That's the effect of under-testing for ya. A couple of days ago I released a sligtly dated version of the game without realizing it. This rendered almost all combat heroes in the game unuseable. I've now remedied my mistake and even squeezed in the rework of Alloy and Ruby. Realistically their bullets just got swapped, but it was an important change, from a balance and fun perspective. Alloy should now be much more fun and skill-based to use, while getting hits with Ruby's finger gun revolver is easier than before. The rest you can read in the patch notes:
GENERAL
* Fixed issues Fuego, Professor Hex, Dark Prinxess, Hiroku and Ruby, where they couldn't deal damage to enemies.
* Implemented new projectile system for all projectiles in game
- Better performance
- More consistent behaviour
- Easier to work with for future projectiles
- Better physics
ALLOY
* Alloy's bullets are no longer hitscan, instead they are shot out as physical objects and have to travel to their target
* Removed reload mechanic
* Slightly decreased bullet spread
* Increased range of bullets
* Added a bullet impact sound effect
* Added a heat effect on the gun barrel, when firing continiously
RUBY
* Ruby's bullets are no longer projectiles but are instead instant-travel hitscan shots
* Slightly decreased damage
* Fixed an issue where Ruby's hit effect would disappear prematurely
SHIELD MAIDEN
* All projectiles should now be stopped by the Shield
During these bug fixes I noticed a few other things I wanted to tweak/fix, so the next update
should be within this weekend. Stay tuned!
v0.3.2 Patch notes - Age of Sandboxtron
A bit later than promised, but I've finally wrapped up the changes for the latest patch. If you've already read the previous progress report, you'll know that this patch brings some important systems to the table. Since there aren't too many patch notes to speak of, I'll talk a bit more in-depth about all the changes.
Just to have something colorful here's a concept for a melee villain called Malware. Since I decided to go with super strength for the melee combat in the game, Malware slowly morphed into Ruby.
Ruby, alongside the other ballistic hero - Alloy will be undergoing slight reworks in the next patch.
The highlight of this update however is the new AI system that I've put into place. Many of you have rightfully noted that the robots that infest the sandbox are simply way too dumb, unresponsive and generally don't pose much of a threat. This update aims to not only target these problems but improve the basic AI behaviour which will be used in the story campaign.
I'll continue to improve upon the artificial intelligence to make it tough, but fair.
Some more graphical optimizations as usual, as well as a system for bigger modularity with assets have been put into place. A few new props can also be found around the sandbox. 2D art for the story mode has also been progressing.
The last big thing included in this patch is the base for object pooling. If you're unfamiliar with object pools, it generally means reusing objects in the game (such as bullets or enemies), so that instead of destroying them when we're done using em' we put them in a pool somewhere offscreen. As soon as we need a new bullet we just pull it out of the pool, saving the CPU some heavy memory operations. This change may go unnoticed now, but in story scenes riddled with items, the impact will be significant.
I've got a few more things brewing, that I'll release periodically before the Story Mode, but I'll talk more about them as they near completion. For now, thanks for reading and thanks for playing!
Progress report - AI and art assets
Just your friendly neightbourhood dev here. I'm coming back from watching the new Spider-Man : Homecoming so I'm supercharged with hype to get more work done on PowersVR.
First, I'd like to welcome any new players. The steam summer sale got even more people to join in on the journey to a full release. The game is now owned by more than 1000 players! A big deal for me personally, as it's my first proper game. While there won't be a new update for another week, I wanted to update you all on what I've been up to.
As the ones who follow the announcements know, now that the second content patch is live, and some of the bigger issues are patched up, I'll be focusing on PowersVR's story campaign, the release of which will mean the end of the game's Early Access status.
One of the biggest issues with the current sandbox is the enemy AI behavior. For the story I wanted players to be challenged, because playing a cakewalk of a game is just watching a movie, while having to wiggle your hands around occasionally. The original robot AI in the sandbox was the result of my first attempt at writing Artificial Intelligence of any kind. Now that I've had time to learn more and started using some more common practices, I've been able to significantly improve the way robots acts in the sandbox. They'll now detect the player much sooner and more easily, respond to being damage from afar and chase you for a while if you try to get out of the fight. These practices and code can easily be translated to enemies and others in the story.
That's the cool thing about this approach of development in my opinion. Systems and assets done for the story campaign directly improve the sandbox and challenges without much extra effort on my part.
On the graphics side of things I've been experimenting with procedural city block generation (for backgrounds) and made modifications to my master material (a smart texture) to allow easily changing the color tint of all assets in the game, without affecting certain areas. For instance the building below's concrete is tinted, but the windows remain unaffected.
I've also converted even more assets to use my master material, improving the overall performance on the graphics side. At some point I'll look into other fps bottlenecks such as physics and collision.
Lastly, I've written a detailed list of assets that will feature in the story mode, but are also very useable in the sandbox. Most of them are 1:1 redrawings of current assets that I've purchased. While those low-poly models look good, they don't quite fit the game or match the comicbook style I have in mind. So a big task is to slowly drain out all outside art until everything is in a uniform graphical style.
I've been looking into Google's new app - Blocks. It promises a streamlined 3D model workflow in VR. While the tool is basic, I've been trying to gain some proficiency with it in anticipation of more features.
That's it for today's update. Expect a lot of what I've talked about here to be in your hands next week!
v0.3.1 Patch notes - The update this forum deserves
Hey guys, if you've read the post regarding the release of 0.3.0, you'll know that I didn't really talk much, but rather, posted the patch notes and said I'm off to an expo. That coupled with the nearing Steam Summer sale forced me to cut some things off from the 0.3.0 release, the first of which being the cover art.
The expo in question is On!Fest and is an annual, local gaming and pop culture gathering. This year they offered booths for game developers and I jumped at the chance to demo the game and get feedback from con goers. I was surprised by how well people who had never tried VR handled the locomotion methods and I got some really good advice. Click on them to get a better view of me fumbling to keep the line going.
With that out of the way, I'd like to talk a little bit about the 0.3.0 and 0.3.1. The first big change is the new content introduced. This asian themed update brings a new challenge that tasks Whirlwind with saving digital citizens and two new heroes to unlock. Why two heroes if there's only one challenge? Well, this update also introduces Missions into the game. The concept is quite simple. You go to a specific location, you're given a task and upon completing it you get your reward. In this case one of the two new heroes can be unlocked by completing a mission in the sandbox.
To visualize these missions as well as improve the overall menu system, I've overhauled the interactions in the game. All "physical" buttons have been turned into menus you can interact with using your hand pointers, and a player stat menu can be seen when looking down. The menu will track missions and your healthbar. I feel these changes to the UI system make it much easier to use.
As for 0.3.1, a lot of issues introduced with the previous update are now fixed but this update also brings an often requested feature. Previously colliding with geometry while running, flying or walking would block you in place, but now the game will try to slide your character along the surface of whatever it is that you're hitting. This improves the feel of using movement powers and make certain challenges a tad easier. Reworked hand physics and enemy flash on damage are also things I finally got around to finishing.
Here's the list of changes for 0.3.1:
GENERAL
* Updated to Unreal Engine 4.16
* Smooth movement powers now try to slide along surfaces when colliding instead of blocking players.
- This can be seen when using Zap, Whirlwind and Shield Maiden.
* Significantly bigger mirrored screen when playing in SteamVR
* Fixed issues with hand physics. They mostly affected Fuego.
* Added a visual blink effect on enemies when they take damage.
CHALLENGES
* Lowered the total time players have to finish the Burning Skies challenge to 1:15 from 1:30.
* Fixed a bug in the Racetrack challenge that would persist UI Missions even after the race was done.
Ruby
* Fixed a bug where Ruby's hand was upside down in left-handed mode.
* Sped up hit effect animation
* Hit effect now attaches and moved with hit enemy
Hiroku
* Improved hand material.
Fuego
* Fixed an issue when throwing fireballs while moving (flying, dashing or hovering).
As you can see, the list is not long, but has important features I really wanted to get into 0.3.0. Which is why I feel like this update is the difinitive version of that update.
With this latest content patch out, and a lot of it's issues fixed, I can focus my attention on the Story mode more seriously. Don't worry, they'll be plenty of updates in the mean time. Thanks for reading!
v0.3.0 Patch notes - Rising Sun update
Hey guys, I'm a bit pressed for time, since I'm headed to an expo, so I'll just give you the facts for this update.
GENERAL
* Two new heroes have come from the east to fight on the side of justice.
- Wield the Power of Electricity with the cybernetic law enforcer - Hiroku.
- Shoot plasma bullets using Ruby - the charismatic heroine.
* Implemented a mission system
- You can now get and complete a mission in the sandbox to unlock Hiroku.
- More missions will be added to the sandbox in later updates.
- This system will find heavy use in the story campaign.
* The new challenge map tasks Whirlwind with saving digital citizens from burning buildings.
* Challenges now use the new mission system to keep track of their progress.
* Fixed an issue with challenges that prevented achieving a new highscore after the first attempt.
* A substantial optimization pass on material and textures should make the game room smoother.
- This gained performance should free up GPU for me to experiment with more effects.
* Hands now use real physics to calculate velocity
- This will allow more natural/immersive hand interactions
- See Fuego section for more information
* Significant code refactoring for challenges and time-based events.
- This will offer more stability, better performance and easier integration with future systems.
UI
* Added a player stat menu.
- Looking down while in the sandbox or one of the challenges will display the player's healthbar.
- Any missions the player currenly has (up to 3) will also be displayed here.
* The ability you're hovering while changing powers will now animate.
* Pressing the trigger with the power selection menu open will no longer activate the equipped power.
* Implemented a new way to select powers, primairly targetting Oculus Rift users.
- While the power selection menu is open move the trackpad/analog to the desired hero and press the trigger.
HEROES
Whirlwind
* Added a hover animation while floating in place.
- This animation is fairly subtle, but can be disabled by turning off the "Animated camera" setting.
* Reworked the particle effects to not only look better, but be affected by the speed you're flying.
* The sound effects will also scale up or down depending on your speed.
* To improve the feel of flying (in the challenge) Whirlwind's max flight speed has been increased.
* Fixed a bug that allowed Whirlwind to fly even when focusing a menu.
Fuego
* Fireballs now have a much higher speed cap, based on the throw.
* Fireballs now need to be thrown with greater strength to reach the previous average speed.
- This was done to discourage only slightly jittering the controller to send out fireballs at full speed.
* Added a sound effect when creating new fireballs
I'll elaborate and talk about what's up with the game soon.
Progress report - UI and Missions
I'm nearing the release of the next content patch, which will bring about two new heroes and other stuff, but I wanted to take the time and explain why it's taking longer than usual and let you know what to expect.
Let me preface this whole post by saying that I'll be taking part in a local (to home country) conference, where I'll showcase my game live and hopefully get people who've never experienced VR's honest first opinion and feedback. It's fairly exciting since it's the first time I'll be attending something like that, let alone presenting, but as you might imagine, this does require some planning and time. So that's bitten a chunk of my spare time lately.
Onto the game, I didn't want to settle into a "release two new heroes and two new challenges" dev cycle, which was my original plan. Sure it would add content the game needs, but I'd rather concentrate my effort into things that will make it into the story mode, since that's the ultimate goal. So in the next release I'm adding a mission system.
Missions are basically tasks you need to complete. One of the upcoming heroes will be locked behind the game's first mission. I'm also integrating missions into the existing challenges, to let players check their score without having to look around frantically all the time.
To show these missions to players, however, I needed some fitting UI. Playing around with different ideas I came to a realization, I didn't want to have physical menu interactions in the game. This means that things like buttons and levers that need to be pressed/pulled/switched on to execute some command such as changing levels, will no longer find a place in PowersVR. Instead I'll be using the more recent system I've implemented (floating menus with laser pointers coming out of your hands) for all future interactable UI elements. What players will potentially lose in immersion (not much in my opinion), they'll greatly make up in useability and swiftness.
When placing interactable objects in the game world, devs need to take into consideration that different players have differently sized play areas. So butttons needs to be placed in a way they can always be reached, especially if players have no way to move outside of roomscale. Another thing to consider is that players shouldn't be spawned on top of interactable items, since that'll force them to take a couple of steps back before they can examine the menu.
In 0.3.0 the (few) buttons in the game have been replaced with floating menus, and work has gone into making them attractive, responsive and most importantly intuitive to use. Players will also find that looking downward will reveal a new player stat menu, which currently contains the active missions and healthbar and eventually more.
All these improvements and additions, and more will not only shape the next big patch, but feature in the story mode, which I'll focus on right after 0.3.0 launches.
Making a hero - Hiroku
Hey guys. I'm going abroad for a week, meaning I won't be at my PC and subsequently won't be working on the game, but stuff has been done on it, and I just wanted to update you on what's going on.
Currently I'm working on the new challenge. It will feature Whirlwind (the flying girl). I'm at the art phase of it, so I'm creating new assets while tweaking lighting and materials to achieve a nice vista, while soaring in the skies. This is one of two new challenges you can expect in 0.3.0, and will function like the ones from the previous update.
Work on the two new heroes on the other hand is pretty much complete. You'll get to unlock them as soon as the new update hits. Unlike the previous update, they are both combat abilities and are directly influenced by the survey I held recently.
Today I wanted to talk about the process of new character creation and to do that I've documented the steps needed to create one of the new heroes - Hiroku. Let's dive in.
The first thing I consider when designing a character is their superpower. Usually I want their ability to be reflected in their costume or the additional tech they carry. Hiroku wields the very requested control over electricity and needed a proper costume to channel that.
In case his name hasn't given him away Hiroku is from Asia. So far all superheroes and villains in the game live and operate in America and I thought it would be nice to have a small addition to the game's limited lore. Unlike American laws, which dictate that costumed vigilantes are unwelcomed and should be incarcerated, in Japan and Korea superheroes often do contract work for the government and will usually be very public about their identities, turning them into celebrities.
My original plan for Hiroku involved making him into an android samurai with a lightning sword, but that's not really what wielding lightning is about. So I decided to instead pay homage to a legend. Since electricity is often employed in police work, Hiroku would be a police officer, who agreed to have his body augmented to serve and protect better than he ever could as a human.
First thing I do art-wise is create an adequate pose to show off the heroes power and personality. Not only does the one above show him standing strong, he has a classic police "halt", from which lightning will eventually emerge.
Next thing I do is create several face variations.
The face is the most important part of a character. Viewer's eyes are drawn to it, and when done right it can convey the hero's personality from one glance. Eastern superheroes are quite different from western ones. When creating Hiroku I not only looked at Japanese police uniforms, but things such as Power Rangers costumed and various mech designs.
In the end I wanted him to be more human than machine, albeit a stern one nevertheless, so I went with the design you see in the middle and built the rest around it.
And the final phase - coloring and overlays.
The police sirens and lights as well as the badge and overall color scheme help sell the policeman theme, while his fairly revealed cyborg face both show he's not hiding his identity and are heavily inspired by eastern sci-fi.
Drawing the person is all well and good, but we need to get him in the hands of players so it's time to implement him in the engine. I'll spare to the technical details, but the way I have my power system setup right now means I create a new one from a template, put in the new values such as cooldown, ability type etc. then implement logic using functions and events I've already written. The process is fairly streamlined on the code side of things after several iterations of the system.
Then I finish up some art tasks such as adding the hero icons and creating neccesary particle effects.
All that's left now is to add sounds, balance the power's strength and fix any bugs I encounter. And it's ready to serve up as a reward for a challenge!
I'll probably do a similar post in the future for challenge creation and the work that goes into them. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more.
v0.2.2 Patch Notes - Enter the (Oculus) Rift
You heard that right, person who probably owns a Vive and is therefore reading the update info for a Vive-exclusive game, PowersVR is now on the Oculus Rift too! Thanks to the awesome people at Oculus, I was sent a free Rift with Touch controllers, and thanks to the awesome people at Epic Games integrating the new headset within Unreal Engine 4 has been a breeze.
With this update I'm not only trying to bring the game to more people (we just hit 800 players by the way, yay), but also continuing my efforts to improve
the new player experience. And finally some changes to make sure people get the new powers they've earned.
A couple of weeks ago I also opened a survey asking players how the game should develop according to them. Now I think it's time we close the ballots, with almost 300 submissions, I think I have a pretty clear idea of what people wanna see. I've included a graph of the results at the bottom of this update, and some comments on it too, but before that, the patch notes:
Oculus Rift
* The Oculus Rift headset and Touch controllers are now supported in PowersVR
* The game will now automatically detect which headset you're playing with and change the control instructions model based on it
General
* Control explanation kiosks have been reworked
- Now a prompt asks players to hold their hand over the kiosk, which turns the hand into a controller
with controls for the currently equipped power written instead of the nearby one
* Improved effects on kiosks
* Fixed a bug where the arrows indicating you have another page of powers were hidden
* Fixed a bug that allowed changing the power current page, even if you didn't have a second one
* Many older chunks of code have been refactored making them much easier to work with, speeding up dev time
Challenges
* Fixed an issue that prevented challenges where a lower score was better (time-based) from giving away a reward
* The game now examines all challenge highscores on startup, and will unlock heroes that were supposed to be earned, but weren't for some reason
The Witch (Telekinesis):
* Additional graphical improvements
The patch notes aren't too long this time around, but the changes are quite substantial. Anyhow, on to the survey!
A big thank you to everyone who participated, the information and suggestion has been invaluable. A lot of people decided to take advantage of the open feedback textbox, and gave me great insight into how others experience the game.
Let's talk about the results a little, my original intention with the survey was to learn what new superpowers people wanted to see in the game, but despite the many suggestions and recommendations, new powers and challenges are the thing people are least excited about, followed by an expansion of the sandbox, which will happen as more powers and enemies are added.
As expected the story mode is the primary interest for people, which is good, because after the 0.3.0 update, that's where all of my efforts will go for a long while. Powers such as Gravity Manipulation, Ice control and Electric bursts are going to make their way into the game in the near future, while things like Archery and Animal Control will probably wait for a while.
Another important thing to note is that combat gameplay trump the other two options by quite a bit, so a big focus on AI is also slated for the next couple of months.
Overall the data is pretty self-explanatory and will serve me well to plan the next updates. Thank you for reading and thank you for playing.
v0.2.1 Patch Notes - Holy glitch, Nightwatcher!
Recently I got to directly show the game to some people who had never played it, and it opened my eyes to how confusing it can be initially. I've noticed people don't really read instructions next to heroes, and usually prefer to figure it out on their own, but the biggest problem I encountered was players getting stuck in the cinematic where the island is explained. An arrow over your hand was not clear enough, and I decided a new system is in order. With this update, when you enter the cinematic area your hands will turn into Vive controllers and little floating labels next to the buttons will let you know what you can do. This system will eventually find it's way into the sandbox as well, to explain the hero controls and with the inclusion of Oculus support, the controller and button configuration will change depending on the HMD in use.
Speaking of the Oculus Rift, I'm still waiting on my headset, since some complications have delayed it. Sorry to all Rift owners, but you'll have to wait a bit more. For now here are the patch notes which brings easier challenges, a lot of QoL updates as well as bugfixes for the Nightwatcher.
General
* The settings menu no longer follows the direction you're facing, instead it only detects
the direction you're facing when opening it and locks into place there
* Moved the button in the motion sickness warning screen closer to the center of the room since it
was out of reach for some players
- Eventually all menus in the game will be navigated with pointing and clicking rather than physically pressing a button
* You can now skip the initial cinematic with the side button
* There is now a short delay between advancements in the cinematic scene
* The cinematic area now has Vive controllers appearing in place of the hands with controls
Challenges
* Changed the kiosk model and particle effect for challenges to make it more visible
* Raised Racetrack challenge target time to 1:30 from 1:25
* Raised Target Practice challenge timer to 1:30 minutes from 1:00
* Raised Target Practice target score to 25
* Fixed a bug that allowed players to teleport on top of targets
* Fixed a bug where getting the exact target score would not unlock a new character in challenges
- For example, you needed to get one more target than indicated in the fireball challenge
Nightwatcher (Grappling hook)
* Releasing the trigger will now begin retracting the cord
* Increased max range by 30%
* Updated material and texture of Nightwatcher's hand
* Fixed a bug that would continue trying to pull the player after they've collided with geometry
The Witch (Telekinesis)
* Adjusted particle effects, to make them less intrustive
Be sure to keep sending feedback. These incremental patches between content updates are important to keep the game's quality up to snuff, as it expands. And if you haven't already drop your reply in the "the road ahead" survey which asks a couple of questions about your wishes from the game's development.
I'll be closing the survey come next update, and will share the results. So far I've gotten over 250 replies, and it's honestly surprised me how much people joined in, as well as how many original ideas I've heard! Thanks to it, the next two heroes to be added to the sandbox have been cemented, but the survey will be my go to resource for many updates to come.
Till next time.
The road ahead - survey
A few days ago, when I released the 0.2.0 update, I mentioned and linked a survey which asked you, the players, to pick what you most want to see in the game. Due to a fairly low response count, I checked out the post again and noticed the link's been removed since it was used a shortened url.
Normally I wouldn't make a whole new announcement for this, instead simply editing the link, but this short survey will dictate how the game will develop in the coming months so I wanted to give as many players the option to voice their opinion.
I'm especially interested in what superpowers people want to see in the game, since I've added almost all the ones I personally wanted to wield. Make sure to use the "Other..." text field to let me know of a cool one I missed.
Just so I don't post without some actual progress, here's a clipped WIP image of one of the upcoming characters in 0.3.0. Very exciting stuff, I know.
