I've started adding something I've been meaning to add for a long time to DeadOS: Music!
I've added a music slider to the options bar so that you can disable it when you get fed up of hearing it or want to listen to your own music.
At the moment I've added a single track that plays when the city is first generated as a way of setting the scene but I will be adding more as I create them. So far I've been basing it on the music I created for the Steam trailers, I want it to be very unobtrusive and not get in the way of the action.
Music isn't my strongest aspect but I hope that you enjoy the additions and let me know how you feel about it! Thanks for playing as always!
Version 0.27.2 is now live!
Hey everyone! Happy Halloween!
I've added a new option for the zombies in the virus settings:
You can now choose the Die First option which means infected humans will die and then rise again as a zombie instead of turning into a zombie where they stand. This should change up the dynamics a little bit especially as I wish to add more AI logic involving how bodies are dealt with. The Symptom Ticks are how long the body stays on the ground so you can customize your experience.
I've added the ability for survivors to flee from murderous military that have been set to No Survivors, as they were foolishly standing there and allowing themselves to be murdered instead of running for their lives.
I've fixed a crash/logic bug where survivors were not correctly trying to enter safe buildings when gathering with other survivors. This has caused people to gather a lot more in buildings and less in the streets, though they will still leave when there are too many zombies inside.
I've added the ability to click on units on the ground floor when the all floors visibility option is toggled as players were previously unable to do so.
I hope everyone has a good spooky season and I'll see you in the next update!
Version 0.27.1 is now live!
Hi everyone! I have something exciting for you this week!
I've added a new way to view the city by showing all floors at once!
You can toggle it on and off using this new eye icon:
At the moment you can't click on units while using this screen but it's fun to look around at the simulation and your buildings!
In the Free Camera Mode you can now hide your HUD using the H key to help you take fun and interesting screenshots! Here's some:
I added ceiling tiles to the game to show the difference between floors as previously they were not needed but now with this view they are. A lot of things are still visually shaky when looking around in this mode as it was never originally intended to work this way but I'll fix those over the coming updates.
I hope you enjoy the update and if you have any suggestions or bugs feel free to let me know in the comments!
Version 0.27.0 is now live!
Hi everyone!
This week is mostly bug fixes for the previous updates and small additions but I do have some new features for you:
I've added the option for the Military to wear Haz-Mat suits. At the moment there is no visual change for this, but this makes them immune to catching the virus when it is airborne. They will still become infected if they are bitten however.
I've added a Clear button to the zombie override section. I found it very annoying to have to manually undo all the zombie instructions I was setting when playing the game and found that this Clear button was much needed.
Now on to the bug fixes!
Most of the fixes were for the new time bar I've added. First there was a bug where the military were not synced to the time bar when they were called in causing them to be faster/slower than the simulation and causing all sorts of messes. That's been fixed.
I've also fixed some bugs where the time bar was still set to be fast/slow when resetting or reverting simulations and causing it to not act correctly.
Lastly I fixed a bug to do with immune humans. I discovered that humans that were immune to the virus weren't being reset when the sim was reverted, causing people to be immune when they shouldn't be.
Thanks for playing everyone, I hope you like the new fixes and I appreciate your suggestions!
Version 0.25.6 is now live!
Hi everyone!
I've added a new control bar for starting/pausing simulations:
As well as being able to start and pause sims you can now use the forward and backward arrows to speed up and slow down your simulations easily. You will get a large frame rate hit if your computer has trouble running at the fast speeds, so you will have to find a speed that is good for your machine.
The back arrows only slow down the simulation, they do not reverse it...though that could be possible in a future update it would take a LOT of work for something I'm not sure people would want.
You will still be able to continue simulations after they have ended from the previous update and the other UI has been moved around to accommodate it.
Let me know if you have any issues using these new controls, and I will see you in the next update!
Version 0.26.4 is now live!
Hi everyone! I have a small series of bug fixes and changes for you this week:
I've added the ability to press the Continue button when a simulation would normally be finished so that the cleanup / aftermath of a sim can be watched. At the moment that doesn't mean too much as I haven't added much post-sim AI but that is something I will be taking a look at. I'd like bodies to be cleaned up and people rescued, etc.
I've also changed survivor behaviour a little after realising they were packing themselves in too tightly in crossings to the point where nothing could pass:
They will now act more reasonably and be able to step outside of the square so that more people can gather and get through without creating a wall.
I've fixed a bug where cops in the police station weren't grabbing ammo from the station when there were zombies in the police station. They would hunt the zombies and then run away with no ammo in a loop until they died. Now they correctly grab more ammo before continuing the hunt.
I've fixed a few bugs the Civilian Overlay caused with the Call Military and Manual Selection screens where the UI overlay wasn't showing selections.
Thanks for playing as always and see you in the next update!
Version 0.26.3 is now live!
Hi everyone! I hope you are all having a good week!
For this update I have rearranged the buttons on the top right corner to be a bit more visually organised. as well as adding a new Civilian overlay:
The Civilian overlay shows visually what areas survivors think are dangerous to be in, with a growing intensity in colour as the danger increases. The zombie colour is used as selected in the accessibility options so it should still work for those who have changed colours.
The blue side of this overlay is any area the survivors think is safe. This is mainly areas where cops and other armed civilians are and zombies are not. There is a small factor added for corpses as well.
I want to use this overlay to show a little more what is going on behind the scenes in the decisions the survivors are making to try and survive. I will also want this system to take into account when survivors will make barricades + safer holdouts so that survivors will try to naturally flock to them.
I tried to fix a lot of UI glitches that were happening in this update (which is why it took longer than it should have) so if you experience issues please let me know!
Thanks for playing and see you next update!
Version 0.26.2 is now live!
Hi everyone! Got another rather significant change to talk about this week!
I'm working on the AI for the Alarmed state:
Alarmed citizens (I think I might change the name Alarmed to Survivors by the way) have a new system to try and survive the outbreak. The new system involves determining which areas are safe and which are not based on how many zombies are there, how many armed citizens and cops, the number of corpses, etc.
When an area is deemed Unsafe they will leave it, such as these citizens leaving a building due to a zombie presence. At the moment they do not return home as they did in the last update but I plan to merge these two types of AI in an upcoming update so that Survivors will decide whether or not they want to return home or stay where they think they are safe. I'd like to add a family / bravery system to help them make this decision and allow for interesting scenarios where survivors strike out on their own to try and rescue or find their loved ones.
I also want to add an overlay like the other overlays I have that shows which regions survivors deem dangerous so that users can see what is influencing these decisions better in a future update.
These changes have radically changed the survivability of the citizens, with them mostly being much better off for it. I had thought that they would have gathered and hidden in buildings when I wrote the code but to my surprise they do almost the opposite and gather in the street instead. I think a part of this is due to how the cops are mainly in the street when doing their quarantining and citizens feel left abandoned in the buildings, and therefore unsafe. I'd like to add more barricading systems in the future so that citizens will feel drawn to these as safer places as part of future updates.
The grouping together does also mean the occasional infected citizen gets in with the group, and this can keep a simulation going a lot longer. This to me is part of the strengths and weaknesses of citizens grouping up vs staying apart and I'd like to allow the player to be able to influence this more in the future to try and make more interesting simulations, as well have cops / military try to deal with things like the quarantining of infected.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts on these changes!
I've also made some other changes:
I've changed the default cops to be 120 instead of 200 as with this new system the humans are winning almost every time. With 120 it feels like more of a chance for both survival and total wipe-outs to occur.
I've also changed the default police retreat threshold from 50% to 25% as this feels more reasonable as I felt too many cops were crowding into the police station too soon and leaving the civilians to die when they had a reasonable chance of winning the scenario.
I've changed how the twitch integration works slightly so that the name list is reset every time the game is started up so that only current chat members are added to the civilian list.
Thanks for playing and see you in the next update!
Version 0.26.1 is now live!
Hi everyone! I've got a big update for you this time that I've been working on over the last three weeks so let's get into it!
I've added an important functionality to buildings that has been needed for a long time. Now users can dedicate rooms as different types to decide what civilians should do with them. At the moment the types are Home and Work, as well as Indoor (which is used as connecting spaces) and detecting outdoor regions.
This required me to do a large overhaul to the level editor for the new functionality including changing the save format for the buildings (your old ones will still work, but you need to designate rooms for the system to use them or else the sim will revert to how it worked previously).
So what will you actually see when running sims?
First of all people no longer live and work on the roof, or in random stairwells. They work and live where they are supposed to work and live. They commute back and forth between these locations. After making these changes I immediately hit some issues. First off:
Everyone was getting cramped into bottlenecks.
Because all the units now correctly try to live in the apartment looking buildings, there was a huge flow of traffic into these places. This is partly because I have a lot more work spaces than home spaces and partly because I have small choke points to get into these buildings.
To try and deal with this new issue I've added a new building, the hotel, to try and break up where people go a little more:
as well as adjusting existing ones:
I would like to add more default buildings and have further adjustments further down the line. I also quadrupled the amount of time people work in a building to 512 ticks so that there aren't as many people trying to commute at the same time.
This has had a dramatic change to how people group together, move together and the dynamics of the sim. I'm hoping that this is the beginning of going in the right direction so that we can have features in the future such as designating the rooftop zones so that military choppers can land on them or people can hide on the roof. It is also the next step towards things such as having furniture and such and the dynamics of barricading.
I also want to officially designate the police station as a specific building in future updates so that will be more interesting, as well as laying the groundwork for things such as a hospital or military encampments.
Thanks for playing as always and let me know what you think of the changes!
Version 0.26.0 is now live!
Hi everyone! I have something I think you are going to like this week!
I've added a Free Camera Mode option to the game:
Now you can move the camera around while the sim is running and view the action from whatever angle you wish!
I want to add the option to see all floors in this mode soon but I didn't want to delay the update for just that feature. I'd also like to add an option to remove all the HUD elements for taking screenshots.
I look forward to seeing the screenshots people take and let me know your thoughts!
