Today the development of the remake of OLD makes 2 years! Just in time with some bad news though...
First, the good news
If you peek on the Trello page of the game, you can see that finally the first milestone is almost finished and there are just a few things to fix and to add some content to be released.
Among other new features, the new main changes until today are - Bows are back! And now you can craft multiple type of arrows (pew boom explosive ones) - Crafting automation. Starting with just melting ore or cooking, these are going to be working on their own while you are far away if they have enough fuel available. - "Potion" making. Mix some herbs and minerals to get cool effects. Put in into a regular flask to drink it, or in a throwing flask to craft grenades with different effects. - Buoyancy physics, and not only for objects, sail the ocean with your own boat or raft! - Friendly NPCs are on the work now! - A thousand of QoL features not listed here
Unity, the very bad news
As you probably know, One Last Day runs under Unity, and they recently announced some controversial measures to avoid financial losses.
While these measures don't affect directly to this game, it does to the reputation of the engine, and thus some people wont be willing or comfortable to play a game that runs under this engine anymore. As a developer, it happens just the same, since the trust is broken and I wonder if I should continue using it.
After 4000 hours of development in the last 2 years, probably porting the game to another engine is not an option either, so OLD should be finished under Unity, this might be the last time I use it outside my job though.
However, the development will be briefly paused to see how these events unfold.
Development - On the horizon
Hi!
It's been a while without an update here. These months every hour (or almost) went into programming. I had some big trouble with optimization because of infinite world + multiplayer + physics, but it's running quite well now.
So, as I said, nothing too visual to show yet, just a few words for a few features.
Travel a lot, but get a home
Take this words not for granted, as the design may vary along the development, but the goal is to achieve this.
The new game design will make player travel. You will start in the center of the map, inside a relatively safe zone. Your main goal there is first to stablish a base and get some gear with crafting workbenches. Your ultimate goal is to travel outside the safe zone and find something, somewhere, but to do so you will need to progress, as there might be harder enemies or inaccesible areas which require new equipment. But don't worry! There will be some kind of fast travel for a little cost in case that you want to return to your base.
Far, far away
With the new game design (or at least, what is supposed to be), it's important to see at least it there are mountains, forest or sea at the horizon. Now is possible. Voxels are very expensive to do this, but combining a low poly terrain system you can see what you can expect far away.
The goal is to at least show big buildings on the distance, but for now only terrain is visible.
Fight!
Another thing that took a painful amount of time was to improve a bit the AI. It's still very basic, but I wanted enemies to search for a path, climb a bit and give player opportunities to attack instead of just turn into a fury tornado.
The design of the new creatures and enemies are less "zombish" now, according to the new world design and "lore". This is the first enemy and the easiest and dumber, it replaces the basic zombie.
To make combat a bit more dynamic, enemies can now be parried and staggered. Also hitting to certain parts will cause more or less damage.
Of course there will be more enemies, and the farther you travel, the harder they will be.
Playable version, when?
Technically the game is already playable, but with near zero content. Good thing is that all the foundations are almost finished (at the end there were more than I expected). So I expect this summer to publish a experimental branch version with very little content for everyone who wants to try it. Take it more like a "tech" demo.
More stuff
Of course there's more stuff. Workbenches that require some kind fuel to work, improved climbing system, better stealth...
In case that you want to see some motion, here's a short (no audio, sorry, I'm really lazy!)
Also, if you are curious about progress, you can always check my Trello. I try to keep it updated as much as I can (or as much I remember!). Beware tho that at some point it might content "spoilers" of possible surprises of the game.
https://trello.com/b/vd5EExpr/one-last-day
Thank you to everyone who keeps an eye and hope on this game, you are the one who is making it possible.
It's been a year - A dev letter
Hi everyone! Boring stuff, plain text ahead, you've warned!
Today is a bit special. I felt that I needed to get a bit personal and explain you what happened all these years and why right now the game is getting... lets call it, an alpha "remake".
One Last Day is a project that started the summer of 2013 as a hobby project. After a few months, a friend joined the development and we kept the project for fun. We kept for more than a year developing the game. As it was growing, in 2015 some friends who tested it suggested that it should be submitted to Steam Greenlight since it might get accepted, and it actually did, way faster than we expected.
One Last Day was available in Early Access in 2015. Shortly after that, due to some events, my friend had to leave the development. For almost 6 (hard) years I tried to keep it going and find another developer to help me finish it with no luck. I can't count how many times I started the project from scratch with someone different, all of them tried to help, but we just couldn't get it done.
So finally, two years ago, in 2020, I took lessons on how to model and animate basic stuff. And one year ago, september 2021 I restarted this project by just myself. So it's basically a new game, made from scratch, that has been exactly one year under development.
Despite many people recommended me just to leave the project and move on to another one, I felt that I was leaving an important part unfinished. They might be right though, but why?
In 2015 a game like OLD was something cool, but nowadays people is getting insanely good at indie development and without a proper preparation, budget and a team is really hard to get a game actually success, so they suggested me to join a team or develop smaller games, which I definetly will do someday.
I just hope that the stuff that I'm making is enough to at least make you all who bought the game back then actually enjoy it and have fun for a bunch of hours.
So I wanna thank you all, both, either if you support the development to keep going, or you think that it should be parked, both opinions are somehow trying to help.
Yet a year is a very little development time for a game as a sole developer, however the development almost reached the same state that the current published version, but improved.
Thank you all, keep being amazing
2013 (pre-Greenlight)
2015 (current published)
2020 (remake experiment)
2021 (current alpha remake, early version)
2022 (alpha remake, today)
As for the state of the development, I'm doing something that was planned for the next stage. Let's say that AI is being improved and don't expect just plain "zombies", got something else coming.
Development - Crafting and building
Hey!
The development state of the first stage has reached a phase where it slows down a bit but for a good reason. It's time to add content and finish some art!
The code for the foundations stage is done, but now there's an huge lack of content. Time to add more materials, clothes, a few enemies and weapons / tools. It will take some time to design, model and texture all of them.
At some point in the following couple months the experimental build will be accesible for everyone who wish to test it, but beware of this lack of content at first!
Today let's talk a bit about the design of One Last Day and what's about to change.
Crafting
This is a heavy part of every survival game and in One Last Day I was doing it wrong. Crafting has been simplified but there's more depth now, let me explain.
Before, to craft something, you needed to discover every recipe by mixing ingredients, which may sound fun but it was frustrating when there was no guide or any hint about which ingredients you need and what you can craft.
Now you'll know a few basic recipes, no need to mix. You'll be able to find new recipes tho, but they will added once you learn them, no need to "investigate blindly". Also, no need to drag the materials into the empty slots, the recipe will tell you which materials you have and which ones you need.
And the best part is that now crafting has been separated. There's the basic crafting, where you can craft anywhere, at any moment, very basic recipes with up to 3 materials withing your equipment panel, made easy and fast.
And then there are workbenches you can place at your base and craft more advanced stuff with up to 6 materials. Also made easy, but eventually workbenches will get a bit complicated.
Base building
Yeah, why should I return to my base if I have no reason to do so? Now, with the workbenches, you'll want to have a place where you can craft and store all your stuff. Storage has also changed, now you can place different storage containers with different capacity. Boxes are finally useful!
Also, something that I wasn't planning to finish for this stage but I already made is base decoration. You can change (paint, or wall paper) walls and place furniture, since now every voxel has now extended functionallity. A voxel can be now just decorative or have further properties. Not many decorative elements are done yet , but it's time to do them! Also, stairs and ramps... yeah I know, it was about time.
About the future
And what about the future?
One Last Day is a game about a world which many years ago came to a end. You are a settler sent from somewhere to recover part of the world and send resources to your home. Your final goal is to collect enough resources to be able to go back to your home... or maybe not?
You'll need to focus on improve your base, collect valuables and grow. Eventually you will be able to automatize production and collection so you can focus in exploring new areas.
That's it for now! Time to get back to work and add content to the first stage.
Development - Gathering and items
Hey!
Here's comes another post. As promised I will talk briefly about how gathering has changed in One Last Day.
Lets make it easier
So now there are 2 types of resources that can be gathered, classified in "soft resources" such as flowers, mushrooms... and "hard resources" like stone, minerals, components...
Soft resources can be gathered at almost any moment just pointing at it and pressing the interaction key. As their name says, they are quite soft, so hitting them wont provide any resource and as instead they will be damaged or destroyed, so just grab them!
However this changes with hard resources. You will need to hit them, but don't try to cut down a tree with your fists, it will take forever (still possible tho... your choice). As instead you will be able to use a specialized tool, so yeah, to cut down a tree use an axe, to break some stone use a pickaxe, to demolish a wall use a hammer, you get it.
Break down
Some hard resources are not easy to collect. Trees for example, need to be cut down. A big trunk will fall to the ground and you will need to break it into small pieces to be collected. Same goes for others, such as rocks and minerals.
Multiple uses
Crafting will get a full post soon, but let's say that every material and item usually has more than one use, and not only for recipes. Some resources or items can be scrapped to obtain materials or to convert them into smaller components. Others can be used as fuel and others are quite valuable or grant special effects and is up to you to use them or sell them.
Status report
Building spawning has been done! However, making them will be harder now as buildings can contain much more detail than before. The only big feature left is basic AI and everything in the programming section of foundations stage will be finished.
After that I will close some application usability stuff and make the experimental branch for anyone to test it. Beware that this branch is more like a tech alpha, so don't expect good gameplay.
So, the next stage of foundations is to make the base content (clothes, weapons, recipes, etc...), since you are probably noting that in every capture they are using the same clothes! There are more, don't worry, but this was the first set to be fully finished.
Development progress
Hold on for a second
It's been several months since the last announcement, my apologies. Health has been delicated this year and affected the development due to the pandemic, but things are getting back to normal. Alright, enough chit chat, let me show you just a little bit, lets go!
Character stuff
After the last announcement I started working on the world, which looked too cartoony and it was too shiny. So I gave it a more stylized style which looks quite interesting, but the character just didn't fit. Let me introduce you... uh, let's call her Hannah to say something.
She's the new and hopefully last character iteration for the game. To avoid extra iterations and useless work, I just made the female version of the character until I reach the first playable alpha milestone. So yes, just women in the game for now, I'm still learning art and I'm a bit slow on it yet. The male version will be done lately.
This new character iteration includes cool things, such as face expressions, configurable skins and eyes, and even body parts. So yes, this means in-game character editor, better than the last one I hope!
For the first version, a very limited set of clothes and hairstyles will be present, which will get larger as development goes further.
The world
This part is getting a new art style too, so the screenshots you will see are not even close to be finished. You can note the lack of grass and other stuff that are on the work right now.
The world will have biomes, which might be quite different of what you may expect of a survival game. The land is infected and everything is changing, weird stuff happens.
So far just a bit of two classic biomes are half implemented. Also I'm working of sub aquatic exploration biomes.
The world is going to be huge. Actually right now is infinite, but I'm trying to limit it for a better gameplay design, but still huge.
Just take a look to a portion of the world map (raw pixel render, very WIP)
Looking too small? This piece of map is equal to 10404 km2. Don't worry, you will have vehicles available to explore it. And also expect more biomes to be present, of course!
More stuff
Of course, there's more stuff done and being done but not ready to show. More will follow hopefully soon. Stay safe and healthy, cheers!
Just a bit
This is just a taste of what is being done.
As you can see, One Last Day characters are changing a lot (they have knees now!). A full humanoid character is now playable and customizable, either men o women.
After many iterations and many tries (we went from cartoony characters, anime like, to even a more realistic approach), this is the design that keeps the feel and fits with the original idea of the game.
Clothing, shading and other details are still on the work but the main base is done. So keep in mind that how they look may change in a future, but the style will remain.
The new model Characters are now cut and separated in layers, meaning that head, torso, arms, legs and other pieces are separated and can be combined into a single layer. By default there are headsets, hair, face accesories, torso, hands, legs and shoes. And this can be expanded with as many layers as we want add, this is important when we reach to talk about modding.
Modding Modding will be a thing, allowing everyone to add custom content to the game. Starting with clothing or even character parts, if you know Blender and Unity you will be able to add new clothes, hairs, whatever you like or even a whole new character model. We'll talk about this a bit more in depth in another post.
Animations are also going to be moddable, but this is something in early development at this moment.
More coming I'll talk a bit more of the characters and show more of them when talking about new movement system, but for now, I hope you like them as much as I do.
Oh and yes, the landscape you see on the background is just a new biome called "highlands" that is on the work for the new procedural system, just a bit empty right now, but I thought it looks cool for a background, lets hope we can talk more about the world really soon! It's getting really huge.
Be safe!
Important notice
I know I promised my next post with screenshoots, but I felt that I needed a bit of plain text to explain you some things.
Short story about the studio
Bloodwolf Studio started as a hobby composed mostly by just me, but someone else joined. This person left the team a few years ago because personal reasons. He did an amazing job.
After that, the studio was a bit stranded looking for help. We tried several times with new integrants but we couldn't get it working as we wished (mostly because again, personal reasons).
Finally I've met a few guys that will eventually help if the can with everything. I would be happy to introduce them to you in future posts talking about their contributions.
One Last Day future
The game started its alpha very different of what's today on Steam. The original idea was too hard for us, and thus we hadn't a clear design and a goal so we ended creating a zombie sandbox, pretty generic, uh?
After many, many tries, so much thinking, and some game design I finally decided that the game needed a reset and start to make it again from scratch with the original idea. Thanks to one of these guys helping a lot with design and ideas, Alvevi.
So, this is what is going to change in the game:
Everything, even the name.
But just a few real details for now:
Starting with the art, everything is being redone with a new style. New characters are already made and I'm gonna present them to you in the next days.
Gameplay is changing, keeping the feeling and the core. The world is the new protagonist so expect more exploring. Voxels are gone, but don't lose your mind, we are trading it for a huge procedural world and vehicles.
Regarding the above, we are switching from first person to third person, you'll want a wider view of the world and also your character.
It might sound like a new project, or almost, but the truth is that it's just the game that it was supposed to be, but improved.
Development
As for today I have a full time job and I really wish I could make again this my full time job one day, so for now my development time is limited, but when you love something, you'll keep working on it no matter what, and I'll keep working to finish this game, promise. It may take longer to develop but the good news are that as soon as I have a playable version you'll be able to play it.
In order to provide more feedback I'll try to post more frequently progress about the development. I didn't published nothing till today because it was everything on paper yet, but things are starting to get real.
Next post I'll be talking about the new characters and modding support. Be safe!
New world system, how should it work?
Hi everyone!
We are working so *censored* hard that we have no time to lose, but hey, at least you deserve to know what's going on.
So we are changing the game a lot, and I cannot show you anything yet about the game aesthetics but I can speak a little about how the world is going to work.
New world system on sandbox mode
Right now, as you know if you own the game, the world of OLD is limited, if you go too far away some kind of alarm will sound until you character explodes.
In one of the last updates I said that this is gone now, you can go further, there's no limits, just sea on the horizon! So this is the first thing that changed about the world system, we are working on an island concept. Let me explain myself.
Today lets talk about the first map or "heightmap" generator, the one that you can see and tweak on the main menu when creating a new map. Now this heightmap will be an island, and this generator is much faster, it's so fast that you won't need to generate it yourself anymore.
WHAT?
Exactly, these heightmaps will be generated "on the fly", you just need to provide a "seed" and they will be generated randomly.
And what was that? Does that means that there will be multiple islands on a single map?
Actually, the new world system is pseudo infinite, so yes, there will be multiple islands on a single map with a huge sea to sail and explore, but that's something for another post ;)
IMPORTANT NOTICE
We're glad to announce that One Last Day will be getting a whole redesign coming soon. This includes not only general aesthetic (models, textures, and so), but also we're improving and changing lots of gameplay elements.
The essence of the game and the open world / sandbox mode will be still there, and more than ever, so you don't have to worry, but over that, we are going to make this game more multiplayer focused.
And there comes the important part of this notice: Updates of the game will be suspended until we have the new version ready, however, we are going to post every progress made in this new version so you can provide us feedback and get some free hype, if you like it.
We will be talking about a new game mode coming and some details of the first changes on the game aesthetic, which is now in charge of IVM, the new member of Bloodwolf Studio. I'm certanly sure that you will love what he's making... almost like an OLD 2, just saying...
Short one, guys! We have so much to do and time is ticking, let's get back to work!
