This update took a bit longer due to crunching time constraints with our Educational work but things are still moving ahead and the game is taking shape. Some of the work done there is possibly planned to be moved over and modified to work here for New Outbreak. We will keep the details hushed until we know how we might approach it and if we even will.
Things have been progressing since our last update with some new developments and implementations. We hope to have more frequent Progress updates like this as we get things set up and keep everyone informed on where we are.
We'll be talking about the main things that are core to the game and will be implemented and then at the end we'll discuss more experimental features that we are figuring out how to implement properly.
Generators
I feel this is a somewhat important change in how we approach the Generators, previously they would constantly consume fuel upon insertion and just power everything nearby, this is completely gone.
From now on Generators will require being connected to electronics to then power them, generators now will automatically hook themselves up upon start of a new game to their appropriate electronics and can be wired and disconnected at your will.
The more you connect the more power that will be consumed every cycle, of course only electronics turned on will also use power, so even if an entire house is wired up it will only power the things turned on therefore consuming less power.
Generators now should last 100x longer.
The UI is still very much being worked on, we need something flexible and expandable as we would like to offer different types of generators in the future, these could then vary depending on what types of building it is used for.
Hopefully this will be ready by next update and can be shown off.
Inventory
Inventory is now mostly finished, as seen in the last screenshots it was functioning however now it has every single item previously in New Outbreak with a custom randomiser which will be used in objects to create random loot.
Work is now being done on how to address equipment, such as clothing slots, in a presentable way, we want to make something that is similar to the direction of everything else which is simplistic and out of the way, leaving as much screen space as possible.
It's likely it will expand out of the already existing Inventory so it's all kept in that tab.
Experimental
Lighting!
(There's a lot of technical stuff so TL:DR Lighting will be 100% better however the different forms of lighting may vary depending on how well we get everything working together)
So Lighting in the GMS version was very poor, we had tried various versions of different lighting to get a better look but it either ended up too performance taxing or just didn't work.
Thankfully in Unity we are able to work with a real lighting system however there is a catch which is 2D Lighting currently isn't fully there, meaning you can't just place a sprite and a light down and expect a shadow, this is even more problematic with our Tilemap approach as we initially approached them by using diffused sprite materials which don't actually recieve shadows.
To get around all of this we use a normal material on our tilemaps that we want to recieve shadows, this alters them a bit however we are able to use a custom material to alter the coloring, this results in slight loss in quality however fully reciveable shadows.
This approach does work for our non tiled sprites...However sprites aren't designed for this and therefore sprites that aren't full squares like our tiles currently have graphical issues but we are working on it.
Below is the current Result of what the lighting looks like. We're still tweaking and adjusting it alongside Day and Night to get a nice look and feel to it.
That's all for this update, next update I hope to have the combat in a presentable way so it can be shown off.
Once we have all the nessesary gameplay features in we hope to also release a tab in the Beta section which will finally allow access to this version of the game, likely the map will still be in progress so it will just be a small taste of what is to come but we will allow you to try out all of the new features and mechanics.
We will also hopefully have a new questionaire setup by then so you guys can help us make the game better and give us feedback on the current state of the game and what you want out of it.
Thank You!
Progress Update
Hello!
It's been way too long since our last update, we'd like to Heavily Applogise for this. We realised soon after launching in Early Access that we had been very Pre-Mature but it was too late at that point to go back so we tried pushing on with what we had, putting more and more on top of a poor framework which just lead to more and more issues.
We thought we could make some massive progress when switching to Gamemaker Studio 2 however the change caused more issues than fixed, such as having a working Level Editor in Gamemaker 1.4 however it was completely unusable in Gamemaker 2 due to how the tiles were used which meant making more changes. We then had Animation issues with them not displaying correctly, we were able to optimise a lot but unfortunately it didn't have much of an effect. These were just a fraction of issues we encountered.
Ultimately it became clear that no matter what we did what we currently had was not viable and so months of work ended up being useless.
At this point we knew we had to re-do the entire game from scratch, we decided however that Gamemaker could not be the engine we used so we have Switched to Unity and it has been a massive improvement.
Unity Progress
So when re-making the Game in Unity we wanted to Stay true to New Outbreak's Original Design, But, a lot of things needed to be re-tuned to work better such as the Combat and the AI. Zombies needed to feel like Zombies, your Dog needed to Act like a Dog and the Player needed to be fluid and fun to control.
We were given a lot of Freedom in Unity to create this.
The first thing we did was Re-Design the Main Menu.
The video still needs to be updated but will be according to the new gameplay, Unity also supports Video Playback meaning it is no longer a Gif and instead a video that plays much smoother and is a lot nicer to look at.
Options menu is currently placeholder with placeholder settings but will be fully present and working in the Unity version.
The Map
The Map is being almost completely Re-Done from Scratch, leaving only a 1:1 recreation of the Starting Town however we are adding onto it and improving it, the town is now it's own separate Island, being separated via a bridge and surrounded by an ocean, work is done on the Starting Town and now we are getting the surrounding area sorted, we have someone on board now to help design parts of the map to help things progress.
The rest of the map is being completely overhauled as well and by that I mean it's gone and not coming back, we want to take our time and make it right, we are planning on releasing the map in stages. We're unsure how we will enforce this however the Starting Island will just have the Bridge connecting the island blocked off making exiting it impossible.
How Will This Be Rolled Out
We are going to be releasing the Unity version in an early form to get it out as soon as possible featuring the remastered Starting town, this will allow us to fully focus on building the rest of the map and taking our time to create something much fuller with more to explore, Quality over Quantity this time around.
More To Show?
We'd like to get things in a more solid state before showcasing it all, however we will show the new Animation system with our Weaponry and an in game screenshot (Hud Removed while working on it)
https://imgur.com/zfPZr0T
Also the zombie used in this Video has since been removed (As Seen Below), Performance did not like many of these being on screen so the normal sprite based ones are now in, we would like to re-introduce them however they need work first
And here are 2 early screenshots of in game with our New UI, some parts are hidden while we work on them.
We are also going to work on sorting out the Forums so announcements have their open seperate forum with only very important information being Pinned in general, and work on a much easier way to provide feedback.
We would like to Apologise again heavily to those who have been awaiting an update and hope that once we can start rolling things out more regularly it will be worth it. We wanted to push this announcement out a lot earlier however the move to Bone Animations made us re-think a lot of what we had done and we wanted to ensure it was ready and possible before showing it.
If anyone has any questions we will be checking comments here and of course will respond to any questions on the forums.
If anyone also has any Feedback on what we have shown we would also Love to hear it!
Thank You
Summer Update Out Now, Saving Fixed, Black Screen Fixed, Demo Updated
Hello! We have pushed out for both the Demo and the Full Game, both containing fixes for various issues and upgrade to GMS2.
The game now defaults to booting in Windowed but can be changed to fullscreen via the options if you don't have issues with the black screen. If you do in fullscreen but want to play it like that then please try the Borderless beta which should hopefully fix the issue.
Saving should now be pretty much fixed, if anyone spots anything not saving please let us know via Steam Forums so we can fix it!
With the introduction of saves you can now modify certain things such as your own inventory. You can also change your stats (Health, Hunger etc). You can find this in your appdata local folder.
Demo is still the same but features fixes and changes based on the full game but of course still does now allow the loading of saves however the game should still save so you can transfer your save over to the full game.
Depending on what is done first we'll be hopefully releasing the Level Editor or the first test of bandits in the next update.
Update Inbound Soon, Black Screen Fix, Level Editor Soon and More
So it's been a while since our last post, a lot has happened good and bad and a lot of changes. I want to start off by saying that recently we were made aware of a black screen bug, we believe we have found the issue and believe it is down to Gamemaker fullscreening to an incorrect resolution and thus not displaying anything, the next update will have a beta build along side this, the normal Build will now DEFAULT to Windowed at 1280, The Beta build will Default to Fullscreen BUT it will be Borderless now which should also Eliminate this issue.
Anyone currently facing this issue please try alt+tabbing out and in and Alt+Enter to enter windowed mode and change resolution via options menu (Fullscreen is not effected by Resolution so please wait for borderless for a proper fix sorry for this).
Level Editor
So we've mentioned this but haven't properly discussed it in a news post so time to do so!
The level Editor will you to easily create your own custom maps inside of the game, currently it's going to be pretty basic but will allow you to make maps any size you wish and fill it in using all the tiles and objects we would use in the game. The editor will be very similar to those who have played Prison Architect as you will select a tile using our menu and then drag to select an area (Not like foundations but as if you were building a simple wall) and press enter to confirm it, easily destroyed aswell with Right Click.
We hope to expand on this in the future with the possibility of creating 'Scenarios' inside of the game aswell but this isn't confirmed as of yet.
We've had some issues with Gamemaker 2 however, to put it simply Gamemaker 1 allows us to place tiles with 1 line of code whereas Gamemaker 2 requires multiple and the tiles present in the level. So we're developing it in Gamemaker 1 and hoping it will import and work correctly inside of New Outbreak, otherwise we will have to make it a seperate launch via Steam.
This Update We still have a lot of work on the other features including Bandits so they are being held off this update but we have a lot of extra time over the next few months so expect a lot more activity. We'll hopefully be sharing a screenshot of the level editor tomorrow which we hope will be when the update is 100% ready.
The update will be a very important one however as the Save bug which has been an issue from Day One will now be almost completely fixed, 1 minor issue which is not saving Hotkey and equipped items however you no longer have to worry about items in your inventory OR ones stored in objects (e.g. Fridge, Wardrobe, Boxes etc).
Also the second town has recieved a slight upgrade, which also has a few items that spawn there now which gives a better incentive to take a look.
The Demo will also be recieving the bug fixes for the Black Screen and the benefits of Gamemaker 2 soon after the update goes live.
Bandits, Performance Fixes and Continue Save Bug for Next Update
Hello! So we're getting ready for releasing the next update, we're getting the voice acting for some of the character in the Story ready and once that's done and we've finished it up we'll release the update.
Bandits are currently going to initially be quite simple though we are going to expand on them in future updates, at the moment they currently just roam around the map and if you get near them they'll talk to you, at the moment you won't be able to get anyone to join you but you can fight them and they can fight you. We want to add quite a bit of depth to the bandits ranging from helping them, gathering a group and even holding them up or them holding you up to steal loot. Every bandit will be different depending on Experiences with you, they'll remember their encounters with you and act depending on what has happened.
Bandits will be an optional feature that can be removed via the Option menu.
We also uncovered quite a serious bug and fixed it which is why we're going to get this update out as soon as we can, essentially the more you load your saves the worse your game will run, this is because we weren't deleting 2 objects on the map so they kept adding everytime the game ran and due to some poor code that was on them this could cause quite a lot of performance issues so next update will ensure this no longer happens.
Gamemaker Studio 2, Bandits, Story Demo, Bigger Town and What's Going On
Upgrading To Gamemaker Studio 2
So a few days ago we started work on Upgrading New Outbreak to Gamemaker Studio 2 and so far it's been a massive success. This was expected to take longer but the import process was swift and the damage to the game is minimal, this is a MASSIVE thing for us as GM2 adds a lot that we really could have benefitted from when originally making New Outbreak.
An example of what a massive help GM2 has been so far I'll make a comparrisson, to make a stretch of road linking the 2 current towns together would take around 3-4 hours as we had to do each tile individually, with GM2 it took 3 seconds which was as simple as drawing a line. But that's not all, each house also has to be made tile by tile so include this with the lag caused by the size of the map and each house could take 40 minutes just to tile whereas here we can pre-make houses outside the room and then paste them in ready which is beyond helpful.
So What Are You Doing With This?
With this we are going to properly re-imagine the other town on the other side of the map, adding a lot more buildings and making it feel like a real town. We are also going to fill in the rest of the map with more things not only look at but scavenge.
Bandits
We are working on making the Sandbox more interesting with the AI, having bandits that roam around the map and either cause problems or help you. We're still working on exactly how much we want them involved with the gameplay, such as will some shoot on sight? Will some need your help? How many can you become friends with? Etc.
Whatever we do with them you should be able to de-activate them to customise how you want to play the game (Like we've done with the Zombies).
Story Demo
We're locked down on how what we're showing for the Demo and now it's more about polishing it and getting it along with the rest finished and ready. One thing that might be missing is some voice acting but hopefully we should be able to sort it out.
Bigger Town And More?
As we mentioned above we are upgrading the Town on the opposite side of the map to make it like the beginning town but better and bigger. We want to continue this however and make the map more complete with more areas to explore, we have an entire center of the map we want to flesh out and make it more enjoyable to explore.
Optimisation
A quite important thing is Optimisation so we've been working on that aswell, 1 issue I noticed was when people stepped outside or into certain areas there was sometimes extreme lag, that should have been fixed and was due to the game trying to cope with you being on a certain tile layer.
What's going on?
So finally it's time to explain what has happened the past couple months, we have been extremely busy with Colleges and since we're a team of 2 and neither of us can do both jobs so it's been difficult to proceed, however with GM2 this will allow us to do more in less time meaning we could potentially finish upgrading the map fully in less than a month even with minimal time.
With college we've had other projects we've been making and we plan on releasing them, Mine is more finished which is why recently I've had a lot more spare time and have been trying to get things done, it's nothing massive so it's not going to cost much but will help us financially to earn a bit of extra money to continue work and possibly get some more people on board, we have some ideas of how we're going to expand.
Next Update
I'm hoping to have the update ready next week but should be done before the end of the month, we're sorry that it's taken quite some time but hopefully you'll enjoy this update!
Demo Updated
We have released an update for the New Outbreak demo to better represent the current game though the same limitations are still present however the game will save and that save can be carried over to the main game if you wish.
We are still working on the next update and it should hopefully be ready this week!
Happy New Year! Sale and Next Update
We hope everyone has a great new year! We're hoping to do a lot with New Outbreak in 2017 and we hope you Enjoy what is to come. I want to quickly mention that the game is still currently on sale if you want to pick it up within the next couple days!
The next update is coming soon and it's main feature will be controlling the Dog, now you will be able to use him to run ahead or fight, we hopefully will also have our new Dog Command wheel ready which we will implement in to make controlling the dog as an AI much easier.
Also the Snow will be disapearing from the main build next update but we will have an option to switch builds to the Snow in the beta tab if you wish to continue playing with it on.
Thanks
Winter Update Out Now, Includes Optimisation Patch to stop the slow down
Hello!
Your games should update soon to the Winter update, main changes are in the image below and some other changes above. We hope you enjoy this update, we hope to have another smaller update to fix a few more things out soon aswell. The Story update is likely to be delayed to next year as we have changed the demo as we felt the scene was too much of a spoiler as to how the game may progress so we decided to keep it as the start of the game, we should then be able to save your progress so you won't have to replay the game to continue when it is finished.
Optimisation now has a big update, the game used to have significant slow down when the FPS decreased though that has been fixed now, the character and vehicles now move at a consistent speed so that should no longer be a problem.
We are also going to be working on getting the NPC's ready for when we start properly working on the factions mode which we'll be talking about more once we've gotten them to a prototype stage.
Other Changes/Fixes:
-Gender now properly saves
-Optmisation improved
-Various save fixes
-Footprints *Snow*
Dog Name Notice
You should be able to change the Dog's name with current save files by editing the save file located in your AppData, instead of having to start a new game.
Winter Update to include everything previously mentioned and a little extra
Hello!
Sorry for the lack of updates recently, we have been overloaded recently but we have been working hard to get New Outbreak's update ready, the Demo of the Story is almost done but we want to make sure it's working 100% before we release it, which means we are going to release it along with everything mentioned previously and something to add to the winter mood!
In the next update the Town of New Outbreak will be hit by a flash snow storm covering most of the town in thick snow, while it won't actually snow (Currently not planned to but if we can it will) the grass won't be green anymore. This will also include a few other small changes and additions.
THOUGH, if you don't want to play in the snow there will be a seperate build in the "beta tab" that will allow you to switch back, this will NOT effect saves etc, everything else will remain exactly the same regardless of if you switch or not.
We're hoping to get a lot of the game done in the coming months with 1 feature we're not sure if we can get working or not so we aren't going to announce it yet so we don't get anyone's hopes up but if it does work out we will be announce it.
We'll do our best to continue to keep you updated, as always though if you have any questions feel free to ask them!
