Tea for God
"Tasks" - the endless mode - is now available
Making "tasks" happen required lots of changes in the game and engine. The actual content (including tasks) was just a part of it. For most of the fixes in the main branch, I tended to write them down and have the list as actual as possible, but I did not include into the release notes the changes done on "endless mode" branch. Therefore, the list below contains almost solely content changes:
- added endless mode (tasks)
- tasks available:
- exploration
- interface box search
- item hunt
- hacking interface boxes
- data core retrieval
- system stabilisation
- stop the intrusion
- new passive EXMs:
- weapon collector (weapon loot is way more often)
- energy retainer (on each shot you get free energy to the other hand)
- build in magazine (all weapons you have have magazines)
- firepower (greater cost/chamber, even more damage)
- emergency revival (if your health reaches zero, you get some health restored which costs you energy + 3 seconds of invincibility
- explosion resistance (you only get 25% damage from explosions)
- new active EXMs:
- remote control (activates mines, spiderbots, opens chargers, drops down shields, deflectors)
- push (pushes away objects in front of us, useful to push into chasm)
- pull (pulls a bit objects but more important, pulls items towards us)
- corrosion spray (continuous spray of corrosion from hand, useful to use in a burst - you don't need a corrosion weapon to get the corrosion effect on the enemies)
- charged plasma ball (throws a projectile of charged plasma that slows down - it pushes away from the walls and if it detects an enemy, it may pull towards it)
- new enemies:
- "fender" tough with automatic gun and a shield
- "tentacled" versions of fender and scourer
- new weapon nodes:
- main node with 3 node slots
- main node with 4 node slots
- kinetic energy (to push enemies)
- confuder (confuses enemies for a short time, lowers damage a lot)
- healing/medi (part of the energy is used to heal the player
- fixed visible one frame when starting "another chance"
I wanted to prepare a proper trailer but I am a bit sick (well, for a month now!) and it is just getting worse (almost permanent cough, manageable during the day, but the nights just lead to sleeplessness.
The endless mode is coming
If you're looking for it in the game, it is called "tasks". You can switch to it without finishing the story but I strongly recommend playing the story first.
The endless mode took a bit of time to develop as it required significant parts of the game to be modified to support the idea of missions/tasks. As it is now, it is a playable framework that will be extended in the future. Having "tasks" in the game makes it possible for me to have more and smaller content updates. Just add an enemy or two. Weapon nodes, new weapon types, EXMs, devices, items.
I sometimes jokingly called the "tasks" mode "a remix". It uses lots of the stuff from the main story but mixed and rearranged. This wouldn't be fair though, as there is some new content in it. There are new upgrades (both passive and active EXMs), new unlocks (unique to the tasks mode), new weapon nodes and new enemies.
When? By the end of this week.
The interface boxes and tasks reasons
I needed something that could be reused for various purposes or could just work as a decoration. Enter interface boxes. These are devices that hang on walls. If they're important for the task, they will open automatically if required. This is all justified by the narrative/lore.
The first tasks you are given are about reconnaissance. You wander around the place, automatically scan the surroundings and transmit the data back to your ship. When you get back and there's enough data gathered (hidden "intel points" currency) you are given access to more advanced tasks. The narrative packs it into a reusable description, something like:
"Data analysis of background noise has revealed unusual communication between the devices in the area. Recorded signal can be used to access interface boxes."
There are multiple reasons that fit certain tasks. They are chosen upon task completion and are stored, so they can be reused in the briefing for the advanced tasks. This should give a sense of progress and continuity.
For example: if you are sent to bring back certain items, you will learn that one of the items has been modified and was sending weird communication. It turns out that this signal could be used to open certain interface boxes. When you hack these boxes, you will learn that there's an intrusion happening and you have to stop it. That's your "final" task in the task chain.
Then you start all over again with the same starting tasks that are chained together differently and conclude with one of the possible final tasks. Instead of making tasks on the fly by mixing possible objectives, I decided to keep the objectives simple and just change the narrative a bit. From the gameplay perspective, although the actual missions are the same (except for the map procedurally generated), the way they chain is different. As the reasons are chosen at random, you may learn different stuff that will lead to different tasks. This might be enough to get things going for a while.
How is it connected to the interface boxes? Currently, most of the missions are focused around the interface boxes. You find them, hack them, steal stuff from them, destroy them. They are convenient in that they can be placed in almost every possible zone. And until they open you have no idea what they do. They can be even mixed, so you may have always locked boxes and task-important ones.
They were also easy to add them to the story mode without changing much. They just fit into the background and look like some other devices on the wall. The players will only learn about their functionality when they play the endless mode.
In other news, I hoped to get things done by the end of 2024Q1 and I could do the minimum to meet that deadline but decided to delay it. The bulk of work required for the endless mode was moving slowly but when I started to do the actual tasks things really sped up and it turned out that the tasks are much easier and quicker to add (there are already more types of tasks than I initially planned).
Also, I will be adding a new biome that could be just a very big "outer rim" but I'd prefer to enhance it a bit. This was required as one of the tasks turned out to be easy to farm experience and merits. In "exploration" you have to visit as many map cells as possible. For standard rules, if you follow the objective marker, this is not a problem. For complex rules, you could move to the border cells and use them to move quickly. Also, they have a low number of opponents, so it makes it even easier. The task itself was ok, it allowed you just to walk around the place but the temptation to abuse it would kick in at some point. That's why I decided to introduce a suitable biome now and have the "exploration" task there while dropping it from "the outer rim".
The task structure of the endless mode
As I'd like to avoid just a pure mix of various tasks, I came up with a system that helps the game to choose which tasks to offer to the player. The basic idea is that the player should start with simple tasks that narratively provide some knowledge about places to visit and things to do, then they may choose to do these more complex/advanced tasks which provide even more knowledge until they do a single task that is a climax.
I divided the tasks into three tiers and to make it possible for the game to choose which tasks/tiers are available, I introduced a hidden currency - intel points.
If you collect enough intel points, you get access to higher tiers. But also the lower tiers at some point might get inaccessible, forcing the player to perform more advanced tasks. If you fail or sometimes start higher-level task, you will lose some intel points moving you back to lower tiers. As soon as you get access to higher tiers, you will see information about it in the debriefing.
If you perform a task, all the tasks from the current tier and lower tiers will be different. This means that if there is just one task available for tier, it won't change until you try to do the task. You may abort the task or ignore the objectives but you will still have to do it. There is no punishment and the game doesn't record failures. This is by design and to give some sense of continuity.
Another feature is urgency - you can't just be doing lower-tier tasks infinitely. At some point the lowest-tier tasks will become unavailable, then the mid-tier leaving you with top-tier task. And again it is worth mentioning that the game won't punish you for failing the tasks.
This is also something I wanted to put in the story mode, the game is hard at times, there are some harder sections but they do not expect the player to finish them 100%. The first turret section? It is supposed to be that hard to give the sense that even if you fail, you move forward. I don't want to spoil too much but the whole story revolves around this idea. You win, you lose, you have to keep going.
About the endless mode
The current mode will be still available as "story mode" and it will be possible to switch between the two.
My main idea about the initial release of the endless mode is to setup a main loop for a mode that can be worked upon. With all the basic elements in place, it will be possible to provide more gradual updates more often. New weapon nodes, new EXMs, new enemies, new places. Some of the new content may appear in the story mode but most will be unique to the endless mode.
One of the important features that also required certain changes in the engine is the idea that it should be possible to select a task, do it, come back and select another one while in-character. No exiting to the menu, etc.
To make it possible, all the tasks will currrently start and end in the same place - your ship. This is where you will be able to select the next task, install upgrades, select (and mix) weapons and so on. This is also where you will be coming back after ending the task (which also doesn't matter if you will complete the objectives or not). Unlocking EXMs, upgrading the ship, unlocking new types of tasks will be also done here.
The initial release will have a modest set of tasks, biomes and upgrades available. As I mentioned, the idea is to setup a main frame to make it possible to add stuff in smaller and more often updates.
Where to expect the endless mode? Soon.
v 1.0.9 (#391)
- changed sound volumes to have more even soundscape
- added compressor for sound effects channel only (before was only a general compressor that was affecting all the channels)
- modified some sound effects that had discomforting crackling sound
- fixed bug when some samples were played too loud for a brief moment
- fixed sound crackling
- fixed restarting the game from a chapter where the game was interrupted
- fixed pause when starting the game
v 1.0.8 (#383)
- fixed no distance updated when using smooth locomotion
- changed "A文" to make it more clear that it is a language selection
- added "or" between image-based and text-based input prompts (for open overlay info)
- tweaks for recentering view
- fixed game switching to demo for older builds
mid-October update
I called the prototype "Subspace Scavengers" as I decided to reuse the gameplay idea from an abandoned project. If I would to make it into a game, I would at least know what to avoid now and what to focus on. The prototype itself was also made to test new features I've been adding to the engine. The two most important things added is a different way to create rooms/world and an animation system.
As the new room generation system depends on meshes I still need to find a good way to fit it into impossible spaces system, to adjust to a given play area size. The animation system could be used to work with imported and animated meshes. This should come in handy for some things I have planned for Tea For God, although for most of the new enemies I will most likely rely on the existing system of procedural animation.
One idea I had was to try to improve look of Tea For God but here's the deal: I would have to redo whole game and/or add a different mode with different look and feeling. I'd rather not put any limits on myself and create a completely new thing. Although I still find it tempting to make Tea For God a much better looking game.
While implementing new systems I had a chance to refactor lots of stuff in the engine and I found two bugs that were still crashing the game. Also, while porting to Pico and Vive, I did a few other minor changes to the game.
But the most important thing is that I finally went back to implementing the endless mode. My initial idea for it was that you choose a mission from the menu, start it, finish it (success or fail), you exit to the menu, check results and then start the process all over again. The more I thought about that, the less I liked the menu part.
I decided to have everything be done in the game. You start in your "base" ("bases" will be different places you can start from, the first one will be the airship), choose a mission, equip yourself (this was meant to be done in-game for a long time), go to mission, come back to your "base" for debriefing and choose a new mission. If you die, depending on what should happen, you restart at a checkpoint or in your "base" with failed mission status.
To handle that I had to create a dynamic "pilgrimage" structure. "Pilgrimages" are levels/sections. I named them this way as a long time ago Tea For God was about a pilgrimage and was structured completely different, more branched, horizontal like rather than linear. The can be as big as a chapter or just a part of it. For example, Chapter I The Outer Rim is composed of two pilgrimages: the actual outer rim and the train station.
For the endless mode, I have a starting section and until you choose a mission, there is nothing after it. If you choose a mission, the level structure is updated and next sections are added. And in most of the cases that next section will be the actual level that will be for time being reusing places from the story mode. After that comes one or more small sections that take you out of the world and back to your "base" (if this is possible in the given mission). You then end up with another section that connects to the first one and then the whole process repeats.
I am still missing the actual visuals for the ending sections and the whole "back in the base" part (that will also be used to take all your belongings from you).
I was hesitant to do it this way as it seemed that you won't be able to buy unlocks without exiting to the menu. And then I thought "why I couldn't just add unlock system to the game itself?". I mean, I already wanted to add mission selection, so why not unlocks? This part is still missing but soon everything should get implemented.
The initial setup for testing will include a single mission in one place just to test the loop (choose, equip, play, debrief, buy unlocks, repeat) and I am thinking about making it available as a separate channel/branch. I will start with a limited number of players and then see how it works out.
v 1.0.7 (#360)
- added fail-safe for lost arm past "up"
- fixed creating the same map cell twice when loading particular game saves
- fixed crashes on loading
- fixed no enemies when loading a save in "outer rim"
v 1.0.6 (#357)
- restored "corrosion showers" in "beneath"
- fixed loading save games at the initial section of "beneath"
- fixed cases when the player could get embedded into ground when using smooth locomotion