Fortune's Run
Extremely depressing sad update
I have some really, extremely bad news.
As some of you may know, this game is being worked on by two people; I, Dizzie, and Arachne, my wife. Previously we attempted to collaborate with more people, but long story short, we couldn't afford anything anywhere near full-time because the game just doesn't make that much money. Today, aside from some VA, all responsabilities are split between the two of us.
About three weeks ago, Arachne had a major surgery. Everything should have went well and we were planning on resuming production at a slower pace about a week and a half later, with me taking over some of the more demanding responsabilities as she recovers for the rest of the year. That is no longer happening. She has had multiple complications from the surgery and had to be hospitalized in the ICU two days after being released from the surgery center. We've been bouncing around between different departments and hospitals for about a week now. Long story short, she was very ill and almost died but is now stable and has been released home into my care.
So, yeah, this is a pretty big deal and it changes everything for us. Her health is now the priority. If you've been paying attention, you'll know that in order to deliver content on time, we've been doing crunch constantly for the past 3 years. That can't be happening anymore. She's my priority and I'm going to have to push back all the deadlines since I'll be working much less and by myself in the forseeable future.
I'm trying my best to make sure we can continue working on the game to some degree because this story is very personal to the both of us and we want to see it through. It's not just a question of delivering the EA promises, we're talking about things that we've lived and that matter to us a lot. It would be very difficult for us to somehow leave these things unsaid. But that's very optimistic! You may expect more depressing announcements in the near future where I set new, less ambitious goals for the project.
In the meantime, I'll be working somewhat part timely on content and still trying to ship the August deadline, but starting from today, all deadlines are fully optional. Some of the content will be missing since Arachne can just not finish it. I'm not sure what the release will look like yet, it's likely to not be the tip top professional affair you guys have been habituated to by our incredible standards, ha ha! But it should be something; it's important to the both of us that we deliver something.
So, that's it guys. Long story short, we're alive but going through some stuff. Game is not cancelled, but game is being probably delayed some significant amount. We'll continue posting updates, we're always on Discord pretty much 24/7, especially now that Arachne is bedridden ːsteamsadː so if you have any questions, go on and ask. Just know that we, as usual, don't like talking about our personal lives that much, so we probably will want to avoid specific gory details about her health and so on. But we can keep you guys in the loop as to what we're doing with our lives, since that's relevant to what you bought.
Doing our best to continue not dying,
-Team Fortune
The "Stealth Update" Update!
Oh. :(
Well, it's okay, here's the video update ^^!
The first thing to note is that we will be releasing this new content in August and not July as we were thinking a few weeks ago. We've decided we want to take more time because we want to introduce some additional non-combat content along with this huge mission, and we need more time to do all of that.
We're actually working very hard on it right now, so I'm going to keep this brief! Here's a highlights reel of all the new stuff you can expect:
- Whole new 3~ hour mission! This time with a focus on stealth and exploration instead of combat. The new level is a unique setting full of story content which will show you what's happening beneath the surface of New Zabra.
- Cool volumetric effects such as fog which add a feeling of foreboding to the new, extremely polluted underground area.
- New classic stealth game elements like searchlights, cameras, tripwires, proximity alarm drones and hiding in lockers.
- Carrying and hiding corpses and searching their pockets for extra goodies. They are rendered with a new system which has 3d-like sprite angles so that you can see the corpse from above without it turning into a paper-thin silhouette! It looks really cool, you can see it in the video. If you're curious about the technology, here is a blog post on it!
- AI improvements and new functionality to complement more focus on stealth. It's really quite a lot! The enemy now has a HQ dispatcher which monitors which patrols are missing and reinforces them, even during combat. You now have to contend with enemies raising the alarm and searching procedurally for the player by exploring the level if they are suspicious of an intruder. The reinforcement system also creates fun time-based gameplay: if you take out a patrol, you get 30 seconds to take out their friends so that the patrol isn't reported as missing. This is really fun and hard to explain, you can see the HUD displaying the reinforcement timer in the video. I guess you'll have to try it to really get it but we are SUPER excited about this new feature.
- New elemental types and effects, and interactions with a fluid system where you can drain oil or water from barrels and ignite/electrify them with...
- The "Cable Gun", a battery-powered speargun which is designed to be used from stealth and as a utility. You can fire a harpoon which shock people from stealth, putting them out silently. You can also use it as a pretty advanced combo aid and reel enemies into you in between attacks like Scorpion! Check out the vid!
- The "Flare Rifle", a long-barrelled precision projectile weapon which can stick to enemies and give them fire damage over time. Deals a percentage of HP and therefore is useful as an equalizer against tanky enemies!
- The "BBQ Fork", a new melee weapon to complement the knife as a strong-but-slow option. Charges up attacks and does a stabbing leap which damage using the new elemental system.
- Possibly a third new stealth weapon! We're still deliberating on that one ; )
- Completely new faction with five new enemies (so far), extensive lore and wonderful environmental storytelling. They have totally new mechanics like time-based (halo style) energy shields, the ability to leap into the air and access to the new elemental weapons, just like the player.
- A new hacking-style minigame where you can repair switches by using soldering tools to get side-paths and secrets. The circuit is simulated and you'll have to diagnose problems with it with the help of your trusty device scanner. I know this will sound scary and complicated for some of you, which is why it is OPTIONAL at the moment. We are experimenting with the feature and will probably make changes to it in the future, but we really like it and we want you guys to try it.
- Fixed gun emplacements which can be used by the enemies or the player, creating dynamic fights where capturing/holding certain spots is highly valuable.
- Lots of new cinematic setpieces like a fight on a free-falling elevator platform!
- Super crazy animated factory where you'll have to crawl along moving conveyor belts and avoid pistons and other hazards!
- Annoying castlevania bats which drop down from the ceiling while you're trying to platform on said conveyor belts!
- Many framework updates to make existing systems more easy to understand and use, for example re-working how weapon unloading and picking up works (yes, we heard you D:)
- TCHAIKOVSKY
What about this "additional non-combat content"???
Well, as you know, we are planning to set the game in a hub where you can accept missions, talk to NPCs and do a bit of world-building and exploration. This level is absolutely massive, so we're having trouble finding time to work on that as well as the hub, so we've decided we're going to release the hub in slices where each slice pertains to a specific theme and will show you a certain set of NPCs and side of the story. So, we'll be shipping a somewhat self-contained non-combat area, a bit like Club V'Heni from the demo, where you'll get to know Mozah a bit better. ^^
Alright! That's all folks! Now I have to go back to work D:
From New Zabra with Love,
-Team Fortune
Update on the previous update about the Next Update!
The first item on today's list is the new enemies. There are four new enemies added as of now plus a boss which will be a surprise. The new units are all Grajiiks, which you may remember as the heavily armoured "Pirates" from the exterior balcony area in the demo. They have been fleshed out into an entire faction and you will get to explore their warrens and discover their society and how it differs from surface dwellers.
The first new unit is the re-worked Grajiik Pirate, an unarmoured mobile and light enemy which wields a Scattergun. They can also draw a super-heated knife which we are affectionately calling the Barbecue Fork. This weapon is being worked on and will be useable in the July update!
The second unit is not featured in the video, but has been shown in earlier screenshots. It is the Grajiik Beast, or "Turtog." It is a critter with a shell and an anglerfish lure on its head. It can roll and leap and moves very quickly, but can only attack in melee, serving as a bit of fodder to increase the difficulty of rooms without turning them into a hail of bullets.
The third unit is the Grajiik Scout, a new sniper enemy which uses the all new Flare Rifle weapon (more below.) This enemy tracks the player with an aiming laser much like the snipers from the demo and contributes to interesting stealth puzzles. Its projectile also deals a percentage of max HP as damage over time, killing in two hits on lower difficulties and outright on higher ones. To prevent this, you must either heal during the DoT or put out the flare using water. More on this in a later update!
You may recognize the Scout design as being inspired by a specific enemy from another game which we have been making lots of visual callbacks to lately. : )
The final new enemy uses the old Pirate sprite which we are now calling the Grajiik Heavy. Recently, we've played through the first two Halo games again and we were struck by how dynamic combat becomes because of the Elite energy shields imposing an order of priority in battles. This is what we tried to re-create with this enemy. The Heavies have energy shields which block Balance Damage completely, preventing you from quickly stunning and taking them down. This forces you to vary your playstyle and try approaches with new tools. They also make the new elemental weapons more interesting since they bypass shields. Wait, elemental weapons you say!?
The two new elemental weapons are the Cable Gun and the Flare Rifle. The Cable Gun is an electrically powered speargun which can deliver a start-up jolt of power to electronic devices or to unsuspecting patrols. It stuns aware enemies and knocks out from stealth, making it our first stealth-oriented weapon! But it is also very useful in combat since it can instantly drain the energy shields of the new Grajiik Heavies.
The Flare Rifle is a semi-precision fire damage weapon which deals a percentage of max HP over time, as mentioned above. It is very useful to tackle high-HP enemies due to the scaling mechanic and can usually two-shot when combined with a quick Scattergun blast. This percentage effect will be diminished on bosses, however. Because we can't let you have too much fun. As an elemental weapon, it also bypasses shields, making it another great choice to take down Heavies.
There is also the mysterious Barbecue Fork, which will be revealed as we work on it more. Heated snacks will surely be had by all.
Speaking of snacks, our next section is the Security Ball and Incinerator. The Security Ball is a new type of challenge we created in an effort to add creating more conventional stealth gameplay. It behaves essentially like the rollermine from HL2, except it blows up if you get too close to it. In order to safely dispose of it, you will have to drop it into an Incinerator chute, which you will find at strategic locations. Of course, since we are obsessed with food interactions, you will be able to put your rations on the lip of the Incinerator and fire it to cook them. You would expect no less from us at this point.
The other conventional stealth thing we are adding is Security Cameras. And they almost work the way you'd expect, detecting the player or bodies when under their vision cone - except, to switch it up, we decided to make it so that they work with a progressive scan which you can avoid with timing and acrobatics. They will also detect dead bodies, as we mentioned, which involves a nice new feature which I'm keeping for the next update. ^^
The video also shows the new environmental hiding points such as lockers. They function exactly like in Metal Gear. That's about it.
Finally, here is a demonstration of the new sort-of-hacking-puzzle, Switch Repair. When a switch is broken by another environmental interaction, you will now have the option of repairing it by actually re-soldering its internal components. If this sounds complicated, it is! But Mozah will have access to a nice interactive scanner which highlights the problems with the circuits. There will also be a difficulty slider which scales the complexity of these puzzles, for those who are concerned. Also, so far we don't have any moments where you need to do this; it's mostly to access secrets and such.
Well, that's it for today. Recording all this was actually a huge endeavour. (" -﹏-)
We will be returning somewhat soon with one more big news post with videos on the new content and features, and after that it's back to the crunch and see you in July!~
-Team Fortune
Update on the next update!
For those of you who have been paying attention, we previously said that the next big update would be between March and July. Well, it's gonna be July, lol. But that aside, things are going really good!
The next region is "map_chopshop", a section of underground rail tunnels which have been converted into makeshift garages and shanties by New Zabra's mysterious subterranean denizens, the Grajiik.
For this level, we decided to go a bit more conventional than on the Pinafore centrifugal spaceship. We've been playing some objective-based semi stealth shooters recently (Timesplitters 2!) and we want to try doing a more straightforward structure inspired by these!
But, naturally, since we are Team Fortune, this return to a more standard format must also be accompanied with several wacky additions in engine technology.
Introducing... Y2K useable turret emplacements!
Enemies can now occupy static turrets and use them to defend their positions more effectively. The player can of course use them as well!
This also extends to other creative turret types such as the stealth game classics... Spotlights, featuring the bucket sniper from blight town!
Along with these new quite frankly revolutionary additions, we also have some cutting edge graphics tech to show off. The special shader which we used to render voxel grass in the tutorial level has now been expanded to other types of surfaces. Volumetric pixelated garbage! A bit like those MMO minecraft clones!
Also, you know what we didn't have in the other levels? Cameras! How can you have an immersive sim without cameras! But of course we can't do anything normally, so instead of being a camera that you can hack and see through, our cameras are actually high density laser scanners which have a rhythmic pattern that you will have to evade with acrobatics.
And this is only the beginning of the new features which you will be playing in a few months. Soon, more information on:
- New hacking puzzles
- New enemy types
- Cute droids
- New searchable, moveable corpses with Octahedral 3dVision Technology
- New weapons, including a tool which can restore power to devices in the world
Stay tuned, Space Cowboy.
-Team Fortune
OST is out!
So, a few bits of information: Steam by default requires MP3s to be provided. We encoded them in as high of a quality as possible, and also added the option for FLAC downloads. That being said, the FLAC is re-encoded from the original .ogg release. The quality of the original .oggs is more or less lossless, but there may have been some quality lost in the transfer between the different formats. Keep in mind that our music is largely sample-based and therefore using extremely lossless formats doesn't achieve very much, as the original samples are in pretty poor quality themselves!
The soundtrack will be updated as we add more tracks to the game. If you find a song in the game which is not yet included, it'll either be added in the next release or you can tell us so we can update it!
With utmost musical regards,
-Team Fortune
Patch 0.2.156
-Fixed dialogue being stuck in the briefing when the Use key is bound to a mouse button.
-Fixed Toggle Crouch not working properly with Uppercuts in the dojo tutorial.
-Changed Growpod D1 puzzle so that each floor explodes one at a time, giving the player more time to escape.
-Fixed environment not breaking properly during Growpod D1 puzzle if the game is saved during the explosion.
-Added SFX to ladders and zeroG railings.
-Added music and audio track to Ulibok intro cutscene.
-Added SFX to Ulibok's bola attacks.
-Fixed food occasionally flying out of microwaves!
-Increased Bottle grab range slightly to make it less awkward in the Arena map.
-Removed debug message when pickup up notes that we left in by accident. Oops.
-Fixed score screen once again. It should work now... hopefully...
Patch 0.2.152
-Fixed player being shot out into space when attempting to crouch under the brown table.
-Fixed items able to be picked up without blowtorching the Supply panels.
-Fixed score screen. Finally. xD Now it doesn't just hand out S ranks automatically.
-Changed the Use Box for certain things such as ladders so that it more accurately reflects the spot where you can press use.
-Fixed cutscene audio persisting if loading another map from map_flashback
-Fixed player starting upside down when changing maps while upside down on map_aquaponics_a
-Fixed devwarp command not working on ladders and not rotating the player correctly.
-Fixed wrong Grav Ball icon.
-Fixed an issue where the enemies would be frozen in other maps when quitting the Arena during the ending screen.
The Arena Update, v0.2.149!
-Changed Anserrah & friends faction to "Crimson Hawks"
-Fixed another stuck case in the tutorial
-Removed floating electricity trap in map_aquaponics_d
-Fixed horrible awful breathe-in during the CargoA Assistant dialogue.
-Made Squargs and Serrah Goons drop their smg 100% of the time.
-MAYBE fixed enemies not dying after a choke. Maybe.
-Fixed enemies not being aware of player after being grabbed and thrown.
-Fixed electrical panel on lower floor of Hab also opening door.
-Fixed scatterguns able to be grabbed through wall in map_prison.
-Fixed wallrun not working since last physics update.
-Added missing audio for several Mozah lines in map_aquaponics_a.
-Added missing audio for Sarinat in map_tutorial.
-Fixed many subtitling errors in the briefing. Some audio is still missing.
-Removed line with missing audio from one of the calls, because we just apparently never recorded it! Oops.
-Fixed lack of depressurization on Ops workshop door.
-Fixed a bug where dying while in dialogue in the tutorial would block progression.
-Added Maneki to tutorial and score screen!
-Added missing VR goggles to the tutorial end cutscene.
-Made headBob config value affect the vertical bob which happens on landing, meaning setting headBob to zero now removes it.
-Fixed issue with Transfer Module having wrong collision, causing player to instantly clip through if they jump off the ladder.
-Fixed Keycard Tracker not working in the demo. (note to arachne: check that blue keycard drop works correctly near shuttle)
-Fixed leaning affecting where enemies aim, making the player able to matrix dodge bullets D:
-Fixed misc. bugs surrounding grabs.
The future of Fortune's Run!
So, our current plan is to release the next major unit of content in 6 months. This is not a hard deadline. Currently, the schedule seems pretty packed to hit this date, so we may move it further out if we are not in a good state by then. The absolute latest we expect to have it out is 8 months if everything goes wrong. We may also be done a little bit quicker if things go over well.
What will that content be, you ask? There will be two primary areas added to the game.
Wait, isn't that just the hub from the demo? Why yes! But with many new connected areas.
The first one will be New Zabra, the non-combat hub. It is the city in which the game takes place. You will be re-visiting throughout the game as it is where the story advances and where missions will be acquired. The hub will not be finalized in this release since it will be updated with additional NPCs and quests throughout the progression of the story. Currently, you will be able to explore the central area as well as Mozah's modest accommodations, and you will be able to explore some expositionary dialogue as well as receive the next mission, included in the same release.
This new area will introduce an entirely new faction and explore what their way of life is like.
The second location will be the abandoned railway tunnels below New Zabra. The city is comprised of many districts built on top of one another, and the lowest ones have been abandoned due to the dwindling population. The public transportation tunnels which connected those now barren areas have been taken over by a strange group of off-worlders. Mozah will need to infiltrate it in order to complete a mission of subterfuge and sabotage.
This content release will be the first time you see level art not created by me, Dizzie. I have collaborated with the other developer, Arachne, on the hub, and the railway tunnels are a collaboration between Arachne and Foxen, a part-time environment artist which we used our Patreon income to hire. I hope you like the variety in the new environments!
Citizens of the Empire! Welcome... To... The... Arena!
In the meantime, we are releasing Arena Mode, so that you have something to chew on while you wait for the new content! This mode is not infinite, but currently it's so dang hard that I doubt anyone will get to the end of it. It is currently a gauntlet, meaning you cannot heal at any point and must simply survive as many rounds as possible. We are thinking of adding healing every X number of rounds, and increasing the total number of rounds. Please leave your feedback! This is a very early version and we are looking to improve it a lot. We find it very fun already, as it's a great opportunity to test out all the combat mechanics.
Initially we wanted to take a month off to work to recover from the mad crunch and create side-content such as challenge maps and more in-depth tutorials. Unfortunately, the game has barely sold enough to allow us to live as two people below a single minimum wage for the next year and a half, so it looks like we're going to have to compact our schedule, crunch even harder and cut as much content as possible to be able to release without hemorrhaging all of our money. I am currently guesstimating that enough additional sales will trickle in over the course of the year to make that into two and a half years, which would be enough time to complete the project, although it will remain an absolutely insane volume of work at that pace. We work every day from the moment we wake up to when we go to sleep, and we take one weekend a month, just about. I think I'd like to write more deeply on that + the harassment we've been facing in the near future, but I won't bore you with the details for now. I still haven't decided how I feel about it! All I know is that we set out on this project because we really love the medium of videogames and we wanted to tell this story, and that hasn't changed yet, so you best believe that we are still in the race. Also, I hate that even saying any of this will probably provoke some kind of hateful reaction from someone in the forums, that's mostly been the take-away for me these past few days. ;D
So, I guess, stay tuned for more details! We'll be posting updates semi-frequently. If you want the absolute latest, most cutting edge news, visit us on the Discord. We are almost always available to answer your questions.
(The patch notes for the arena update will be available as a separate news post so that they can be tied to the build!)
See you, Galactic Gauchos,
-Team Fortune
Patch notes 0.2.136
- Fixed a very serious progression blocker in the tutorial when respawning after being killed by a ninja. Sorry! There was a mistake in last night's build. This should also fix the bug where you fall to your death and can't respawn, also in the tutorial. In general, if you had tutorial problems, this is probably a fix for that.
- Re-encoded videos from the tutorial, which should make them playable on more platforms.
- Fixed a harmless Player.log error message related to the SlideDrag windows.
- Fixed another harmless but extremely annoying, spammy Player.log message (please add custom filter)
- We now prevent controller binds from being used unless useController is turned on. We are doing this because some users had weird input devices generating controller axis signals and they were overriding the ability to bind keyboard buttons.
- Fixed StunGun not alerting enemies on hit.
- Fixed a bug which was stopping the call from Sybil at the start of the demo map. It may have also been screwing up some other calls.
- Fixed some issues when restarting the tutorial map mid-game.
- Fixed SMG not reloading when over 30 rounds left in magazine.
- Fixed lightprobes loading incorrectly when launching into map_aquaponics_a, which should have resolved many visual issues where an object seemed darkened for no reason.