We're starting off the new year with a patch that updates most of the textures and removes some that are used for the level architecture: walls, floors, and doors. This results in a better over all look and a texture memory usage optimisation. The install size is now smaller as well.
Since we only have 1 person making all the textures/models/levels/vfx/animation/characters/weapons for the game, having unified texture styles allows for better freedom in choosing which atlas materials to use for various levels and create more variations.
The damage for enemies has been reduced a little bit for TEC-Sec SMG and Shotgunners. In Episode 2 players will fight larger groups of enemies, so the current damage values for these enemies was a little on the high side.
Retchid's combat is intended to be pretty challenging, but the over all damage was a little on the high end of what we were going for, especially once the player gets into episode 2 where the player faces off against enemies with various abilities and attacks.
Patch Details:
Optimisations:
Split off cable texture spots on the pipe atlas texture sheet and made it their own sheet for better cable texture variety.
Updated colors of the pipe atlas sheets for better variation
Removed any normal maps or roughness/metallic map on trim/wall/floor atlas sheets that were similar to others.
Unified the style of all major textures to the same worn/roughness style to give the game a more unified look in the human made areas
Some minor material fixes on some objects in various levels
E1M6 had its lighting optimisation pass, the other levels will get theirs over the course of development.
Gameplay Tweaks:
SMG Tec-Sec projectile damage is now 4 instead of 5
Shotgun Tec-Sec projectile damage is now 5 instead of 7
Adjusted Tec-Sec SMG accuracy to be 1 degree less from 17.5 to 18.5.
Adjusted Tec-Sec Shotgunner increased accuracy from 60 to 50
Adjusted Tec-Sec Shotgunner max range from 1000units to 1500units
Reduced Tec-Sec Shotgunner projectiles that are spawned from 10 to 8
Increased the damage reduction armor provides from 40% to 50%
Tweaks to gameplay are always an on going thing to find the sweet spot we feel is a good over all challenge.
Small note about health and armor, once the health and armor upgrade systems are fully implemented you will have more total health and armor.
This month we're going to forgo our January developer update and combine it with next months February update.
Thanks for reading.
-FBS Team
Development Update #05 - Retchid is on Sale
Hello All,
This year was a big year for our game as we released the game in to Early Access back in August.
We're happy that people are enjoying it, we've loved reading through all your feedback, watching your play throughs and talking to some of you on discord, it's encouraging and makes us work harder.
Retchid is now on sale for the Winter Sale for 20% off.
While the most recent Developer update was only 3 weeks ago we still managed to complete E2M3's art pass and began work on E2M4 and various new props like mining vehicles.
We can't wait to show you even more levels and gameplay next year.
Everyone at From Beneath Software wishes everyone a safe holiday.
-FBS Team
Development Update #04
Hello Everyone,
For November we worked on the following:
Level Design
E2M2 - Sub Station
This level's art pass has been completed, an electrical themed level with malfunctioning power causing lights and doors to not operate correctly.
E2M3 - Toxic Sludge Refinery
We began work on the art pass last week. A level full of hazards and leaking toxic sludge. The player has to navigate the level and disable the flow of the sludge to proceed throughout the level.
Environment Art
All the main textures used for the walls, floors, ceilings, and doors were all updated and had their styles unified across range of themes we have. This allowed us to save 150mb of textures in the project and about 15mb per level. It also made the levels look better over all with more detail in the textures.
Optimisation
We like to optimise as we work so we don't have to scurry at the end of the project and start pulling out wires as we scratch our heads and wonder why something isn't performing as well as we wanted.
We saved a few more megabytes of texture memory by reusing a few normal maps that were similar to variations of said normal map.
We also figured out a nice technique to save render time on using lights on certain lighting channels that gave us a 10% performance boost with no visual quality change.
Thanks for reading, stay tuned for our next development update.
-FBS Team
Development Update #03
Hello Everyone,
For October we worked on the following:
Game Patches
A small patch was released earlier in October that improved the gore and some minor balancing:
Increased gore with more blood and decals from gibbing, blood rains from the ceiling if the ceiling was close enough
When shooting enemies blood sprays on surrounding geometry if they are standing close enough
Players can shoot water or oil puddles and ignite them and damage surrounding objects or enemies
Steam Deck certification took another step towards being full verified. There are a few UI issues to resolve which we'll focus on towards the end of the project. We're happy the performance was verified.
Level Design
E2M1 - Garbage Disposal
The art has been completed for this level. This level has the most objects of all our levels so far at ~19,000 actors.
E2M2 - Sub Station
We began work on E2M2 which is an Electrical Power Sub Station focusing on relaying power from the Main Power Station to several facilities in its network (Administration, Medical Facility etc). Unfortunately this Sub Station was built with budget cuts, so there are some malfunctions going on.
Thanks for reading, stay tuned for our next development update.
-FBS Team
Small Patch #12
Hello All,
Today we've released a patch that improves the following items:
Blood now sprays on walls behind enemies when you shoot them with projectile based weapons
Gibbing has been enhanced to spray blood on nearby walls, it also rains blood from the ceiling if it's close enough
Updated blood decals to be a bit more detailed and improved the Abyssal enemy blood decals
Added extra health packs to E1M5, E1M6, and E1M7
Slightly reduced the glow of the flash light beam
Water puddles can be shot with the Arc-Tool and it'll deal electrical damage to any enemy or player for several seconds.
Thanks for your continued feedback.
-FBS Team
Development Update #02
Hell everyone,
For September we focused on planning and building the needed assets for Episode 2. We also fixed a few issues and added a first pass implementation of the flash light.
Art Assets
Dozens of new textures and models were made, and the work continued for E2M1.
We build 90% of the textures on atlas sheets to make sure the environments are as optimised as possible by having fewer draw calls over all.
We built lots of new industrial focused props, and specific props for E2M1
Gameplay
We also finished off the environmental damage system. This system is designed to add a bit of dynamic flavour to the gameplay and give players some choice on how they engage the enemy.
As you can see in the example below, if you shoot oil or a barrel explodes near oil it'll catch on fire for a few seconds and deal damage to anything near it. This system has some basic rules: Electrical damage can electrify water and ignite oil puddles, but ballistics, energy weapons, and explosives will only ignite oil. This was already in the game but not full implemented so we'll release a patch this week that enables this for Episode 1.
Level Design
E2M1 Garbage Disposal also started receiving all the new assets. E2M1 focuses on being the industrial entrance, and also the garbage disposal/processing section of the facility. It has TEC-Rover tear down stations where they strip down the older trucks, garbage crushers, and more.
We're also building all the levels by taking the flash light in to consideration, you'll come across poorly lit areas now, and sometimes there might be some electromagnetic interference which causes your flashlight to have problems.
Note that these environments are not finished, they still need a detail, prop, and VFX pass.
Thanks for reading, stay tuned for our next development update.
-FBS Team
Small Patch #11
Hello all,
Today we've released a small patch that fixes the following:
The game no longer crashes when binding a key to a missing action.
Tweaked the TEC-Sec SMG enemy accuracy when standing and crouched to be less accurate
Increased the player SMG accuracy a very small amount
Let us know what you think about the new enemy changes, does it make encountering the SMG Sec guards a little less painful?
Cheers,
-FBS Team
Small Patch #10
Hello all,
Today we have a small patch that fixes the issue where when you have enough PDAs that you can scroll through, you couldn't access the very last one collected.
PDA scrolling issue fixed, can now read all PDAs collected
Fixed naming of the Mining Laser ammo pick ups
Fixed navmesh in E1M3, you could stand inside the toilet in the living quarters and the AI couldn't reach you
Thanks again for all the bug reports.
-FBS Team
Small Patch #09
Hello all,
Today we have a small patch that includes a flash light, and some minor tweaks
Added a new flash light
Player shadows can now be toggled on and off in the video menu
Increased FOV range
Please let us know what you think of the changes and tweaks.
-FBS Team
Development Update #01
Hell everyone,
This month was a busy month, as we released Retchid on August 18th. We've been mostly focused on fixing bugs and implementing feedback we felt fit well with the game. But we also got in some time to work on Episode 2.
Some of the things we worked on after release, this month:
Main menu functionality, adding more options and fixing how it all works under the hood
Brightness adjustment in the main menu
First pass player shadows
Enemy hit feedback animations to make it very clear you hit them and they reacted to it
Balance tweaks for enemies
Various tweaks to audio
We also started working on Episode 2's first level E2M1: Garbage Disposal, which is also the main entrance to the Industrial Complex. The industrial zone is gritty, and unkept, compared to the cleaner office/lab environments of episode 1.
Today we'll also release a patch with a flashlight and some other tweaks.
Thanks for reading, stay tuned for our next development update.
