Welcome back to another Project Haven update report.
We've been hard at work implementing changes based on your invaluable feedback and we're excited to unveil more updates, including a few that have been eagerly anticipated!
Let's delve into the details of what's in store for you:
Quality of Life Upgrades
Prepare yourselves for a smoother, more immersive journey through the streets of Project Haven with a range of new quality of life improvements:
Overall UX Improvements
We've fine-tuned various elements to make navigation and interaction feel more intuitive. Features like double-clicking to sell or buy items, or having a dedicated key to cancel movement - we believe that these and other small changes will significantly improve the overall experience.
Interruption smoothness
We've changed how interrupts work. No more unintentional toggling of aiming mode. Interrupts no longer toggle automatically with aim mode, requiring you to press the new 'End Interrupt' button. Take full control of your tactics without any accidental mode switches.
Improved Enemy Ghost
Navigating challenges on the battlefield requires insight into your opponents' positions. With the new improved enemy ghost, you'll have a clearer view of his position, stance and direction.
End Mission Looting Screen
The sweet taste of victory gets even sweeter with a fresh addition of one the most requested features. We're introducing an end mission looting screen, where you can revel in the spoils of your conquest and decide which ones to take with you.
This screen is still a work in progress. We are not only planning to add more features to it, but also an extra touch of user-friendliness and visual appeal.
But for now, we hope it serves to make your experience smoother, as you'll finally have the chance to scoop up every bit of loot and decide what to do with it. Want more protection? That guy won't be needing his armor anymore! *Mine!* Needs some extra cash? Swap it for money! It's all about giving you more control over your spoils.
Balancing
If you are one of those who like to dissect every digit and weigh each option meticulously, then update your spreadsheet, because we've tweaking the values!
Weapon Suppression Balancing
We've analyzed the numbers and made adjustments where necessary. Some weapons were packing a bit too much suppression power, and we did a calibration to ensure a more balanced playing field.
Gameplay
Free Look After Movement
The key to successful strategy lies in foresightđ. With the addition of a free look action after movement, you can now scout your surroundings after your mercenary's movements, enabling more strategic decision-making and proactive positioning.
Co-op Mode is Here!
The fight for survival just got more thrilling! Co-op mode is now available, allowing you to join forces with fellow friends and embark on tactical endeavors together. Collaborate, coordinate, and conquer side by side.
Crafting a seamless cooperative experience brings its own set of complexities. Synchronizing actions between players and the world, create a new UI to cater more than one player, dealing with Steam integration and ensuring the cooperative gameplay is rewarding, balanced, and, most importantly, fun, is no easy task. But we are extremely happy to to be able to bring Co-op Mode to Steam Strategy Fest. It's a testament to our commitment to delivering an unparalleled tactical experience.
As always, your journey through Project Haven continues to shape its evolution. Dive into the action, embrace the updates, and let's conquer this battleground together.
See you on the dark streets! Code Three Fifty One
P.S. For real-time engagement and tactical discussions, rendezvous with fellow mercenaries on our Discord channel. Let's keep the momentum going!
We are happy to announce that Project Haven will be featured in the upcoming Steam Stealth Fest 2023 (from July 24th to 31th), and we will be releasing a new updated demo so that you all can enjoy the thrill of stealth gameplay like never before!
Your feedback matters!
But before we get started with the exciting updates, we want to express our sincere gratitude to everyone who took part in the previous event and provided us with invaluable feedback. We've been working hard to incorporate your ideas to make the game even more immersive and polished. Your insights have been crucial in shaping the game's direction. So, let's dive into the key points you've raised during the previous event.
The things you loved the most!â¤ď¸
Multiple paths:
We are happy to hear that you guys really enjoyed the freedom and flexibility of our level designs. The wide range of options provided by the environment with its multiple paths and different vantage points were a real hit among you. Make sure to play the follow up to the first mission to see for yourself!
Numerous Gameplay Elements:
The options offered by the gameplay mechanics were also well received. Mechanics such as lean, strafe and change stance offered a range of tactical options during combat, empowering you to devise multiple strategies to overcome different challenges.
Stylish Aesthetic:
The overall style and aesthetic of the game seems to have resonated with you. The soundtrack also found a special place in your hearts, and that means a lot to us, but especially our composer.
Story and Setting:
The storyline and rich setting grabbed the attention of several of you, leaving you curious to see what more lays ahead.
Areas We Should Improve.đŚž
Clunky Cover System:
Some of you shared concerns about the cover system functionality and responsiveness. A few of you felt that certain areas that should have provided cover werenât properly identified as such, causing confusion and frustration during combat.
Inaccurate Aiming:
While many of you enjoyed Project Havenâs thirdâs view aiming mode, some found the reticle occasionally to be imprecise, affecting the overall shooting experience.
Difficulty Aiming Grenades:
Tossing grenades from a third-person view proved to be challenging for several of you. Accurately judging the grenade's trajectory, landing spot, and blast radius seemed to not be an easy task.
User Interface Clarity:
The user interface requires improvement, as some elements were not intuitive or could be more user-friendly.
Awkward Dialogue Lines:
While many of you seem to really love or be neutral about it, some of the dialogue lines and voice acting did not resonate well with others and were perceived as awkward or out of place.
We hear you!
We have been carefully working to address the feedback received, while staying true to the gameâs original concept, and we are excited to share the following changes in this next demo that address some of your concerns along with a few new additions:
Enhanced Cover System:
Say goodbye to clunkiness! The cover system was completely redesigned. We've added a new snap-to-cover mechanic, allowing you to easily take cover where you want. We also added a mercenaryâs ghost figure when the mouse hovers over a potential cover spot, making it easier to see their current stance and know exactly where they are going to end up facing. Additionally, the shield icons previously projected on walls have now been moved to the floor, improving top-down visibility. We now also display all the nearby potential covers, for more situational awareness.
Improved Aiming System:
Your shooting experience is about to level up! The difficulties with the reticle are now much improved, ensuring a more accurate and satisfying shooting experience.
Grenade Throwing Overhaul:
The long awaited change is finally here! We have completely changed the grenade system to make it possible from a top-down view. We hope youâll find it easier and more satisfying to use grenades effectively, without the hassle of not knowing where the grenade is going to end up.
Added Progression:
Your actions now have consequences! HP damage is now carried over from mission to mission. Downed characters suffer a temporary loss in maximum HP during combat and will need medbay time at HQ to recover.
User-friendly Font and UI:
We care about your experience, so we're continuously refining the user interface. In this demo the focus has been particularly in the HQ. Weâve added a new Armory screen where you can view all your mercenaries' status and equipment at a glance, allowing you to quickly customize them to suit your needs! Plus, we also replaced the old font for a better and more readable one.
Added Ghost Walls:
Navigate narrow spaces with ease! We added ghost walls to make the environment more readable and reduce camera obstructions.
Updated Characters:
Indigo has received a new character model that better fits her personality! Scarlett, Altan and Patches will be getting new models soon too. Weâve also updated all character stats and initial equipment.
Expanded Settings:
Total control on your fingertips! In the new demo, you'll find additional settings options, including more graphic control, the ability to toggle specific combat area UI parts on/off, and more audio options (Yes, you can now turn dialoguesâ volume off from those mercenaries who might rub you the wrong way). We've also added a daltonism mode for the color vision rebels among us. You will also have the option to invert aiming controls, customizing your mouse setup according to your preferences.
Embrace the Stealth!
For those who are joining us through the Steam Stealth event, welcome, and get ready to immerse yourselves in a world of cunning and shadows. In Project Haven, stealth is an option you should always keep in your mind as it could be your greatest weapon.
Prepare to master the art of stealth as you outsmart cameras through hacking, quietly unlock doors using lockpicks, execute silent takedowns from the shadows and strategically dispose of enemy bodies to ensure no alarms are raised.
We can't wait for you to experience these changes and improvements firsthand during the Steam Stealth Fest 2023. Your feedback has been pivotal in shaping our game, and we're eager to hear your thoughts once again. Together, we will shape the ultimate tactical experience!
And meanwhile, if you are curious about learning more about the motivation behind Project Haven and read about future plans, check out our in-depth interview with RPG Codex.
We'll see you in the shadows! Code Three Fifty One
If you've been downrange in our Demo during Tacticon, we salute you. Your debriefs have been pouring in and we've been combing through every piece of intel. We've already started patching up a few weak spots based on your feedback.
Now, let's bring you up to speed on the recent developments since our last devlog!
Level Design: Crafting the Battlefield!
When we embarked on the development of Project Haven, our initial plan was to use procedural generation for level design. We even posted some of the tech weâve developed for it on this platform.
However, as time went on and we further honed the game's storyline and gameplay, we realized that procedural level design wouldn't do justice to our vision.
Despite the monumental task it posed for our small but dedicated team, we made the conscious decision to craft each of the 45 mission maps by hand. And now, having completed the vast majority of the levels, we can confidently say that the extra effort and time invested were undeniably worth it.
While handcrafted maps may limit certain aspects of replayability, they significantly enhance the overall experience. Having said that, weâre happy to report that our missions offer a diverse range of approaches tailored to different playstyles and squad compositions, ensuring ample replay value.
Environmental Art: Elevating the Visual Look!
Besides gameplay, an important aspect of level design is the look.
We have what weâd say is a fairly distinct look to our game and we want to bring it to the next level. With this in mind, we have dedicated some time to revisiting and refining every level, elevating them to their final polished form so we can achieve our unique artistic vision.
Before: After:
Pathfinding: Navigating the Warzone
Implementing a new pathfinding system was another major task. While Unreal Engine 4, our chosen engine, includes its own path finding system, despite multiple attempts at adjustments, it never quite hit the mark for Project Haven. While UE4âs path finding system is generic and works for the vast majority of use cases, we encountered significant hurdles in adapting it to the complex requirements of Project Haven.
Thus, we took it upon ourselves to construct a brand-new pathfinding system from scratchâone that encompassed all the necessary functionalities. This has resulted in cleaner paths, improved control when moving multiple mercenaries simultaneously, and an overall smoother experience.
Characters: Reinforcing the Steel Dragons Initial Roster
As some of you may have noticed in our new Demo or in the Tacticonâs trailer, weâve added three new characters to the starting roster, expanding the pool of mercenaries available for your selection.
Here are the eight starting mercenaries youâll play with in Project Havenâs campaign:
User Interface: Improving the Tactical HUD
After carefully observing numerous players in action, we identified a recurring issue concerning cover selection.
To address this concern, we've implemented a new snapping mechanic and UI, that seems to resolve these difficulties. With the updated system, you will not only be able to visualize nearby cover options relative to your cursor, but also preview your characterâs stance and how it will be positioned. For those that like extra control, youâll be able to select the snapping distance or use a modifier key to temporarily disable the snapping behavior.
Another common complaint is the HQ UI being confusing, which we definitely agree with. The current UI implementation was a temporary solution to facilitate early functionality testing. However, we always had plans to revamp it entirely, and now, we have started the process.
To enhance usability, we have divided the squad and loadout screens, so you can now view all your mercenaries at a glance and quickly equip everyone in the Armory screen. While squad selection screen will be exclusively dedicated to selecting the mercenaries you want to take to the current mission.
Looking Ahead to the Future!
But what lies ahead for Project Haven, you may wonder? Closed Beta Testing of course!
Your valuable feedback throughout the Demo phase has played an instrumental role in shaping and improving Project Haven. As weâve finalized all the mechanics and polished the gameplay experience, we have decided to have a closed beta testing period. This testing phase will provide a longer playtime than our Demos, allowing us to ensure that the campaign progression aligns with our standards. If you're interested in participating in this exciting phase, stay tuned for an upcoming post detailing how you can sign up!
As always weâd like to thank everyone who dedicated your time to play our Demos and supported us throughout Project Haven's development journey. Your unwavering support means the world to us, and we sincerely appreciate it.
We are excited to announce that Project Haven will be showcased at Tacticon!
Tacticon is a digital convention dedicated to strategy and tactical games that takes place from May 11th to May 15th. This year, brings together over 106 hand-picked recent and unique strategy games by long-established studios to solo indie game developers.
But that's not all! We are also delighted to announce that a new demo is now available for players to try out during the event. This demo features significant improvements from the last one, including the full initial campaign roster to choose from, enhanced level design and art, new weapons, new items and a totally new mission! We are confident that these enhancements will make the game even more enjoyable. We can't wait for you to try it out!
Also stay tuned for a development update coming up in the next few days where weâll detail everything that weâve been up to these past months and whatâs left until release!
We hope that all of you Steel Dragons who have been following us are as excited about this showcase as we are! Remember to follow Project Haven on Steam, join our community Discord server, and sign up for our email newsletter to stay updated on all the latest news and developments.
Thank you for your continued support, and we look forward to seeing you at Tacticon! Code Three Fifty One
You heard right! Project Haven's Demo is now available to download and play until the 3rd of October as part of the TactiCon event!
It's been a long time coming, but it's now possible to test out all the new features we're been working on these past months.
We'd be super grateful if you could play it and gives us feedback on what you like, what you don't like and how we could make it better!
So what's new since our last update? We're glad you asked!
We've continued with backend updates we've mentioned in the previous update, this time focused on AI and the perception system (hearing and visibility). We've also done some art and animation updates, and finally a new Skill system. Let's break it down!
AI
Our main goal with a new AI system was to make it more dynamic and better behaved in a range of situations, after careful planning we decided to change from using Behavior Trees to Utility AI.
We feel Utility AI suited our intended goals much better, also allowing us to more easily add additional AI actions. After some testing and tweaking the AI is already in a much better place than it was before, and there's still more we want to do it with!
CALLING REINFORCEMENTS: One of the new actions we added to the AI was calling for reinforcements, which better explains a mechanic that was part of the game for a long time, but was pretty much invisible to the player. You can now see when an AI intends to call for reinforcements, and they will actually sprint over to some location to do so. Although not currently in the Demo, we intend to also add some AI banter to add further notice to their actions.
Skills
We've went through a few iterations of the skill system but we feel like we finally reached the correct one for Project Haven. It's a modified version of our previous one, but that should add more freedom in leveling up your mercenaries.
Each of the 6 attributes, Constitution, Strength, Agility, Marksmanship, Technical and Wisdom has its own Skill tree. Spending a point in one of those skill trees increases the relevant attribute value, which in turn unlocks an additional perk (e.g. Increased Maximum Carried Weight in Strength). You can spend a maximum of 10 points per tree.
Skills are gated by attribute level and some have other skills as a prerequisite, but otherwise you can spend your points in any fashion you'd like. We've tried to add a mix of passive and active skills per tree although some trees lend themselves more towards one of the two. We're aiming to have over 20 skills per tree so what you see in the Demo are not the final available skills/perks.
Art
We've redone the downed animation which finally replaces the funny butt dragging animation we had for the longest time :D
We've also continued our improvement of environmental art with some new props and graphic design (in things like arcades, computer screens, posters, fictional Ad's) to flesh out the world. And finally we've continued with set dressing and design of the very final missions of the game, but we can't spoil those. :)
All in all we feel the game is in a great place, we're very near to completing the full 45+ campaign missions, and we can't wait for you to see them!
All this of course is pending any feedback you all give us. As we've mentioned before we want Project Haven to be a game you really like, and as such any suggestions you may have are truly appreciated.
Which brings us to the final point of this update.
Release date?
Being transparent with you guys is very important to us, so we'll just tell you that finishing the game for a 2022 release is not very feasible at this point. Although we hope to be content complete before the end of the year, we want to properly test and tune the game to make sure your experience is as good as it can be from day one. It's a large game made by a truly tiny team.
We ended up doing more work on replacing large systems of the game than we had planned, but they ended up being necessary to improve the game to the standard we want to achieve. We hope you understand and bear with us just a little longer and we hope to bring you something special in return.
We also hope with your feedback we can bring to light all remaining gameplay issues we need to tackle. But just a Demo is not enough, so we're going to have a Closed Beta Test coming soon, please stay tuned for more details on that!
And that's it for this update! As always, thank you! And see you next time! Code Three Fifty One
Welcome to another Project Haven development update!
This time we have quite a few gameplay additions to show you, some art updates and more, so letâs get straight into it.
Gameplay
One major task weâve finished since the last update was reworking the whole action system backend. While itâs not particularly visual or exciting, it allows us to more easily add complex gameplay systems. It was also designed with modding in mind. In fact, every action in the game is done with the exact same tools and system modders will have available to them! We hope to see some really cool things from the community!
After finishing the system we quickly recreated all existing actions iterating and implementing a few new actions to help flesh out the gameplay:
MOVABLE OBJECTS: Characters with enough Strength are now able to push some objects to gain access to otherwise unavailable paths, allowing for more interesting strategic decisions on your character selection and level up!
CARRY DOWNED TEAMMATES Thereâs some situations where healing your downed merc in place is just not an option and moving while downed is a slow affair. You can now carry downed teammates to safety before reviving them.
CARRY DEAD ENEMIES In the same vein as the previous system you can now carry dead enemies to prevent others from spotting the body. Weâve also included handy containers where you can dump them, though if all else fails a secluded corner will work just as well!
IMPROVED ACTION POP-UP Along with all the backend system improvements we also improved the UI, the action popup (right click) now contains more information and is better organized, allowing for smoother interactions!
Art
Gameplay doesnât get all the spotlight in this update though, as weâve continued our upgrade of the character art.
Hereâs just a couple of them:
Bubbles, everyone's favorite Steel Dragonâs hacker in service, sporting an updated look.
Iron Dogs mob, a brand new foe youâll find in the streets of Haven. Donât let his looks fool you though, theyâre tough nuts to crack!
One of the main reasons for updating existing characters was to give them all new facial rigs to allow for higher fidelity facial animation, hereâs a sneak peek at Daisyâs updated facial animation:
Level Design
We canât really show much here as weâre mostly working on very late game content. But we did get back and did some updates to previous levels, fleshing out the gameplay and art.
You can see the different lighting styles in the image below representing different areas of the city.
Graphics
For those with supporting cards weâve also added Raytracing. Make those rain puddles shine! And to lighten all that GPU load or just to improve performance weâve also added DLSS and FSR2 support!
With all the changes the game underwent weâd like to have you all test the game and give your feedback. Throughout Project Havenâs development itâs been extremely helpful reading everyoneâs ideas and suggestions. As such, weâre planning on having a new Demo as soon as we have a stable build, stay tuned for details!
And finally weâd like to thank all the community for your support, we know you guys are eager to get your hands on the final product. Weâre a small team doing our best, and we want to make sure your experience is as good as it can be. Weâre not cutting any corners, so while things sometimes take a while to develop we believe itâs for the best in the end. We hope you guys understand.
Thank you! And see you next time! Code Three Fifty One
Yeah, itâs been a bit since our last dev update. Months, even, but donât mistake the radio silence for inactivity. Weâve just been down in the code-mines, working intently on Project Haven to the exclusion of everything else. We probably should have come up for air a few times, but weâve got SO much we want to show you now.
A lot of our work has been on finalizing late-game content that we want to keep under wraps until launch, but thereâs still plenty more we can show you. Letâs dive in!
Level Design
Game design is an iterative, experimental process, and weâre constantly learning new tricks and skills along the way. So that weâre not saving all the best for last, weâve been revisiting some of our earlier missions, making visual and mechanical improvements to better match the quality of the later maps.
Check out the before/after comparison below! If youâve played the Project Haven demo previously, you should recognize the environment, and just how much it has improved.
Characters
Another field weâve made major leaps forward in is our character art pipeline. Previously, our character models were a bit of a compromise, trying to squeeze out the best designs we could from a relatively limited system.
Since our last update, weâve completely overhauled how we handle character art, and the result is more distinct designs with more personality but produced in a fraction of the time - given that weâre a tiny independent studio, thatâs an enormous boost in productivity for us.
Youâre sure to see the improvements made across the campaign, and especially in our cinematic cutscenes, but also in the increased variety and quality of background characters like civilians. Still, the most striking improvements will be seen on our main cast. Hereâs Fang after his makeover:
Everyoneâs favorite (or most loathed) cyber-meathead hasnât changed fundamentally, but we feel his updated face has a lot more character, better fitting his voice. The 3D mesh of his clothing has been updated as well to be cleaner and more efficient. This rework was done much quicker than the original character modeling process, thanks to our new art workflow.
For those wanting a deeper peek at whatâs changed, take a look at the wireframe comparison below:
One of the biggest improvements weâve made is a modular character art system, allowing us to create more varied minor NPCs by mixing and matching heads, bodies, clothes and more. You can see the improvement immediately in the nightclub scene below, now with a much less strict dress code:
UI
Whew, thatâs a lot of art improvements! Our improvements are more than just skin deep, of course, so letâs talk gameplay next.
As with any squad tactics game, a good, clean user interface is essential. After several rounds of iterations (taking all our user feedback into account), weâve overhauled the UI. Itâs now cleaner, sleeker and more functions are easily usable without having to memorize hotkeys.
Before: After:
A key focus of our redesign has been accessibility. Useful for many, but especially those who play turn-based tactics games due to their more mouse-friendly interfaces. Weâre proud to announce that every feature, mode and toggle is now fully accessible using just the mouse.
Combat Gameplay
As well as making all the basic functionality easier to access, weâve added a few highly requested features to your tactical options.
Now you can manually control the power of grenade throws (for when you want to land the perfect trick shot), and use open doors as cover. Just remember that thin wood isnât going to stop a bullet.
And thatâs it for now, but by no means all the improvements weâve made to Project Haven over the past few months. Weâve plenty more to share over the next couple updates, so make sure you wishlist and follow the game on Steam!
If youâre still hungry for content and are still catching up on all things Project Haven, check out this narrated gameplay video over on IGN from December, featuring some of the changes and improvements weâve talked about here.
And we talked with the prestigious art-focused industry site 80.lv about Project Havenâs development where we show some previously unseen behind the scenes! Thereâs even a French translation for any francophones reading this!
And of course, if you want up-to-the-minute updates on Project Haven and all things Code Three Fifty One, give our social media accounts a follow. In-between big dev-logs like this, we post regular small updates to Twitter, Facebook and Reddit. And if you want to really get down in the trenches with us and the rest of the Project Haven community, join our Discord server.
At the end of August we debuted our Gamescom 2021 trailer, and since that time, weâve been hard at work on not only refining the game, but also looking closely at many of the common issues youâve encountered.
Before we get onto those, we thought weâd point out a few things that have been happening since Gamescom.
A Little Bit Of Our Development Process
First up, weâve continued trickling out some small videos showcasing our development process.
You might have missed a couple of the last from âCamera Controlâ that lets you use the middle-mouse button for far more flexibility. [previewyoutube="Q4nKO7d1gcU;full"]
We also showcased âFloor Visibility Controlâ to manually toggle between visible floors, along with more UI Updates. A few days ago we released âContinue Moveâ, a long anticipated feature to continue your movement after a mercenary stops, if they detect a new enemy midway, allowing you to re-evaluate your strategy. [previewyoutube="qOuyc548arc;full"]
To see similar improvements and updates, be sure to subscribe to our YouTube or follow us over on Twitter.
We Were A NGDC Grand-Finalist!
The Nordic Game Discovery Contest (NGDC) recently selected its grand finalists for this year's Game of the Year and Peopleâs Choice award, and weâre proud to say Project Haven, against a selection of brilliant games, made the final three! While we didnât lift the trophy, weâre thrilled to have made the final round. You can view all the entrants here, and the final results here.
Project Haven Is A Fan Favorite Winner!
Weâre also incredibly pleased to say that we were not only part of, but have won round 32 of GDWCâs Fan Favourite selection. Amongst the company of 8 other incredible games, readers were able to cast their vote to support Project Haven for the crown. We were up against some exceptional games, and weâre humbled to have been chosen as the winner. You can view the GDWC Trailer below, as well as our winners page here. [previewyoutube="YNZ7qrgbovA;full"]
Finally, and before we dive into our FAQ, YouTuber Brought To Bear recently chatted with us about all things Project Haven. [previewyoutube="nGhJwp_FAFE;full"] Weâre not only grateful for him taking the time out to talk to us, but also his knowledge of the game and his support of it. His first video from June 2021 perfectly captures our journey.
Your Frequently Asked Questions Answered
Finally, to answer some of the most frequently asked community questions, weâve pulled them together in one place. Weâll do our best to get into the habit of this, so you know exactly the direction weâre taking.
Game Information
When is Project Haven coming out? I can't wait for the release! 2022, a more specific date will be announced at a later date.
Are there plans for Project Haven to be released into Early Access or as a full release? We have no plans for Early Access, and instead will simply be releasing the full game when itâs ready.
Will Project Haven be on Epic Store or GOG besides Steam? The current plan is for a Steam release only, but we may be on other storefronts upon release.
Will the game be exclusive to Epic Games Store or available everywhere? There wonât be any exclusivity for the Epic Games Store.
Will [insert language here] be added? While we havenât finalized the list of languages we will have in the game, confirmed languages include Portuguese (PT-PT) and English (EN-US). We are using Wishlists and the locations of those who Wishlist the game to gauge further regions.
Will players be able to add mods? Absolutely, the game will be moddable and we canât wait to see what you all implement!
Will the game support pad control? Not planned for the initial launch.
What are the system requirements? Windows 10 64-bit ⢠8 GB RAM ⢠DirectX 11 compatible graphics card.
The game seems to have problems on Windows 7 or 8. Will improvements be made? (Some players reported that it runs on Vulkan but crashes during Geckoâs mission.) We will try to keep Vulkan support working on Windows 7, but it will not be officially supported. As a very small team itâs difficult to support an operating system thatâs past end-of-life.
Is a Linux release planned? Yes! We plan to release a Linux version at the same time as Windows. GamingOnLinux also gave us a lovely shoutout after discovering the game is coming to Tux machines.
Gameplay and Mechanics
Are there plans to implement armor? Armor is already in the game, but no helmets. Weâre intending to implement those.
Will there be melee weapons? As for melee weapons, yes! Currently, we only have melee without weapons, but melee weapons are planned.
Will autoloot be added when each mission ends? Yes! There will eventually be an end-screen where you can pick up loot, up to your character's limit.
Will permadeath be added? Definitely. It will be a difficulty option that weâre intending to add.
Will inverted mouse controls be added? Of course!
Will lobbies be added? Yes!
Will damage and weapons be rebalanced? Absolutely. Balancing weapons is something thatâs never finished, and as we implement new features and mechanics we will continue to evaluate the games overall balance.
Will grenade throwing in first-person mode be tweaked? It feels a little odd... Yes, we are working on improving the throwing mechanics to be more user friendly and they arenât where we want them to be. Stay tuned on this one.
AP drain could use some tweaking. Could any improvements be made? (Could you add an option where youâre shown how much AP is drained before you make your move?) Great question. AP is part of the game balancing that weâre constantly trying to improve. We are tweaking the UI to better display your available APâs so that you can anticipate costs more easily
Is there a difference between hard and soft cover? Yes! The game uses a ballistics system, so soft covers will only slightly reduce a bullets effectiveness. In contrast, hard cover can stop the bullet in its tracks. Ammo types can also affect these properties and how much they can penetrate each type of cover.
Will the UI be improved to make it easier to use? Yes, as we finalize the mechanics weâre adding to the game we will be improving the UI to make it as readable and as accessible as possible.
Are there any plans to make combat smoother? It sometimes feels clunky and unintuitive. Most of the combat issues are related to UI and as we improve that, it should alleviate most of the issues. We will also have better tutorials that explain mechanics in far greater detail so players have a greater understanding of the gameâs mechanics.
Could options be added to lock your viewing direction so you donât spend AP? Weâve recently added a way to select the viewing direction at the end of a move so you donât need to spend an extra AP after moving if youâre not facing the correct direction.
Will any improvements be added to camera controls? Weâve recently added new camera controls, so you can pitch the camera for better visibility in certain situations. Weâve also added a way to manually control which floors are visible too.
Are any changes planned for the path finding system? Sometimes characters either donât move, collide into each other, or cling to objects. Absolutely. Weâve recently improved pathfinding to prevent most of those issues!
Will dialogue be tweaked? Some of it feels a little...immature? We only have a small number of dialogue lines recorded, mostly the âuniqueâ ones that arenât meant to be played too often. Weâll continue to evaluate these if players feel theyâre below standard.
Can players customize their characters? Character customization and character builder is something we would definitely want to do, but because of the size of our team, we donât have the capacity to do it. If the game does well enough on launch, it's something we'd like to add as post launch content.
Cutscenes can sometimes look a little janky. Will these be polished over time? Animations are very much a work in progress, and we will be recreating them before release.
The swearing can be a bit much sometimes. Are there ways to tone it down or play it less frequently? The option is already available in the Demo, just like mentioned before though, due to the low amount of recorded lines per character some âspecialâ lines are playing too often.
Thanks to all of you for providing your FAQ questions and reading our November update! Donât forget to wishlist the game (if you havenât already), sign up for our email newsletter, join our official Discord and social media channels to follow Project Havenâs progress.
Join us August 27th 8pm CET/11am PT as we watch our brand new trailer debut live during IGN's Gamescom Studio! As always we'll be live answering your questions, hope to see you there!
Edit: And here it is, now live on IGN! [previewyoutube="mIz2XW8kO8U;full"]
Project Haven - Dev Livestream
Hey Steel Dragons! As part of the Gamescom 2021 and Indie Arena Booth we're hosting a livestream tomorrow the August the 26th at 7pm CET/10am PT where we will be playing and talking about our updated Demo and chatting with you all. Come join us and ask any questions you may have!
Don't forget to set a reminder! See you there! ËsteamhappyË
But what lies ahead for Project Haven, you may wonder? Closed Beta Testing of course!
