I'm currently working on the remaining levels, but here's still a little something that I hope you'll enjoy :-)
Bug fixes
Shooting at hologram decoys did no longer cause them to glitch. This is now fixed and shooting at hologram decoys is now sufficiently satisfying again. (This includes the one in HOME, so have fun with that).
Melee attacks no longer affect more than 1 zombie.
Changes/Features
New game icon.
There is now a dog in HOME, doing dog things like sleeping, sniffing and pooping. You can even pick up and throw balls. Why is it there? How did it get there? Does this mean anything? If you want to know the answers to these questions, you only need to to wait until January and experience the story of GROSS.
Patch Notes 20.08.2022
Bug fixes
Fixed a bug where attackers would be stuck in a loop trying to attack the player, if the player was behind barricades/turrets.
Explosive damage did too much damage to cash pickups. This caused cash pickups that were at full health to be immediately destroyed after being hit by a single RPG or GLA round (which was not intended).
Zombies sounds (grunts etc.) originated from a position at their feet. Now they originate from their heads. This was not a huge issue because zombies are not very articulate in the first place and also no one but me noticed this.
Changes/Features
In late stages of the game, Zombies can sometimes turn up wearing helmets. Helmets provide protection against ammunition types that don’t offer penetration (like Hollow Point, Reaper, Vermin) and against bullets from turrets (Sniper, MG, Nailgun).
Gloop that’s affecting turrets now decays differently. Old: Gloop has a health pool and a timer. If you remove all its health OR the timer expires, the gloop gets removed. This means that if you damage gloop 90%, it still runs its entire duration and you essentially wasted your time shooting it. You either destroy all its health, or it lives for the entire duration. New: Gloop now only has a health pool, but loses a certain amount of health every second. This means that the more you damage a gloop, the more you shorten its lifetime, even if you don’t destroy it all the way.
Just like turrets report their damage done in the last wave and in total, ATMs now report their income in the last wave and in total.
Inspecting a gun can now be cancelled by firing, aiming, reloading, melee attacking or throwing something.
Implemented the new Chinese and international logos into the game.
Migrated from Unity 2020.3 to Unity 2021.3. This shouldn’t change anything for you, unless Unity screwed something up and I didn’t catch it.
Patch Notes 25.07.2022
This is THE balancing fix (imagine drum rolls). Unless players find a way to exploit bugs, it should be very hard to get past wave 20-25 (yes, that's a challenge). As such, the leaderboards will be wiped shortly.
Bug/performance fixes
Fixed several potential locations where zombies could get stuck in EXIBIT.
Implemented a catch all fix for stuck zombies: When a zombie gets in a position from where it can’t reach the target anymore, it is teleported to the closest other zombie. If it is the last zombie alive, it gets killed unceremoniously.
Fixed a bug where zombies didn’t take any damage at all for a while.
Firefighter Zombies hatchets did not collide with player anymore.
Firefighter Zombies now miss a lot less with their hatchets.
Hatchets from Firefighter Zombies now properly attach to the players face instead of “floating” (which isn’t really the main issue when having a hatchet buried in your face, but some people are particular about this sort of thing).
Fixed a memory leak that would occur while pausing the game.
Fixed a bug that made it impossible to save or load loadouts.
Looking through sniper scopes rendered spheres at the feet of zombies which are not supposed to be seen. (What are they for? Why are they there? You will never know!)
Slightly reduced performance impact of ragdolls.
Many more small bug fixes.
Many more bugs added to give you something to discover. The bugs are well hidden, even I don’t know where they are yet.
Balancing
All weapons had their damage re-evaluated. Notable changes:
Most weapons have received a damage buff to make them more inline with the more powerful guns.
Reduced the Vampyrs recoil to make it a more viable alternative to the LDHP.50.
Increased damage of launchers.
Increased FMJ damage.
Slightly reduced shotgun damage.
Increased handgun damage. Having said that, handguns at the moment mostly serve the purpose of having a dedicated “cash pickup” gun. We might give handgun additional benefits in the future.
All turrets had their damage re-evaluated. Notable changes:
Nailgun is more powerful (Yay!).
Tesla, Missile, Cannon and Flamethrower are a lot less powerful (Boo!).
Almost all traps are substantially cheaper.
Reduced usage cost of the following equipment abilities:
Decoy hologram grenade
Sticky grenade
Stun grenade
Teleporter (teleport)
Stim (heal)
Tremor boots (double jump)
Tremor boots now stun enemies in range for 5 seconds (before: knocked them back for 1.5 seconds).
In later phases, some stronger zombies appear. You can tell by the color of their eyes:
Red: They deal more damage.
Blue: They are resistant against electricity. Tesla turrets and holo explosions deal less damage. Teslas don’t slow them. Stuns are less effective.
Yellow: They are resistant against fire and explosions and therefore take less damage from Flamethrowers, incendiary bullets and explosions in general.
Martyr and Maniac zombies (the two types that blow up) have had their aggro range increased.
Changes/Features
There is now an automatic save/load system:
Your progress while in a game is now automatically saved at the beginning of each construction and combat phase.
If you exit the game while you’re in a level, or the game crashes, this state is loaded automatically next time you start the game.
When you exit a level by “going home”, the progress is not saved.
If you load a game this way, global high scores are no longer submitted.
All turrets that deal damage now record their damage dealt. You can see exactly how much damage they dealt in the last wave as well as in total.
Very slow moving zombies (Old Folks, Martyrs and Roadworkers) are terrified of being left behind. When there are no faster moving zombies nearby, these zombies now move at amazing speeds.
Areas of effect for the turrets are now shown as an outline as well on the minimap, making it easier read.
Shotgun now also supports tactical reload (if you have a bullet of your current ammo in the chamber, you can fit an extra bullet in the gun, bringing the total up to 8).
Added coyote time to the player controller.
New release date - oh noes!
I've been a gamer for over 30 years and I can count the times that I felt excitement after reading "this game is getting delayed" on one hand, and I don't even need to use any of the fingers.
But actually, it's your own fault. Thousands of you out there have already played the demo and have added GROSS to their wishlists. Loads of you have told me they love the game, have provided feedback to make it better, and have spread the word to help me reach more players. With this many people showing me that I'm not the only one who wants a game like this, I really need to make sure to make the best game within my abilities.
This means I'll invest a couple more months of my own time (= money), and you will have to be patient a little longer. But it also means you'll get more game in a better state for the same amount of money. What a great deal! No need to thank me. You there! Put your pitchfork away, you might hurt someone!
Anyway, the new and final release date will be the 11.01.2023 (that's in January, not November, my wife would kill me!).
Patch Notes 11.07.2022
A new release of the GROSS Demo is now available.
This is not THE balancing patch yet. If anything, things are less balanced than ever with the introduction of the new ammo types. So, enjoy the madness while it lasts. The next patch will reign things in a bit.
Bug fixes
Players always had to leave a path open that is 2 squares wide. It was however possible to build a maze with a path only 1 square wide, provided there was an alternative path for the zombies that was 2 squares wide. The zombies then would take the closer path, even if that closer path was only 1 square wide. Now, some zombies ignore gaps that are only 1 square wide completely. A gap that is 1 square wide is regarded as “soft closed”, which is also shown on the minimap in gray. (Wait, what minimap? There is one now!) If you want to make sure all zombies take the same route, build your maze 2 square wide.
Players were able to aggro zombies and then get to places that are inaccessible by them. This would lead to zombies bugging out, or simply stand as close as they can be to the player (not close enough for attacks, but they can’t get any closer). This is now fixed.
If reloading is cancelled by a melee attack, the reload sound is now stopped.
Frozen zombies no longer make footstep or other sounds.
Removed the top rail from the Cy Ka. It’s not being used at the moment, and it has no business being attached to the dust cover anyway.
Fixed some pathing issues in EXIBIT. Mainly the building to the right of the police station has been moved to be more flush with the construction grid.
Once the grenade launcher shot an airburst grenade, even regular grenades had their fuse shortened from 2.5s to 0.5s.
Fixed a bug where the player couldn’t pick up certain cash pickups.
Fixed a bug where cash pickups that were spawned upon a zombies death were not affected by the damage of the explosion causing the death. (This fix means less cash for you if you rely on blowing stuff up a lot)
Fixed a few pathing issues in DEAD END (e.g. with the tiny cactus).
Minor bug fixes.
Balancing/AI/Weapons
Guns that had alternate firing modes (semi automatic, burst fire) no longer have alternate firing modes. The Brrt-A now only has a three round burst, all other guns that had alternate firing modes now shoot fully automatic exclusively.
All handguns, SMGs and assault rifles continue to have either Full Metal Jacket or Hollow Point rounds as their primary ammunition. As a reminder:
Full Metal Jacket: Deals low damage, but can penetrate objects and hit multiple enemies that are behind each other. Ideal when fighting attackers in a straight line.
Hollow Point: Deals high damage, staggers enemies, but doesn’t offer any penetration. Ideal when fighting single attackers or ones that are too close for comfort.
All handguns, SMGs and assault rifles now have one of the following ammunitions as their secondary:
Cryo: Deals low damage but freezes zombies for a bit. Subsequent hits can increase the duration up to 5 seconds.
Lead Round Nose: Deals relatively little damage, but every subsequent hit on the same target increases damage taken. If a zombie is not hit with LRN rounds for a few seconds, the effect fades.
Reaper: Highly invasive rounds that deal low to medium damage, stagger enemies, and deal more bonus damage to weakspots (headshots).
Vermin: Tiny shot pellets in a handgun or rifle round that shred everything that’s in hugging range to pieces, but won’t hit a barn door at more than a few meters out.
Wadcutter: Deals even more damage than Hollow Points and reduces recoil, offers a bit of penetration but no knockback, and deals no extra damage to weakspots.
Zombies don’t attack the player anymore if the player is too far away. For example, if the player shoots a zombie from behind a barricade and the zombie would have to walk a long distance around the barricade in order to reach the player, it won’t bother.
Turrets that are affected by green goo get immunity for 3 seconds after the goo is destroyed or times out.
Changes/Features
While in the construction phase, there is now a minimap. The minimap provides a top down view of the level and shows you where you have placed barricades, turrets and traps, as well as the ranges of of your turrets and all the routes that the zombies take.
Damage numbers have been overhauled completely. Before, they were informative, but now they are also fun. That’s twice the feature per feature.
Instead of floating upwards, they now plop out of the enemies left and right.
Text size is based on damage caused. Higher damage -> bigger text.
Damage numbers now spawn at the point of impact (for bullets) or slightly above the target (for explosions).
Only damage directly from the player results in damage numbers. Healing as well as damage from turrets and traps is no longer displayed.
The damage numbers are once again enabled by default. If you don’t like to see them, you can switch them off in the Settings -> Game menu.
It is now possible to interrupt (cancel) reloading by throwing an item (grenade, teleporter, etc).
The mannequins in HOME now feed the damage done to them into a display that calculates the DPS done. The damage is averaged from the time they first take damage, to the time they last take damage. You can reset the display with a button. This can help you find out how to use each gun and ammunition type in the most effective way.
When reloading a gun fed by a box magazine (handguns, SMGs, assault rifles, sniper rifles) while it’s not empty, the maximum ammo is increased by 1 to account for the round in the chamber.
The player no longer collides with zombies. Yes, this means you can now run THROUGH zombies. No, this doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea.
It is now possible to skip the tutorial. Either by pressing escape and selecting “Go Home”, or by walking through the side exit that says “Skip Tutorial”. You can always revisit the tutorial through the settings (Game).
There is now a mailbox outside the barn in HOME to send feedback. It does the same as F1 does.
Coming up: new damage numbers & new ammo
There’s no point sugar coating it: As much as people love to play the demo in its current state, there are a few balancing issues that hold it back a bit. One of them is that some guns haven’t quite found their spot in the arsenal and seem a bit less than useful.
The next patch will bring many changes, and one of them is the removal of alternate firing modes (semi/burst) and the introduction of five new ammo types. Here’s a quick look at three of them, also showcasing the new damage numbers:
Patch Notes 26.06.2022
A new release of the GROSS Demo is now available.
Performance
Reduced GPU load across the board, increasing frame rates by ~25%.
Reduced CPU load from explosions (especially at later stages when lots is happening).
Generally reduced CPU load.
Improved level load times.
Added a new settings category “Performance” where you can reduce the overall graphics quality or disable ragdolls. Ragdolls take up a lot of CPU (because physics), so you can either disable them completely or set them so that they’re not affected by explosions. With this setting, if you blow up a zombie, its body parts still fly up in the air, but they’re not affected by any other explosions afterwards.
Incendiary impacts (from the shotguns secondary ammo) were massive performance hogs. They’re only pocket sized performance hedgehogs now.
Bug fixes
We have received feedback that zombies sometimes get stuck in EXIBIT and a wave therefore can’t be finished.
We have identified one instance of this issue and been able to fix it. Hopefully it was the only one.
When you send a bug report (press F1) all the zombie locations are now sent to us. So if this still happens to you, please press F1 and send a bug report.
Picking up nearby cash now works more reliable and the pickup range was slightly extended
When looking at a saved loadout, the information displayed was always the default loadout (the actual loading and saving works fine, though). This is now fixed.
Some players got stuck in interesting places (the table in the tutorial, the yellow poles in front of the museum in EXIBIT, the green tent in EXIBIT, a fire escape on EXIBIT). These players will now have to look for new places to get stuck in. If you do any exploring on the maps, please do it in the beginning and not after playing for 2 hours on wave 36. But if you do look for places to get stuck and report them, that’s awesome, because then we can fix it and no one else has to get stuck there accidentally.
If you get stuck, you can now reset your location in the menu (Game -> Reset Player Location). This plonks you down right on top of your base. If you do this while you’re in a combat phase, you will drop all the cash in your pockets.
Zombies were not always able to attack the player when he was slightly above them (e.g. on a barricade or turret but well in reach of their attacks).
Fixed input issues with Controller & Keyboard: It was possible to get the UI into a state where nothing was selected and you needed the mouse to navigate.
Fixed the issue that Leprechauns would not attack the base or the player and just stood there like a bunch of eejits.
When using the secondary mode of the cash attachment (long press) in order to deposit money over distance with the shotgun, each of the 9 shotgun pellets was loaded with all the cash, multiplying your cash (if successfully shot at an ATM) by 9. Now each pellet carries 1/9th of the transferred cash.
Minor bug fixes
Changes/Features
You can now construct wardrobes. Wardrobes allow you to switch over to one of your three predefined loadouts during combat (for a fee, duh).
Added a text to the key mappings to point out that existing mappings can be removed by simply pressing that key during the mapping process.
The controller sensitivity can now be separately adjusted for horizontal and vertical rotation.
Patch Notes 14.06.2022
A new release of the GROSS Demo is now available.
Bug fixes
Fixed intermittent issues with Steam integration (high scores).
The “select constructable” dialogue displayed a dummy text at the bottom instead of the actual description of the currently selected constructable.
Changes/Features
The level map now looks a bit more like a level map.
Changed the hint text “MAP” to “START LEVEL” to make it more clear.
Play GROSS with the Dev
The developer of GROSS will live stream gameplay from the demo of GROSS, explaining its core concepts and answering all questions you might have about the game (or game development in general, or anything really), all the while battling instable internet and electricity connections that come with living in rural Ireland.
There might be a close up of a cats butt in it at some stage, but I can't promise anything.
Oh, about the game? You take the best bits from Tower Defense Games like Sentinel and Dungeon Warfare, add a first person shooter part with lots of different guns and equipment, and sprinkle some fresh new resource mechanics on top to spice things up.
The game is trying to fill a void that existed after Sanctum 2, while trying to avoid the parts about that particular game that I personally didn't like too much.
I have been told that the game is a hoot to play, by people that I neither know or have paid to say that, so I can promise you it won't suck completely.
Play GROSS with the Dev
In another world first, the developer of GROSS will live stream gameplay from the demo of GROSS, explaining its core concepts and answering all questions you might have about the game (or game development in general, or anything really), all the while battling instable internet and electricity connections that come with living in rural Ireland.
There might be a close up of a cats butt in it at some stage, but I can't promise anything.
Oh, about the game? You take the best bits from Tower Defense Games like Sentinel and Dungeon Warfare, add a first person shooter part with lots of different guns and equipment, and sprinkle some fresh new resource mechanics on top to spice things up.
The game is trying to fill a void that existed after Sanctum 2, while trying to avoid the parts about that particular game that I personally didn't like too much.
I have been told that the game is a hoot to play, by people that I neither know or have paid to say that, so I can promise you it won't suck completely.
