Hello there! Finally fixed this long-standing bug that could sometimes cause Mandrillians to miss their hits when it looked like they should have connected.
I've also fixed some ugly code and revamped some input-related stuffs.
Insectoid work is going smoothly so far, here's a bunch of them attacking a ball:
CHANGELOG:
Fixed long-standing bug that sometimes caused Mandrillian hits to miss
Fixed bug that caused Mandrillians to spawn with no stamina on the Victory Room
Fixed bug that caused Mandrillians to recover stamina slower than intended in the Victory Room unless they were gibbed
Changed the TRACKPAD setting to CONTROLLER; options are now NORMAL and VIVE WAND. This setting was only useful for wands (to choose between needing to click the trackpad to move/look around), and could also create problems if enabled with anything that was not a Vive Wand. In any case, there's more changes coming to this later
Tweaked some bindings for Index and Touch controllers to prevent users that migrate from Vive Wands to be unable to move if they had the "TRACKPAD PRESS" setting
By popular demand reverted the default layout of the Oculus Touch face buttons (so the main button is back to being the lower one)
Note that, the way SteamVR bindings work, they might not apply instantly apply to everyone.
Have a good day!
HOTFIX AND BUFFS
Buffed Armor upgrade resistance to non armor piercing bullets
All Mandrillian upgrades can now cause non armor piercing bullets to ricochet off them
Fixed bug that prevented the Healer upgrade from executing its alternate mode (hold) while also preventing the Self-Destruct upgrade from starting when doing a long button hold
Reduced Fire Bomb upgrade cooldown by 5 seconds
Reduced Healer upgrade cooldown by 10 seconds
0.0.23.5 - CLEANING AND BALANCING
Hello there! Here's a bunch of stuff I've been adding to the experimental branch while I work on the Insectoids. Mostly, some balances and tweaks to make the game more fun and less annoying in some situations.
As it was never fun to leave a yellow keycard behind and spend an embarrassingly long time looking for it (often ending in a game over for the Robot), yellow keycards now appear on your Multitool once you pick them up.
I also noticed some of the Mandrillian upgrades being under-utilized, mainly the Fire Bomb, the Scanner, and the Healer. One common thing the more often used upgrades have is short cooldown times (or not cooldown times at all), so I've done some price-shuffling and cooldown-reducing on these to try and make them more attractive.
For monkeys without upgrades, I've made the special Berserk move deplete all stamina once it ends (similar to the overheat after a Robot overclock). Having a full stamina bar after being able to pound on a poor Robot was a bit too much in some situations, and this encourages the Mandrillian to go back to the vents and recover after using up the Berserk, giving the Robot some breathing room.
On the visual side, I've removed the glass windows from Observation Chambers 1, 2, and 3. Now Observation Chamber 4 (the one that features in the Menu) is the only one with the big glass windows (that were given a smudgey pass a few weeks ago), with the other chambers being more themed, like the Plasma Cannon chamber having closed blast shutters.
Also, there seems to be some shenanigans going around with SteamVR inputs. Quest 3 touch controllers, for example, had the top and bottom buttons switched over (so lower button activated the flashlights and force grab). I'm trying to make sure all the controllers have proper layouts, but sometimes stuff can slip under the radar. If you find any problems regarding bindings, don't hesitate to report it on the forums or on the official discord server.
CHANGELOG
Fixed bug that prevented PC players from joining in the menu scene if the VR player was playing on solo mode on the previous match
Did a pass on SteamVR input bindings, hopefully fixing some erroneous layouts
Yellow keycards now have a little icon on the Multitool after picking them up (to cut down on situations where you left them behind and spent 10 minutes looking for them)
Made unique icons for the Magenta and Yellow keycards for when the "show keycards on radar" setting is enabled
Made Observation Chambers 1, 2 and 3 more unique
Fully installed the Insectoid transit system
Removed a couple automatic doors
Berserk now depletes stamina right after finishing, to avoid situations where a berserking Mandrillian could corner a Robot and keep attacking for a brutal amount of time
Scanner upgrade now lasts for 6 seconds instead of 5
Scanner upgrade's cooldown now 15 seconds instead of 20
Healer upgrade now costs 500 points instead of 750
Healer upgrade's cooldown now 40 seconds instead of 90
Self-Destruct upgrade now costs 750 points instead of 650
Fire Bomb upgrade's cooldown now 40 seconds instead of 50
Upgrade screen will flash NOT ENOUGH POINTS or NOT AVAILABLE (and give your controller a little rumble) when trying to select an upgrade with not enough points or, in the case of the insta-spawn, when it's too late
Inventory is now slightly closer to the Robot's chest, preventing failed reloadings when holding a break-action weapon's bullet receiver inside an inventory slot
Added some external FX when you heal a Mandrillian with the Repair Kit
Tweaked some sound levels all around the game
Removed Mandrillian's huffing and puffing sound while sprinting
0.0.23.4: BOT FIXES AND WINDOW SMUDGES
Fixed a keycard reader being clipped into a wall in the northern corridor
Northern corridor no longer has two automatic doors (it was too easy to tell if a Mandrillian/Robot was there thanks to the back-to-back position of those two)
Increased window size on Observation Chamber 2
Added some gritty dirty texture to window glass in Observation Chamber 2
Finally fixed dead Mandrillian Bots blocking the path of human-controlled Mandrillians
Fixed several corner cases for Mandrillian Bots where they could become unresponsive for a while
SMALL FIX
Improved Mandrillian bot behavior when they can't reach their destination
0.0.23.3 - SMOKE SCREEN BUFF AGAINST FIRE, NAVMESH FIXES
New feature for the Smoke Screen upgrade for the Mandrillians: it will put out fires, making it a great counter to the flamethrower
Improved jump cooldown when jumping out of a vent; should prevent accidental "normal jumping" when spamming jump after dropping
Mandrillian bots: fixed some navmesh glitches caused by the upcoming insectoid's systems
Covered a very tiny gap on the final elevator's entrance that sometimes could lead to a player falling down the shaft
Slightly increased shadow resolution on the Mandrillian selection screen
Fixed some text on the main menu's big screens being slightly misaligned
HOTFIX
Fixed an embarrassing bug that prevented first-time players from starting the game.
PROGRESS REPORT, PORTABLE SPAWNER, CHEAT SCREEN
Hello there! Many things happened during last month, so here's a quick roundup.
First things first, Remote Play Together Fest starts today... and Remote Play Together might be straight out broken for every VR game on the current Steam Client.
THE REMOTE PLAY TOGETHER SITUATION
Valve broke Remote Play Together with the Steam Client update of January 11th. It seems to affect exclusively local asymmetric VR games, which might explain it flying under their radar.
THE CURRENT FIX
Fortunately, going into Steam's client beta (Steam > Settings > Interface) seems to fix it. This might indicate they are at least working on it and that it will be fixed by the next main branch client update.
Only thing that I can do right now is add this ugly warning next to the remote play friend invite screen; hopefully I will be able to remove it soon.
Combined with the split audio situation, this issue is making me a bit sour about Remote Play.
THE SPLIT AUDIO SITUATION
Good news: split audio is doable (and pretty fast!). It works, and I could potentially port the entire game to split audio in a matter of weeks.
Bad news: Steam Remote Play Together doesn't work at all with any kind of split audio. It is hard coded to just pick every sound coming from within the streamed application, mix it up, and play it on the client's side. This means that any split-audio solution will always work nicely on the host (in this case VR), while on the PC side it would mix both the VR and PC audios.
Other asymmetrical vr games on the store that have proper split audio also have this issue. The problem with Mandrillia is, as the VR and PC players are supposed to be far apart a lot of the time, it's way more noticeable.
This is, however, an issue that ONLY affects Steam's Remote Play Together. Split audio would still work nicely when playing it locally, and even other remote play solutions like Parsec allow you to target a specific audio output device. Which leads me to...
THE FUTURE OF SPLIT AUDIO: SEPARATE BRANCHES?
Now that I know for a fact that I'm capable of adding split audio, with its main drawback being specifically tied to Remote Play Together, this might be the approach I'll take for it.
The idea is finishing the game with shared audio in mind until it's feature locked (hopefully before this year ends). After that, I would make a separate branch with proper split audio. That way, people will still be able to play it over Remote Play without the double audio stacking, and at the same time, there would be a "proper" option for people playing locally or over alternative remote play systems like Parsec. It's not optimal, but it's the best I can do unless Valve gives us devs some option to target audio devices with remote play together.
Alternatively, I might try my hand at having a single build with split audio and hope that it doesn't sound too horrible in Remote Play Together, but I don't have much hope on that.
THE NEW: CHEAT SCREEN AND PORTABLE ITEM SPAWNER
It would be sad if this update brought nothing so here's a little gift. The old item spawner on the main menu / starting area has been replaced by a cheat screen.
Enabling the item spawner is now a "cheat" instead of a match setting. Cheats will be stuff that's too crazy or broken to be a regular match setting.
Now that the physical item spawner is no longer at the starting area (you can still find it on the victory room), typing SPAWNER on the cheat screen will give you a very handy portable spawner.
You can store it in your inventory, and it will give you access to all the items of the old item spawner, but in a way more convenient way. Use it responsibly!
COMING UP NEXT: INSECTOIDS
Next big gameplay update will bring the long-awaited Insectoid enemies.
Current Insectoid concept art
Currently the only spawnable computer-controlled enemies are the Mandrillian bots. Mandrillian bots are meant to be a somewhat faithful representation of a proficient player; they are out to get the Robot also programmed to coordinate if the maximum of 2 are present in the map.
Insectoids, on the other hand, will fill a more brainless role, mostly passive until disturbed by either the Robot or the Mandrillians. Being just bugs, their tactics won't be much more complex than swarming whatever they think is a threat, which might lead up to interesting situations where players can use them as a sort of an organic landmine.
I'm looking forwards to work on these little guys, as their first concepts started around late 2022 (!) and it's become almost a running joke that I keep focusing on other things.
Original insectoid design from late 2022
ROAD TO 1.0
With the big unknown of split audio being at last settled (even if the solution will be a bit of a hassle for me), I feel confident mapping out the final additions to Mandrillia: proper tutorialization, finishing up the map (including better menu and victory rooms), polishing of current mechanics and exploring a coop mode.
Early Access has ben great to see what works and what doesn't for the game, and 2024 is the year where I want to have the full release. As always, a big thank you to all of you who have helped to shape up this weird little game.
FULL CHANGELOG
Added temporary warning about the broken Remote Play situation with the current fix (switch to Steam Client beta)
Migrated Steamworks integration from Facepunch to Steamworks.NET
Added the Cheat Console to the main menu, replacing the Item Spawner
Added a portable Item Spawner
Added Cheat Console code: SPAWNER (will give you the portable spawner)
Added Cheat Console code: PUMPKIN (will unlock the pumkin helmet -previously unlocked via the scrapped halloween challenge)
Improved robot damage FX, making it clearer (and more satisfying) for the Mandrillian players (and spectator view)
Added particle FX on the Robot's head while being fully blinded by a flashbang (can be seen even while cloaked, so even more reason to try and not flashbang yourself)
Fixed bug where berserking Mandrillians would stay berserk'd on the Victory Room after winning
Increased default gamma value from 0.25 to 0.3
Slightly increased intensity and cone width of weapon flashlights
Decreased initial sound fade-in start from 3 seconds to 1 second
Fixed gates having sound notifications in the minimap when operated near dead monkeys
Fixed visual bug where the Healer upgrade's charge indicators on the canisters weren't updating along the HUD charge meter when doing charge-increasing actions
Fixed some clipping geometry in the Observation Chamber door that leads to the corridor
Minor occlusion culling tweaks
HOTFIX (OF COURSE)
Fixed the little arrow marker not being visible for the "DISABLE SCREEN" option in the PC player's menu
NOTE: Something weird seems to be going on at the moment with the ingame Steam Remote inviter (most likely some maintenance stuff on Valve's end). If you fail to invite your friends from there, the normal method of right clicking on your friend's name and selecting Remote Play Together works normally. Hopefully it will all be back to normal soon.
FINAL MANDRILLIAN UPGRADES & THE AUDIO PLAN
Hello there! Today's update closes the upgrade section. This leaves the Mandrillians with the Smoke Screen, Firebomb, Plasma Gun, Scanner, Self-Destruct, Healer, Armor, and Insta-Spawn, adding some well-needed depth to the PC side gameplay. I also added the option for PC players to adjust their individual joystick deadzone at any point in the match (very useful for Remote Play sessions)
On top of that, there's some important news regarding the future of the game's audio system, but first let's go over today's new upgrades:
HEALER AND ARMOR
These two are quite the heavy hitters, both have some unique features and both massively increase the Mandrillians' survivability.
HEALER
The healer is unique among the "special move" upgrades in that it has two modes. Tapping the special move button will quickly heal the Mandrillian at a rate of 100 points/second during 1 second. This is enough to get a (standard) monkey to full HP in any situation. It will also give you back up to 3 stamina points, which can come in handy and be used for some devastating combos.
Holding the button will instead release the healing chemicals, affecting both you and nearby Mandrillians. This mode won't give any stamina gain, and its effect will only heal half of what the self-injection does while also being spread over 5 seconds instead of 1. However, it can be a very powerful tool, especially when used to get a monkey teammate out of a status effect like poison gas.
ARMOR
The armor is a familiar face with some tweaks. It's the same armor that has been available for the Mandrillian Bots since their debut, with some small modifications, like some extra protection for the eye area. It's also the first "passive" upgrade, meaning it doesn't replace the special move nor the tracking ability. You just wear it.
This chunky armor will protect you from most conventional weaponry, being basically impervious to any non-armor piercing bullet. Usually, the fastest way to die as a Mandrillian is to charge head-on against the Robot and getting shot in the face. This armor covers most of your front, allowing you to take way more risks and forcing the Robot to be more creative.
The armor still has weakpoints: getting shot in any non-armored area will still damage you as normal, and it won't protect you against electric shocks, poison gas, flash grenades or fire. Explosives can also ruin your day, so don't think you're invincible!
SPLIT AUDIO?
Ok, the important news here. As many of you know, split audio has been a pain in my behind since this game's inception. Every solution I have tried either straight out didn't work or had some unacceptable drawback like excessive audio delay, not to mention the possible incompatibilities with Remote Play Together. Right now my only option is doing a full audio system revamp porting it to either FMOD or Wwise. I'm not too unhappy with my current rudimentary shared-audio solution; for me and for many players it is acceptable but I can't deny it's far from ideal.
Well, I decided that before starting with the insectoid enemies I should just have a go at my final attempt to full port. After careful consideration, I think FMOD is a more sensible option for me than Wwise, so that's what I'm gonna be working on from this week on. If I manage to pull this off, VR and PC players will have their own audio outputs (the VR one being way more phsyically accurate, and the PC one being a more basic split-screen mix). I know there's at least a couple local VR games that have managed to do it (and also got it working in Remote Play which is a pretty big deal), so I wanna think it's possible for me.
This means the next month might look a bit silent on the main branch but will be absolute madness on the experimental branch (I might end up making an experimental audio branch just for testing this thing). There are no guarantees I will succeed in this attempt, but at least I'll be able to say I tried. Worst case scenario, I will lose a month and be right back to were I'm today, and start working with the Insectoids.
