In-Progress Screenshots
If you want to see semi-regular stuff, I try to upload to YouTube when I can. These are a bit old now, but should give a good idea of things.
Conclusion
Lots of words, again. I'm sticking with this one till it's done. Success or failure, doesn't matter. Should my Heavenly Father allow it, I'm gonna aim for early 2023, no matter how hard dark forces try to destroy the economy and everyone's livelihoods lol. When it's finished I'll put up a Steam page for it, basically when I'm doing final testing. This is probably going to be the only update on it, as I don't want to bother you guys with any boring stuff. Just know I'm gonna try muh best ːsteamthumbsupː
Patch 1.9 - Engine Update
Changelog:
Updated the game's Unity version from 2019 to 2021
I mentioned earlier the idea of updating the game for performance gains, and I had a lame Sunday afternoon, so I did just that.
I wanted to kind of "finalize" the game, and thought this might be an adequate way to do it. There may be some rendering artifacts and weird colour differences, and maybe there are things that got broken again, so please feel free to let me know if you come across anything out of the ordinary. Then again nothing's ordinary with this game lol.
That's that my friends! I'll still check in every once in a while to see if anything's busted, or try to help if someone has questions/problems, even if it requires small patches. Should the mythic day come when Valve decides that this game is worthy of Steam's full profile privileges, I'll for sure add those Steam cards, emotes, etc,
It's been a fun one! Thanks for giving this little project of mine the time of day, and most importantly, thank you all for being such cool and good-hearted individuals. Didn't do nothing to deserve having such an awesome group of people to chat with.
Hope life is always sweet for you guys!
Patch 1.8.5.3 - Smol update
Heyo friendo's
Changelog:
Fixed the level timer. I pray it's fixed now!
Fixed some missing textures
The timer has been broken for quite some time, and I kept forgetting about it. It's hopefully in working order, even showing the miliseconds in like 3 digits for anyone in the speed department ːsteamthumbsupː
I mentioned earlier this year that I want to do one final thing for the game, like finalizing it in a way, and one of the ideas I had was to update the game's engine from Unity 2019 to 2021, as the newer versions just run WAY faster and have less engine-related hiccups.
Not sure how that would influence things, I think some of the maps will have altered baked lighting and some minor colour differences. If I can successfully migrate the thing and it looks mostly the same, I'll try and update the game in the name of performance gains.
I said recently I would stop with the whole updating thing, but thought it would be nice to let you guys know why the game has gotten a new update ːsteamthumbsupː
Update on the Updates
Hey!
Friends..
How are you doing?
So I've been pretty much super quiet, like that metal gear v dutch lady sniper that doesn't dress properly. Reason being that work has been taking up a lot of my time, and therefore minimizing the amount of work I can get done on the PAGAN.
I can start to understand how this whole year so far has probably seemed like a stop and go. Starting something then ending it, nothing getting completed or getting close to release. I sometimes think you guys are probably getting tired of the whole thing. To be honest I'd also probably think I'd lost my marbles, or worse, I'm just a super unreliable dude lol.
Get to the point
With that being said, I thought it might be nice to share some of that unfinished tosh, all these prototypes I told you guys about, for you to test or just check out if you're curious, or think it might be interesting.
I didn't know where else to share the download so I decided to put it up on itch.io where it's super simple to download and access, hope that's okay. Here the link ma dudes:
https://mercysoft.itch.io/carnal-2-prototypes
It is a small collection of four prototypes.
The first one is the Doom 3 style render test. Has no game just an aesthetic test. LAME
The second is the early 2000's version, which is a small arena of Anak dicks to shoot.
The third is the failed and overly ambitious next-gen CARNAL: Reborn crap. Does not run well.
The fourth is the last thing I worked on regarding PAGAN. No game, just AI killing each other with the city as a backdrop. It uses a spectator cam that you can use to move around and look at my shitty modeling skills in all it's embarrassing glory.
My very own Duke Nukem Forever 2001 story! Sad part is that DNF 2001 is still better than anything I ever made. Here's the link for DNF 2001: https://archive.org/details/1652058670472
Conclusion
I decided that I'm gonna stop with the whole updating thing for now. It has done nothing but get peoples hopes up, and if it hasn't, it's gotten mine up and then down again, unrealistically thinking I can actually make something people will like.
I'm not gonna stop trying making games, but it might be wise to only share something when it's actually finished and worth talking about. I apologize for this whole year's useless information and failed projects, in hindsight it's quite unresponsible and inconsiderate to everyone who showed actual interest. I need to get my priorites straight with balancing work and the game development hobby thing.
Also want to thank you guys for sticking with my stupid ass even when I only brought dissapointment in the form of these lame updates. Let me know if these prototypes were fun to look at, and if they weren't, also let me know lol.
Right now I'm gonna step away from this whole thing for a while, as you guys honestly deserve better. There are better games, and even better developers out there. Maybe one day I'll actually share a "sequel" or game that is nice and ready to be shared. I've been pretty good at dissapointing people so far, might as well end it on a good one haha.
On a positive note, if it were possible I definitely would've wanted to hang out with you guys IRL at some cool restaurant or bar, even if I don't drink or smoke ;) I hope to see you guys on the flip side, and hope things are well with each of you! You dudes are cool and nice, true salt of the earth types ːsteamthumbsupː
Please don't take this as a negative thing. I leave you with an awesome song that always reminds me to forget about all the times things didn't work out and embrace the positive/good things in life!
PAGAN #1
Hey guys. I'll try to keep this update brief.
Last update i mentioned a bunch of technical issues surrounding the CARNAL 2 game thing i was working on, and have ultimately decided to shelve the entire project, as the problems are completely out of my power to fix, at least for now. I'm quite persistent though.
I'm not a throw in the towel type so I have resurrected an old project that was on an external hard drive, which I called PAGAN at the time. I'm going ahead with that one, and what's cool is that all the engine problems that CARNAL 2 displayed are completely absent with this project, as it uses the Built-in renderer instead of HDRP.
What's a PAGAN?
A pagan is a worshipper of false idols. More specifically related to the game, it's a drug that is giving its users mutant powers and stuff. Problem is it corrupts the DNA over time, turning them into Nephilim monster things. This caused widespread chaos and crime to run rampant in the city of Crystal Falls, the place where the game will take place.
Where CARNAL was inspired by Quake, Redneck Rampage and Zombies Ate My Neighbors, PAGAN is based on ideas from Sin, Kingpin and Soldier of Fortune.
I am gonna try to make an open-worldish setting, where you do missions throughout the city, hopefully with cool stuff and scenarios playing out. As an RDF agent (like in CARNAL) you will side with the city police to try to regain control and wipe out the mutant/criminal threat, along with other weird shit popping up over playtime.
What is certain is that there will be gunfights in the streets with brutal combat. I can promise you that muchːsteamthumbsupː
Feature Goals
Pretty big city map
An actual story
Faction AI and warfare (already working)
Vehicles, or at least one for the player to use
Currency and shop for weapons/items/upgrades
Hopefully some form of cool environment destruction, like in Batman: Arkham Knight
Player and NPC voice acting
Secrets and collectables
Some of these are already in place, others still need to get in. None of these things are really difficult to make, I just need to do them in a way that's smart. We'll have to wait and see.
AI
I originally made the project to make my own version of bot matches, like you have in many older games. Difference here is that their navigation is not based on A* or Navmeshes, but honest-to-God old-school object avoidance. They have no knowledge of the environment, and will navigate around like they did in Doom 1993 or classic Build engine games, scanning their surroundings as they go. They literally have dozens of lasers that constantly check surroundings. The AI are like Google cars with guns. This is archaic and no-one really uses that anymore for obvious reasons.
I chose to do it that way to mimic the way AI behaved in the 90's, and I honestly couldn't be happier with results. Combat encounters just play differently and are much more unpredictable. I think Doom is still so popular because of the way enemies move and react to the player. Whether or not this was a good idea remains to be seen lol.
Rendering
PAGAN is going for a 1999-2000 look, so chunky models with lower res bilinear texture filtering. Character style is like a mix between Sin and Kingpin, with the environment taking cues from SoF. For "cutscenes" I'm gonna have their faces change textures like in Deus Ex and SoF to mimic faces talking :D
All characters have randomized appearances for their respevtive faction. All characters have destructable limbs, being the head, arms and legs, and can be completely gibbed with enough damage to the torso. Not as extreme as the Ghoul-engine, but interesting all the same. Something cool is that if a character gets shot in the head all their dialogue immediately gets cut off, for instance.
With the built-in renderer I can have like 20 AI characters on-screen shooting at each other without a single performance hitch, unlike CARNAL 2's HDRP setup.
Combat
First off; Headshots are instant kills on all humans, except if they are super armored. Every faction uses different weaponry, and every gun uses one of three or four classes of ammunition. Every gun has different stats, but weapon damage is determined by the type of bullet it uses rather than some arbitrary value (this is already in the game). Bullets and their damage values:
Small Rounds, 7 Damage, Yellow Tracer (MP5, P90, Tommygun, etc)
Medium Rounds, 14 Damage, Green Tracer (G36, M4, Rifles, etc)
Large Rounds, 50 Damage, Red Tracer (M250, Barret 50, NTW20, Machineguns, etc)
Explosive Rounds, 75 Damage, Blue Tracer (RPG, Grenade Launchers, etc)
Challenges and Conclusion
There are some challenges outside of making the game. Currently in South Africa we have an energy crisis, and our electricity is turned off nation-wide for upwards of 12 hours a day for the last week. This kind of African nonsense hampers progress like full on war. Nothing I can do about it though, solar is too expensive even for the richest of people here. All that being said this is what I got so far. Here is a video on how things currently fare, it's just gonna be straight work going forward. Let me know what you dudes think ːsteamthumbsupː
CARNAL Reborn: Update #7
Sup guys This is a bit negative, but it's better to rip off the band aid quickly and move on.
I have started to come across a lot of problems with regards to how the new project is shaping up performance wise. To put it lightly; Unity's HDRP is super dissapointing.
Engine Troubles
The performance hiccups started to pop up when I began planning out the combat encounters for each Train compartment. Before that the game would run at a locked 60 FPS and even over that on the maxed out quality settings, even with all the amount of props on-screen.
I wrote a few systems to improve performance even more, such as culling objects, rooms and lights when the player moves out of their range. This also doubled the frames, so everything was going pretty good all things considered.
But something about having more than one AI character moving around on screen just killed performance every time. I even tested this in an empty scene, and got the same stutters and dropped frames. For context, the AI isn't any more complex than the ones in the original CARNAL, only differences being they can strafe walk and show expressions on their faces now.
To make sure I wasn't crazy I even opened a few older projects with basic AI and simple scenes into the new engine and experienced the same problems. These older projects would run at 400-500 FPS when using the Built-in Unity renderer, but once I opened them in HDRP, they would drop to 20-30 FPS. If I had to guess, it would appear that HDRP has a bottleneck somewhere with regards to skinned meshes and animations, even more so if there are multiple agents on-screen animating at the same time, regardless of model complexity.
That's a huge problem, especially if you're trying to make a fast-paced shooter with multiple enemies on-screen.
HDRP is an amazing tool, don't get me wrong. But after countless tests and optimizations I cannot get the project to run at a locked 60 FPS in all scenarios. The in-game models are equivalent to 2010 era games and the AI code is comparable to 2001 era games. The only new thing is the modern lighting engine used in HDRP, which makes it look as good as it does. For reference I am using an AMD RX 6600, Ryzen 5 5600X, 16GB RAM and Nvme 2 solid state drive, so it's not the PC either.
HDRP has been in an experimental phase since 2018, and even though the performance has improved over the years, it simply still isn't ready for making fast-paced shooters. I think I now know why AAA developers don't use HDRP for new games. For as much as i don't care about Unreal Engine, I can see why it remains the go-to choice for the majority of developers, as Unity is just too far behind in terms of visuals vs performance. Also Unity as a company are slow to make improvements on their software, whereas Epic runs circles around them.
So What Now?
I am going to have to put this project on the back burner for a while, at least until Unity can sort their mess out. I am not trashing the project or the idea, but it's pointless to continue. I have been in a bit of a negative space because of this, seeing as I've sunk a ton of hours into this project, only to find out that the toolset cannot deliver on it's promises. You would need a super beefy PC to run this thing at a locked 60FPS, which is unrealistic, as I cannot expect everyone that plays this to have an RTX 3090 type PC. I am not going to downgrade the vision I had for the game, as that would defeat the purpose.
The whole situation sucks.
Wanna know what sucks even more? Most people didn't seem to care about the new high quality visuals either. I had more people tell me they prefered the look of the original CARNAL to the new one. So technically I was making a game no one really wanted too lol
You Got Anything Else?
I don't really know what to do now exactly. I have dug out the old PAGAN project from an external drive, but I'm not sure I people would be okay with that after seeing what I was trying to do with the new CARNAL. Also it would probably look like a schizophrenic development process.
Would a large scale combat game like this still be okay for you guys? I can genuinely understand if it's not. I originally stopped on it when both of my previous graphics cards died on the old PC, then I just never went back to it. I recorded a few minutes last night of what the PAGAN project was before I shelved it:
Here is what my plans for it were: https://mercysoft.itch.io/pagan
I guess when all those nerds said "making games is hard", they were kinda serious.
Feels like I should get a different hobby sometimes XD
CARNAL: Reborn - Development Update #6
Hey, me again. Felt like sharing this week's stuff, so if you're in the mood for some screenshots you're in luck. I'll write some garbage afterwards if you're interested ːsteamthumbsupː
This Week
Here are some of the new stuff you can pick up. Cash for the pre-mission shop, Conspiracies in a classified folder and easter eggs that you can collect for cash bonuses at the end of each level: The Darkwater Railroad Co. Souvenir shop: Seats for the cake shop: Cake shop: The restaurant details finally added: Lounge details: Bathroom details (more you can't see): What the compartments look like with just their props and details, to give an idea of the density of detail I'm trying to maintain:
Still more to do if you can believe that :|
Where We At
So after this week I'll probably have the level filled out, with most prop mechanics being in place, such as interacting with inanimate objects like vending machines, cash registers, toilets, hand dryers, etc.
After that I have to finish the first level civilians and their animations, mechanics and systems. Nothing special actually, I want them strapped to bombs like in Manhattan Project: That makes them an easy to understand mechanic, and part of the mission objective. In theory at least.
Still need to do the new guns as well as the player model.
Perspective
I don't mind telling you guys, I got a bit overwhelmed a couple of times. Just seems like so much stuff to complete, which I like don't get me wrong, but I did start having fears that I'll be putting all this time and effort in to making the best looking and playing shooter I can make... and then no one ends up playing it haha.
I mentioned a while back that the market is over saturated, and it seems I wasn't far off, with all these really good indie shooters coming this 2022, and the flood of big dick AAA games all coming out in 2023. Just seems like a tough thing to compete with, especially with it being just me, no marketing team or publishers.
After gaining some tiny gray hairs on my beard I said, "you know what, fuck it", and decided to change my attitude. The only thing that really matters is making the coolest game that I can, and letting the chips fall where they may. So what if I don't have a budget, marketing, publishers or social media. What matters is that I can look back one day and feel proud of what I made. That and making people angry with the higher quality billboards that the new one will have :D
If it seems like I'm being overly serious, I apologize, while I know i'm just developing a silly toy, I do take some pride in what i do, and I want to make right with you guys. That's the important part ːsteamthumbsupː
Speaking of social media, i did strongly consider making a twitter account to show progress and creating some awareness, but was quickly reminded of why the idea made me cringe in the first place. I don't know something about the people using it, their interspecies profile pics and pronouns. Let's just say I get the feeling that CARNAL would not be welcome there haha.
Conclusion
I probably forgot to share or mention something, but guess that's my problem. Hope you guys have a good weekend, and enjoy your lives my dudes. Till next time ːsteamthumbsupː
Also who needs money in the bank when you got true happiness? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGY8r4mggPw&list=RDMMJGY8r4mggPw&index=1
CARNAL 2: Update #5
Intro
Hey it's that time of the whatever again. I am still going at it, and I'm gonna post a few tidbits here to keep everyone updated. I'm still on the first level, but only because of general asset creation, as well as ironing out the kinks and mechanics of the game.
If you're not in the mood for reading, here is a quick video to show general level progress. Please keep in mind that this is only to demonstrate what the first level is going to be like in terms of flow and atmosphere, it'll be like an easy intro/tutorial for the game. Nothing is obviously done and there is no combat yet, also most of the audio isn't in place either ːsteamthumbsupː
I am learning to be patient with the whole process as it gets frustrating not feeling like enough is getting done, but it is lol.
There are way too many things to share, so I'll try to show only a few.
Screenshots
The kitchen compartment of the train: Mechanics from CARNAL like opening ovens and microwaves for health:
To give an idea of the level of detail the game is gonna have:
Food health items:
New stuff added
I have added a mostly complete backdrop for the train, and the scenery is indeed moving. I'm not sure how convincing it all is yet, so let's just say i might come back to it later haha. There are a ton of new assets, and this is why it has been taking so long for me to do another update. Sad news is I'm nowhere near finished. Good news is i can and will reuse the assets where it makes sense, maybe have them look slightly different to fool everyone ;) Like i said previously there are too many things to show in screenshot form, so i'll rather give a quick summary of the things:
Dozens of new Furniture models
Mechanics system in place for interactions
Culling system in place for streaming assets in and out of memory
Destructable objects system in place
Title of the game
I have decided (so far at least) to go with the name CARNAL: Reborn. Sounds cheesy yes, but I think it makes sense with what the whole game is going to be about more or less, story wise at least. Let me know what you guys think of that one. Also I'm thinking of slightly merging the concepts of an old project of mine, PAGAN, into the story of this new one. Maybe have you play as the RDF dude called Cyrus Richter or something like that.
Performance
Feel I need to mention this; so far it performs more than alright, keeping 60fps on my machine with the settings mostly maxed out. The only thing that might hinder this is the particles, but I'll try to make it an option in the hopefully improved settings menu where you can choose between good and performant versions of the particles in question, specifically with bullet impacts.
Conclusion
It's been busy again, and there were days where I couldn't work on it, so progress has been slower than I would have liked. I'm gonna be on the first level for while until most of the mechanics in the game is finished, then I can proceed to make to other levels. Also still need to redo the weapon models, civilian's need to be finished and the player character model needs to be in place as well. Updates might be more boring next time around, who knows.
I'm starting to understand why modern games take so long to make, its all the damn assets that need to be present in the game lol. Let me know what you guys think, and have a nice week ːsteamthumbsupː
