Project Warlock
Weapons that bind
Having said that perhaps the cemetery + zombie metaphor works until you notice that it posits the players as festering maggots. Got to work on those the next time.
So now - the patch emerges from those hollow grounds to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting public that starts playing Project Warlock from today onwards.
There’s two ways we can go about communicating the changes:
- Add explanations to all the notes from the November 09th update, or
- Just paste them here all over again
Given the tried and tested “mix and match” approach we decided to do the combo. So – expand on the notes from November and paste them here all over again.
After both the player’s and QA teams’ feedback nearly all of the November’s improvements are now a part of the official patch for Project Warlock, with the sole exception of the New Game + mode. That one has to undergo some tweaks in the Warlock Code Dungeon and has been pushed to make sure we address issues that arose when testing.
Also – thanks to everyone who took their time, played the beta branch version of the game and provided their feedback. You can bask in the warm glow of the game that – shaped by none other than you – now reaches the hands of unexpecting players who do not appreciate venturing to the “branches” of the “beta”.
But… before we begin there’s this one little thing.
Weapon key binding. The long awaited, review lowering, often requested change is finally here. The issue was raised by players and it took some time to think over, test, implement and now surprise include in the patch. I realise that it’s been a long wait, but it’s finally done. Thanks for your patience!
And now for something completely expected:
Game Mode
- Endless Mode - which is an appropriately named Mode that has monsters that are Endless. Now with new map based on your suggestions
Quality of Life Improvements
- Run enabled as standard from the start – seems highly practical now that you think about it
- Player receiving damage feedback improvement –feedback is always appreciated
- Weapon key binding – you can bind those weapons now
Game Balance
- Adjusted game difficulty in E1M1 – rethinking the design choice to make the game’s first proper level one of the most difficult in the whole game
- Adjusted Sorcerer’s final form difficulty – Bulletspongecerer should be easier to kill now
- Adjusted game difficulty in Egypt Episode – you should now Die like an Egyptian more frequently
- Adjusted game difficulty in Industrial Episode – Mean Machines now that tiny bit more mean
Requested Features
- Option to disable minimap – ok so the way the story went was: No minimap at launch at all as intended by the developer. Then: requests put in to include minimap. Then - Minimap included – but only, intentionally rough. Then: requests put in to disable it. Now: back to square one! You can now choose to have no minimap – just as originally intended!
- Option to hold to sprint – choose if you want to press or hold
- Option to toggle weapon changing on empty ammo – click click click no boom
Bugs
- Too fast scroll wheel weapon changing bug – steadying the wheel a bit
- Minigun audio loop issue – audio files no longer pile on each other to offer the unintended (but
perhaps appropriate) "Minigun Cacophony from Hell"
- Hitboxes of decorations – more snuggly fitting hitboxes to avoid throwing the grenade that bounces from the empty space next to a chandelier and explodes in own face
- Self-inflicted Axe and Dagger damage – flagellant mode removed by unpopular demand
And now please return to the endless enjoyment of enemy extermination
Switching to Physical
Let's imagine for a second there's a test that allows to assess how "R3tr0" a game is. None of that Voight-Kampff nonsense, just straight up yes or no answers.
1. Is the game heavily inspired by Doom, Quake or Hexen?
2. Is it available at a place for literally Good Old Games?
3. Does it have a live action trailer?
4. Is it available on at least two different systems/platforms so that owners of each can use those superficial differences to proclaim their system/platform as a better one?
5. Does it have a physical edition?
Well, happy to say Project Warlock - as of today - gets a 5/5 on this-particular-otherwise-non-existent-devised-for-the-sake-of-this-post test.
This is yet another step on the way to the retro shooter ideal. And please keep in mind - we might be slow, but we are getting there.
And now for the meat on this bone. Buckshot Software (Project Warlock's dev), Crunching Koalas (Project Warlock's console publisher) and Super Rare Games (physical editions masters) join forces to bring you the limited edition of Nintendo Switch Project Warlock with a list of goodies as per list below:
- Nintendo Switch cartridge
- Interior art
- Full-colour manual
- Exclusive sticker
- 3 card trading card pack
You can get it here:
https://superraregames.com/products/srg-45-project-warlock-switch
We realise there is one question that begs asking: "what about the other physical editions?". A reply here would be: let's wait and see.
Enjoy!
Endless Entertainment
Just in time for all your post Halloween pile of shame clearing here we are with a test drive of Endless Mode for Project Warlock, some requested features, bunch of fresh bug fixes and QOL improvements with a healthy serving of game balancing on the side. Also – conveniently moved to the second paragraph of this post is some due explanation on some issues you frequently brought up and which remained without earlier feedback.
Project Warlock is not the best optimised game of the world but over the last two years we tried to chase and eradicate many issues that you have brought forward. Unfortunately some of these that pose a problem to a small but vocal number of players are tied to the way the game is built and will not be fixed anytime soon. The issues referred here are the resolution change and mouse acceleration issues - we are terribly sorry that these arose and to every single person experiencing them – our apologies. We also realise weapons swapping is not the most convenient for some players at the moment. This is what we will be tackling next,
As for the updates part: Initially we wanted to separate both the Endless Mode taster and New Game + update from the bugs and fixes one, but decided to roll both into one and make them available to you today.
In order to give a chance for you to check it out we decided to add this to the beta branch of the game. You can check out all the contents of the update below. In order to access the branch follow these few simple steps:
1. For starters, you must have Project Warlock added to your Steam library.
2. Right click on Project Warlock on the library list and open Properties.
3. Click on the BETA tab, go to beta Dropdown list and choose “beta_portal” branch.
4. No password is required so Steam should start downloading the game automatically.
5. Play the game!
Once we gather and incorporate your feedback we will move this version to the main branch and will keep working on the Endless Mode as well. You are more than welcome to post all your feedback on both the new updates and the Endless Mode in the pinned forum thread below.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/893680/discussions/4/3001047413724277378/
NOW FOR THE UPDATE CONTENTS
Game Modes
- Simple version of New Game+ for campaign - available once you finish the campaign
- Experimental version of a new game mode – Endless Mode
Quality of Life Improvements
- Run enabled as standard from the start
- Player receiving damage feedback improvement
Game Balance
- Adjusted game difficulty in E1M1
- Adjusted Sorcerer’s final form difficulty
- Adjusted game difficulty in Egypt Episode
- Adjusted game difficulty in Industrial Episode
Requested Features
- Option to disable minimap
- Option to hold to sprint
- Option to toggle weapon changing on empty ammo
Bugs
- Too fast scroll wheel weapon changing bug
- Minigun audio loop issue
- Hitboxes of decorations
- Self-inflicted Axe and Dagger damage
Alright. You may now resume your regular demon purging.
5/5
Of all those accompanying the recent console launch the one that sticks to mind is GameSpew’s: “Project Warlock does a poo on your doorstep, kicks your cat, then invites itself in to bake you a lovely cake.”
But there’s another piece – from EGMNOW’s Mollie L. Patterson - that gave Project Warlock an 5/5. Which, when sucked into one end of the thirsty Metacritic tube spits out the respectable 100/100.
Ok. We do realise that the all the review scores are superficial. And review themselves totally subjective. Sometimes startingly scathing. Sometimes surprisingly sympathetic.
And it’s very difficult to – when faced with the elusive perfect score – refrain from saying: “look guys and girls - this reviewer gets it”.
So that's not what this is about. But it just feels very fitting that a game built on the legacy of the old-school classic games gets a perfect score from a magazine that’s built on the legacy of the old-school classic game mag.
So - irregardless if this is your first visit to Project Warlock's steampage or you're no stranger to these parts - I encourage you to give Mollie’s excellent review a read. With black letters written against a white background and no video.
You know: old-school like.
https://egmnow.com/project-warlock-review/
Oh. And one more thing. We have another overdue information update on the upcoming Project Warlock's fixes, balances, updates, additions and more soon. Stay tuned!
Project Warlock launching on consoles this week
I suppose the header and the subtitle kind of betrayed the whole thing. Project Warlock is coming to consoles. Or, to be more accurate: the game launched on PlayStation 4 this Tuesday, is coming to Nintendo Switch on Thursday June 11, and Xbox One - day after that, Friday June 12.
This will mean that the game's journey to all the major current gen platforms will be complete by the end of this week. And we're already looking into other opportunities.
To commemorate the trip so far we'd like to present a brand new console launch trailer conjured by Project Warlock's console publisher - Crunching Koalas. To say we're proud of this thing is an understatement. Check it out for yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPSxNgfi8f0
Over the next few weeks we will have a new announcement regarding the PC version of Project Warlock and some of the as of yet unaddressed issues with the game. But let's keep the details for that specific update.
Also: we recently participated in a friendly initiative - The Quad Damage Bundle assembling four frantic fps's: Elderborn by Hyperstrange, Hedon by Zan, and Nightmare Reaper by Blazing Bit Games. And Project Warlock, so that it actually amounts to four. You can buy all of the games in a neat bundle, paying only for the games you don't yet already own. Or you can buy each game separately if you feel like it. All of these are great titles by very talented individuals. Oftentimes literally individuals.
You can check the bundle with the amazing artwork by Project Warlock's Damian Bajowski here:
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/15144/Quad_Damage_Bundle/?snr=1_7_7_151_150_1
And this is it for now. Take care!
Quad Damage Bundle
Five large email threads, tens of discord messages and some really cool concept art and brainstorming later we arrived at what you see before your eyes: the Quad Damage Bundle featuring the barbaric Elderborn, the half-orcish Hedon, the mysterious Nightmare Reaper and brooding Project Warlock.
Each game is a passion project by the creator, or a small handful of creators that managed to pour their heart and soul into lines of blood-sprayed and dismembered code. Do check them out.
This bundle is both about the chance to get all of these games at a reasonable price, and to discover titles you might not have been familiar with. So, without further ado: introducing four games to satiate your thirst for brutal, high-quality, no-nonsense fps.
Pry the secret of eternal youth from a cursed city as a powerful barbarian in Elderborn.
Take control of a pissed off Half-Orc in her quest to repel a cultist invasion in Hedon.
Solve the mystery of the nameless heroine in a mental asylum in Nightmare Reaper.
Face the minions of hell as a magic-wielding, gun-toting loner in Project Warlock.
Elderborn, Hedon, Nightmare Reaper and Project Warlock combine to bring you:
- 97 power-ups & skills !
- 101 weapons & spells !!
- 107 levels and stages !!!
- 120 enemies & bosses !!!!
Please remember: you only pay for the games you don’t yet own here. Also: for the best deal you might want to buy Quad Damage Bundle between June 1st and 8th!
Happy birthday, patch
Exactly 12 months ago, we hit the “publish” key on Steam. Exactly 11 months, 23 hours and fifty-five minutes ago, one of the first reviewers of the game emailed us mentioning “Should something happen in that swamp at the end of Stage where the boss should be? I walk into an empty room and nothing's happening. I saw the launch trailer and i think that's where the tentacle boss should be?”*
Now. At that particular moment in time Project Warlock had more than 600 playtesting hours logged in, apart from all the unregistered time spent by the team on their own**. And you know, this was five minutes AFTER we published the game on Steam. Like after it went live.
It’s moments like this when you feel alive. Every single muscle contracts, every single hair stands up and the blood starts rushing. Oh, how alive.
Recall? Perhaps it’s just this one guy… Relaunch? Uhh, all the review codes went out. Postpone? I guess you need to be ahead of the launch to do this. More like “postpostpone”. “Pone”?
The important things was the years of labour of love of a small team found it’s way to the (checking review count) hearts of 700 people who posted their reviews on Steam, and further tens of thousands who didn't feel the need to write about it. No biggie. But let’s try to break that 1000 soon, ok?
So this whole post is to say huge THANK YOU to everyone who decided to check out the game. It's thanks to you Project Warlock will not stop here. But that's a story for another post, when we're more ready.
As for this patch's Features? Two major ones alongside smaller tweaks and fixes.
Field of View adjustment - you can finally adjust the field of view of the first person perspective to fit your needs. Goes from 60 up to 110. (Vertical FOV)
In-game statistics - you can finally view your statistics while playing. You can check these out in the pause menu. Remaining secrets, collected items and vanquished enemies are displayed alongside the time you spent inside the current level.
And now - to the patch notes.
1.0.2.1 FOV Patch
Additions:
-Added level progress view to the pause menu
-Added Field of view adjustment setting
Changes:
-Switches Resume and Restart button positions to avoid confusion in pause menu
-Readjusted current track window
-Increased overall difficulty in Medieval Episode
-Changed default run button to "Left shift" from "h"
-Balanced The Tank in Industrial episode further
-Increased Final Boss's health in final stage
Spells Balance:
-Reduced Storm Rage price to 5
-Reduced Freezing Blast cost to 5
-Reduced Executor cost to 5
-Reduced Curse cost to 6
-Reduced 1st improvement level of Storm Rage to 3rd instead of 5th Spirit level
-Reduced 2nd improvement level of Storm Rage to 8rd instead of 10th Spirit level
-Reduced base mana cost of Storm Rage
-Increased base damage of Storm Rage
-Increased base damage absorption of Holy Guard
-Reduced Freezing Blast base mana cost
-Increased Freeezing Blast base freeze time
-Increased Freezing Blast base range
-Reduced Freezing Blast improvement level to 3rd instead of 5th Spirit Level
-Reduced Bomberman base mana cost
-Increased Sammoner base mana cost slightly
-Reduced Executor base mana cost slightly
-Increased Curse base duration time
* Writing from memory here, so some details might be a bit different. Some dramatization might have also been included.
** Yes, the game was playtested to hell and back and Great Old One showed up EVERY SINGLE TIME.
Demo dropping, cheats coming
Two things today.
First of all we released the demo that is a tweaked version of one of the Arctic levels. It has an extra helping of weapons that aren’t usually found on this particular level to give a better way taste of things to come in the full game. Which is handily available on this very steam page for everyone who would like to get their hands on the real deal.
Plus the demo level’s snowy setting is to balance out the HUGE SCORCHING BALL OF SUN that is still bbqing us outside.
Second thing we’re dropping today is the official Project Warlock codes. This wouldn’t have been a proper tribute to the games of old without some additional commands you could input to get some of those spells, weapons and keys, would it now?
You enter the codes by punching them in on the keyboard during the game:
- ihet - weapons, ammo, keys, 1 upgrade point, 1 stats point, refills health and mana pools
- ihtk - keys
- ihats - all the spells
- gotoeXmYY - teleports the player to a set level, where X stands for the episode (where X is a number from 1-5), and where YY stands for the map number (where YY can be any number between 01-12, with level five going up to 11 only)
Difficult-y Delivery
After last patch we began working on three things at the same time – a new, reworked demo that we showed during ’19 PAX East (and one that will be available at a later date), a new batch of fixes including the oft requested new difficulty level, and a bunch of new cosmetic features for the game that coalesced into something more substantial.
Unfortunately this all happened at the same time and we did not choose the juggling order. Or perhaps choose it poorly, as the work on each started before the previous task was finished. As you realise Buckshot is actually one man army programming wise and this proved to be too much.
In short – we planned poorly, work started on all three, eventually so did the Q&A and this amounted to a torrent of things that needed to be incorporated at the same time. Which lead to cycles of bug squashing, resubmitting and reworking things that seemed to never end. Until yesterday.
So: The patch is launching today.
The demo should be available in June.
The cosmetic coalescence – a bit after that.
Without further ado:
v1.0.1.0 Changelog
Features
- Added new difficulty level
Improvements
- Balanced the starting area of E1M1
- Balanced the after-elevator-area in E1M1 after getting the yellow key
- Improved the hitbox of Ceiling Decorations in Medieval setting
- Improved the hitbox of the Street Lamps in Industrial setting
- Adjusted the time before "press any key" is activated after a level is finished
- Adjusted thorn bushes in Cemetery to better show its damage state and to minimize confusion
- Adjusted font size in difficulty description window
- Changed the Hardcore Difficulty icon in Difficulty menu to fit the achievements icon
Bugs
- Fixed a bug where CRT shader settings would not save between the levels
- Fixed a bug where look would not work on a gamepad
- Fixed a bug where the player could not view the stages info in the roadmap with the controller
- Fixed a bug where the player could not buy perks with the controller
- Fixed a bug where the player could not select pause menu options after death
- Fixed a bug where "Controls" title would not be translated to other languages in main menu
- Fixed a bug where value for "Curve" in CRT Shader would not display properly
- Fixed a bug where it was possible to bring up the Main Menu while loading the game
- Fixed an exploit where enemies could boost the player up to skip the red key in E2M1
- Fixed a bug where enemies could not enter the tunnel in E2M1
- Fixed a bug where the game would render unresponsive due to pause menu when alt+tabbing the game in the pre-mission screen
- Fixed a small texture flicker in E5M9
- Fixed a bug where player score would not be properly displayed at intermission screen
- Fixed a bug where grave decorations that are not destroyable would have collision with the player
- Fixed texture flicker in E5M1 for the secret doors
- Fixed a misplaced wall texture in E1M2
- Fixed missing wall textures in E5M2
- Fixed a bug where gallery tab would not close the previously opened art on pressing the "esc" button
- Fixed the missing minimap in E5M11
- Fixed a bug where camera would clip through lava in E5M11
- Removed redundant double "You Died" message on death
- Fixed a bug where the minigun turret would not attack the evil seal
- Fixed a visual bug where the firelance would not display the VFX correctly when aimed to the sky
- Fixed an UI selection bug for the confirmation window when buying upgrades
- Fixed various blockers where the player would not be able to get out of a room when the player got over the wall through collision exploits in E5
- Fixed a bug where the evil seal would not be visible from its other side
- Fixed a bug where player would be moved up upon collision with enemies
Changelog Check-in
“No later than mid next week” starts today – hence the roll-out of a promised patch. Please find the specifics below:
v.1.0.0.3 Changelog
Technology
- Added Headbob adjustment option
- Added new separate menu for language changing under options in main menu
Bugs
- Fixed a bug where the player could leave the map near the truck in E4M1
- Fixed a bug where "Always Run" would not save from level to level correctly
- Fixed a bug where the main menu animation would appear cut off when using the 21:9 aspect ratio
- Fixed a bug where sprinter perk would not apply between the levels
- Fixed a bug where crosshairs would always show staffs crosshair when starting any level
- Fixed a bug where a wrong weapon would appear on the next level
- Fixed a potential blocker on E4M03 where a blue key card could be potentially not picked up
- Fixed an axe exploit
- Fixed bugged window views on E5M10 and E4M08
- Fixed door texture on E5M3
- Fixed a bug where falling into lava pit with health more than 800 would cause the player to be stuck
- Fixed wrong placement of some decoration items in E2M06
- Fixed a bug where you could climb the rocks in E2M01
- Darkened the skybox in E3M3 a bit
- Fixed a bug where a life loss warning on "Exit to Workshop" would appear in casual mode
- Fixed graphical corruptions on very high damage inflictions
- Fixed the cause of performance issues when Chain Reactor projectile interacts with the Final Boss
- Fixed a bug where the Player could fall through the ground when standing too close to the Final Boss during his transformation
- Fixed secret wall texture in E3M9
- Fixed wall texture in E4M11
Tweaks
- Increased overall brightness of the levels a bit
- Moved the language button to options menu