Cogs and Cowboys
Beta Live - Weapon system, graphics updates
Right click on Cogs and Cowboys in your library, go to Properties, Betas, and opt in to the beta.
Features:
All weapon bullet speeds increased x5, shot delay less noticeable
Bloom, AO, Color Grading
Weapon changing system
Destroyable objects
New shaders for terrain and map objects
Audio options saving/loading fixed
Audio options min/max values adjusted (previously too sensitive, 50% on the slider made it silent)
IMPORTANT NOTES:
Tooltips have not been updated and are incorrect.
To change weapons, move controller into holster, behind lower back, or behind head and pull the trigger. You should feel a clicking from the controller when you move it into a holster location.
There are some issues with the new shaders I have to look into and I also have not optimized it yet, so let me know if performance seems any different. There is a known issue of the terrain shader not working after changing the quality level, I'll have to look into it.
Please leave your feedback in the FEEDBACK - BETA Discussion thread.
Thank you!
Progress Report - The Good, Bad, Ugly, and Beautiful
Lots of news and lots of pictures!
TL;DR Summary (at least scroll down to see the images/screenshots):
Good - Story/characters in progress
Bad - Weapon update behind
Ugly - Two weeks of weapon update work pretty much failed
Beautiful - Finally found solution to weapon update issues, graphics update/dynamic sand buildup, destructible cover/objects, better glass shaders, faster bloom, color grading (maybe), ambient occlusion.
The Good:
The story is in the works. The main events, main characters, and other basic story elements are already planned out for the first chapter. One important thing, you will have a steampunk airship (think pirate ship attached to a zeplin) and a crew you'll be introduced to after some mishaps. Your ship is essentially your home base and will take you from location to location.
The characters so far (may change over time):
We've already planned out how they act, talk, ect. but I'm not going to give that stuff away yet.
Main Character: - (No name or model yet, only the characteristics and backstory)
Patty O'Brien - Ship mechanic
Doc Swave (Pronouned Swahv) - Medic/Cook
Proxy - Navigator
Frank - Every crew needs a parrot, even if it's a weird talking mechanical one
Port - Ordinance Operator
The Bad:
The update is behind schedule. Getting the weapon holsters to follow the headset has proven much more difficult than I thought. I initially had it working in only an hour or two, the problem is when you look straight down it stops working, which happens a lot when crouched and looking for your guns on your sides.
The Ugly:
So, two weeks of trying everything I could think of to fix the problem of when you look straight down to see your holsters everything gets flipped around. Turns out the fix is simple, just move the holsters a little further forward so you never have to look straight down in the first place. Let that be a lesson, sometimes the most elegant solution, that is, the simplest and least expensive solution, is the common sense one right in front of you...
This update will be out as soon as I have the inventory UI set up so you can change what weapons are assigned where. I've spent so much time trying to fix something that didn't need to be fixed I haven't gotten that set up yet.
The Beautiful:
New terrain shader:
Parrallax, dynamic sand, some other goodies
New environment objects shaders:
Parrallax, dynamic sand, refraction, other goodies
(Also replaced some of the poor looking assets with much higher quality ones)
Destroyable objects:
Better, faster bloom:
Ambient Occlusion:
Color Grading (maybe, not sure if this is working very well, opens up some interesting possibilities though):
Update 0.1.2 - Weapon Changes
In this update I've made a few changes to weapons.
- Small pistol now auto-reloads
- Large pistol now auto-reloads
- Sniper now auto-reloads
- Large pistol/sniper texture made more steampunk themed
- Arc Cannon redesigned/retextured
I have not had a chance to rewrite the code for global leaderboards, but I'm going to be working on an overhaul of the weapon changing system that would pretty much need the leaderboard to be wiped afterwards anyways, so I'm going to hold off on it still unless you really want it now.
My plan is to change the weapon system to having a pistol holster on each side of you, shotguns on your lower back, and rifles behind your head. You assign a specific weapon to each of those spots and that's how you quickly change between them, just by grabbing them. To change what weapon is assigned you will open an inventory while the game goes into super slow motion (almost paused, but not quite). This will make changing to your favorite weapons much faster, feel more authentic, and will allow me to design the single player in a way that you don't start off with all weapons and can find them as you go.
IN ADDITION, changing to this method will allow me to attach throwables to your chest, so you can grab them and throw them at enemies. It will also free up some buttons so I can add more abilities. One that I'm really looking forward to is a plasma lasso to pull enemies in so you can shoot them in slow motion.
Anyways, if you have any issues post them in the Feedback Discussion thread and have a splendid day!
Progress Report - Slow Week
Sorry for the lack of updates this week, I've been busy with classes and clubs starting up again for fall semester.
On the bright side, now that Cogs and Cowboys has made some money and I am once again surrounded by students dreaming of being game developers, I'm going to try to build up a team for this game to speed up progress and overall create a better game.
What I'm working on right now:
It was recently brought to my attention that the Arc Cannon is very similar to the Multiplas Rifle in Fallout: New Vegas. I was not aware of this as I bought the weapon model to speed up development and just added some small touches to make it look a bit more steampunk than scifi. That said, I'm currently working on redesigning it to be more unique. It still has the same general design as I don't have time to create a new one from scratch to replace it, but it's at least a bit different. Since I'm having to redo a lot of the setup for it in Unity, I'm going to go ahead and add some of the little touches I left out of release, such as the bulbs actually lighting up when the gun fires and recoloring it to fit the theme of the game more.
Here's the progress I've made so far today:
POLL - Direction for next update
I have a list of changes planned for the next few updates that includes:
- Redoing shooting to not have any delay
- Changing small pistol to auto reload
- Changing large revolver to click trackpad reload instead of swiping down
- Changing revolver sniper to click trackpad reload instead of swiping down
- Increasing the time enemies spawn in in waves so they don't spawn all at once and waves last longer
- Adding the ability to move around in the cover space (new maps and story mode maps will allow you to move much more freely, this map just wasn't designed for that kind of movement).
- Leaderboards (just waiting for a support response for an issue I've run into)
But I'd like to get your opinion,
Should all weapons auto-reload?
Doing so would allow me to use the trackpad for many other things, but I'd like to know how you feel about weapon reloads first. Do they make the game more immersive or take away from blasting away at everything?
Let me know in the comments!
UPDATE Ver. 0.1.1
This update includes:
- Main Menu
- Story Mode Teaser
- Weapon Balances/fixes:
-ALL WEAPONS
-Doubled shot propagation speed - shots travel twice as fast and should not need to be led nearly as much as before
-SMALL PISTOL - Increased damage by 100%, increased reload speed 50%
-DOUBLE BARREL - Decreased spread by 1 degree in all directions, increased range by 10
-Arc Cannon - Increased accuracy 25%, doubled damage - New small enemy texture (old one got corrupted, this one is still WIP)
Global leaderboard status:
It worked once, then stopped working, so I'm in the process of rewriting the code for it.
Changes pushed to next update:
- Decrease distance weapon selector appears from controller
- Global/Friend Leaderboards
- Time slow-down while changing weapons
Post Release Update - Update coming soon
I am finishing up the first update. I just have to get global and friend leaderboards working. It's proving more difficult than I previously thought as I am still new to Steam development and am also pretty sleep deprived from the last few nights of getting things together for release, but I've got myself some coffee and am working hard trying to get it implemented as soon as possible (though I may get a little sleep as it's morning and I didn't sleep last night due to working on this update).
The update will also include changes to weapon accuracy and damage based on your feedback and the intro/teaser for the story as well as a few random changes you'll hear about when the time comes. If I can't get leaderboards working tonight I'll push the update without them and add them in the next update.
Initial Release!
Cogs and Cowboys is now available for purchase! Unfortunately the story levels are not ready yet, but I didn't want to delay the release as the current content was what was originally planned for this release.
That said, here's a look at the intro to Cogs and Cowboys that I am currently working on. The next update (probably later today) will include this scene, an actual main menu, some various optimizations, and if all goes well a playable story demo or two to play after watching the intro.
Thank you and I hope you like what I've got so far. Please continue supporting me turning this into something much more than just another wave based shooter.
Have fun!
Crunch Time
One of those things is of course some story levels. So with that said, I'm back to work. I hope you enjoy what I have so far and help me turn this into a great VR experience.
Thank you and see you on the other side :)
Story Mode and MULTIPLAYER??!?!?@!
Story Mode
I have the models, the code, and the AI (which can dynamically find and take cover, a feature that's just not enabled in the wave-based mode) so why not? I've read of people's concerns of another wave based game (though in its defense taking cover is a large part of it that few of the others use) so I'm going to add a few levels for a Story Mode. It won't be a fully fledged thing just yet as I've only got two days to put it together, but you'll at least be able experience what the game's mechanics feel like in a Story Mode where you have to move through a level.
My plan is to do it using a dash system. Instead of teleporting, selecting a location will make you quickly jump to that location. It's similar to teleporting, just in a way you can feel it and see it. I may do it using pathfinding to quickly move you there around objects and whatnot just because I'd like to see how it feels. It's been requested to allow touchpad movement as well. That depends if feedback says to make the large revolver and the revolver rifle cock by clicking the pad instead of pulling back on it. I may be able to make it an either/or thing where you can choose one control option or the other, but for now I'm going to focus on just one type of movement and get it working with it.
Multiplayer
I started on multiplayer last night. I've got basic networking done that allows players to connect to a server. Eventually people will host their own games as a peer-to-peer connection with dedicated servers coming later.
I've also got full body IK in the works. It mostly works so far. Feet/legs use IK to stay on the ground and crouching works. Hands/arms use IK and the body follows the hands, the head looks wherever you look with your headset with the body slightly responding to it. It's pretty rough at the moment though, putting your hands in the wrong spot causes the body to spin around and the elbows to go up and down...but when it works..it works.. and seeing the hands and arms in first person feels pretty nice. In multiplayer you won't see your own player model though, unless that's something people actually want.
Multiplayer and IK player models are on the backburner for the time being though, I'd like to have more content ready for release and the days following. Multiplayer is going to take a bit more time than that. It's also pretty difficult with only one headset, so if you'd like to be a tester for it, send me an email at mostwantedgd@gmail.com, leave a message on the Discord server (first news post) or leave a comment here so I can get in touch with you.