Hello, I've been working a lot on the character variation and clothing system for the sequel recently, so I thought it's time for me to post some screenshots to show how it's all going! Due to me changing the engine from XNA to Unity, I wasn't able to keep any of my character assets from Survivalist so I had to start from the beginning again with this. Check it out! (Right click and select Open image in new tab to view them full size):
I've also been having some fun with the menus, trying to do a sort of old-school comic book/pop-art halftone effect:
It has been a while since I posted last - if you're wondering where I've been, not everything I work on is visually interesting, for example earlier this year I was optimising the grass and the snowflakes but there wasn't much point me posting more screenshots of grass and snowflakes running at a better framerate. But rest assured I'm continuing to work on it as fast as I can. I've also been working a lot on the combat, including melee combat - hopefully I'll be showing that in the next update.
Sequel Screenshots & Translations fixes
I've mentioned in the forums that I'm working on a sequel to Survivalist - here's some actual screenshots from it! (Right click and select Open image in new tab to view them full size).
There's still a long way to go and I can't say too much about it yet. What I can confirm is that it'll have melee combat, changeable clothes, a basic procedurally generated sandbox mode as well as the main story, and this lower camera angle that makes it look more like a typical third person game. But it's still an RTS hybrid, so there's still command mode and the fog of war, though the viewable distance is further. You can get a sense of what that's like from the screenshots. Also, it's not in the desert anymore - it's further north, there's snow, rain, and seasonal changes!
I can't give any ETAs or deadlines on it as I'd only break them, but I aim to be updating the news pages with various screenshots or videos from time to time. I'm building a little mailing list of people who want to be informed next time I post some news about the sequel, email me if you want to be on it.
Lastly, I've updated Survivalist with a patch containing fixes for the Italian and Russian translations, thanks to some helpful community members.
Trading Cards
People have been asking for me for trading cards for quite some time and now they're finally here! This is all thanks to some very enthusiastic Survivalist fans who contributed some lovely artwork of seven of the main characters. Here they all are:
You should get one drop every 30 minutes of play time. There's also 3 different backgrounds to win (featuring the same characters) and 5 pixel art emoticons. Enjoy!
Italian Translation
I've released a new update with an Italian translation! This is thanks to a couple of fans: "Lagorn" (who has a Youtube channel for Italian gamers) and Cloe (Alexandra). Thanks guys! It's great to have such a helpful community.
Small Patch
Most of my focus is on writing the sequel these days, but today I've released another small patch that fixes some bugs that were reported over the last few months. Here's the changelist:
Fix for Tom Catt running off as soon as you bring antigen to Butch.
Fix for panting sound being too loud.
Fix for characters getting stuck in ragdoll state if the game was saved while they were getting up.
Fix for Diner boarded up windows having crazy scales and positions.
Made it possible to delete sandbags, fences etc from the cheat menu.
Survivalist is now in German!
I've updated the game with a German translation! This is the result of over a year's work by at least seven different Survivalist fans. Many thanks to all who contributed!
As usual there's a few other small changes, mostly relating to translation work. Here's the full changelist:
Added German Translation!
Added Italian to list of WIP translations (that are not enabled but recognise a .tsv file)
Added gender formulae to speech parser (for translators)
Fixed various issues in all the translations.
Fix for being able to uncover parts of the map too early by demolishing fences.
Fix for crash when shutting down early (due to another crash?)
Slight tweak to sensitivity when switching targets with mouse
New patch with French Improvements
Raphael has been going through the game double-checking the French translation and he's given me a big list of improvements. These are now available in the latest patch!
Aside from that there are a few fixes for bugs that people reported to me. I've also increased the online co-op prediction timeout (that's how long it takes to display a message saying "Waiting for player..." if it isn't receiving any network messages from them) in the hopes of making it a better experience on slower connections - I'm not sure how much that helped though. Survivalist is a bit unusual in that it uses the "deterministic lockstep" networking model (due to having a large number of AI characters running at once), and I think it's actually okay on slower connections but bad on choppy connections where packets get lost.
Here's the full changelist:
Improved French translation.
Fixed 'Missing' quest getting stuck if Rachael dies during the 'El Dorado' quest.
Fix for not being able to reply to characters if they ask you for food.
Fix for crash on some PCs when alt-tabbing.
Fix for end of trail running quest sometimes not triggering.
Increased online co-op prediction timeout from 1 to 5 seconds.
Fixed crash when Joe gets zombified if he dies in online co-op and you leave the game running
Fixed a couple of rare crashes
Survivalist is now in French!
The new patch is now live! The main addition is a French translation, thanks to some dedicated community members: Raphaël and Jean-Charles!
It's also got a bunch of fixes to little bugs that I didn't want to leave in there, as I really hope it'll be the last patch - or at least the last major one, not including translations - so I can properly get on with making a sequel. But we'll see.
Here's the changelist:
Added French Translation!
Attempted to make notifications less intrusive (especially in multiplayer)
Allow the player to reload sooner after they've fired (especially with sniper rifle)
Shadow map glitch fix
Fix for 'Don't Starve' awardment being given for empty communities or when player didn't do anything
Slightly decreased sensitivity of mouse when switching targets
Fix for ragdoll jitter when characters in pillboxes get shot
When a building containing gold gets destroyed it leaves the gold behind in rubble, so you can't fail the Money quest
Fix for panting and heartbeat not being affected by volume setting
RPG projectile sound fix
Fix dialog in Tom and Butch quest that didn't make sense if one of them started off dead
Give skill progress for repairing or demolishing buildings, planting crops, and watering plants at level 0
Make it possible to demolish buildings from defeated communities
Pause the music when minimised in Windows
Prevent co-op players from using cheats by default, enable it with an option
Fix for bug where someone with followers getting supplies could get into a state where they stand around doing nothing
Some fixes to combat AI
Some possible fixes for reported crashes
New patch in Public Beta Branch - includes French Translation!
I've put a new patch in the "publicbeta" branch for testing - if I don't hear of any major problems I'll make it live in a few days. The main addition is a French translation, thanks to some dedicated community members: Raphaël and Jean-Charles!
It's also got a bunch of fixes to little bugs that I didn't want to leave in there, as I really hope it'll be the last patch - or at least the last major one, not including translations - so I can properly get on with making a sequel. But we'll see.
Here's the changelist:
Added French Translation!
Attempted to make notifications less intrusive (especially in multiplayer)
Allow the player to reload sooner after they've fired (especially with sniper rifle)
Shadow map glitch fix
Fix for 'Don't Starve' awardment being given for empty communities or when player didn't do anything
Slightly decreased sensitivity of mouse when switching targets
Fix for ragdoll jitter when characters in pillboxes get shot
When a building containing gold gets destroyed it leaves the gold behind in rubble, so you can't fail the Money quest
Fix for panting and heartbeat not being affected by volume setting
RPG projectile sound fix
Fix dialog in Tom and Butch quest that didn't make sense if one of them started off dead
Give skill progress for repairing or demolishing buildings, planting crops, and watering plants at level 0
Make it possible to demolish buildings from defeated communities
Pause the music when minimised in Windows
Prevent co-op players from using cheats by default, enable it with an option
Fix for bug where someone with followers getting supplies could get into a state where they stand around doing nothing
Some fixes to combat AI
Some possible fixes for reported crashes
You can help test it by doing the following:
Right-click on Survivalist in your Steam library and click Properties
Go to the Betas tab
Select publicbeta on the drop-down where it asks you what beta you want to opt in to
You may need to restart Steam to get it to update
PLEASE NOTE: any savegames you make with this branch will not be compatible if you switch back to the main branch. So don't overwrite anything that's important to you! Also if you play online co-op, all players need to be on the same branch.
If you find any problems, please let me know! You can post a reply to this news post or email me or post in the forums.
Greeting and Kicking patch
I've pushed out a small update to patch a few issues people reported with the online co-op release.
The main additions are the ability to set a 'Greeting' message to be shown when people browse the list of games in the 'Join Online Co-op Game' menu, so you can tell people what to expect and what you're looking for - and you now have the ability to kick people from your game, which bans them from joining it again. You can do that from the Online Co-op Settings menu.
Lastly, there's a bunch of fixes for bugs that were reported. Many thanks to the people who reported them.
Here's the change log:
Added option to set a 'Greeting' to be shown when people view your game from the 'Join Online Co-op Game' menu
Added option to kick (and ban) players from online co-op games
Fixed buildings being placed in the wrong position by the cheat menu
Fixed clicking Farm on a well not working
Fixed crash when half-built buildings are set on fire
