Ahoy there! In this small update I've rebalanced missions 1-5 and added a new mission, called "Push it Along", to the beta campaign. I did some enhancing around parachutes and fixed several bugs as well. Full changelog below:
Features & Enhancements
Added new mission, "Push it Along"
Rebalanced missions 1-5
Parachuting units and crates are now slightly affected by wind
Updated parachute sprite and made it match team colours
Corpses, helmets, shells, and blood spatter now take parachute height into account
Falling helmets are now affected by gravity
Units killed by leg shots now fall forward (fixed bug where they sort of went stiff and upright)
Parachuting crates now fall 50% faster
Added unit rank icons to player GUI
Unit fire counter is now randomized at start of battle to avoid all units firing at once
Bug Fixes
Unit torso is now drawn on parachuting units (repositioned parachute sprite as well)
Game no longer crashes when game is paused in sunny weather
HQ abilities should now properly enabled to match map editor (must be unlocked to work, except in campaign mode for blue team)
Player controlled parachuting units are no longer pushed onto the map
Units can no longer enter and get stuck in destroyed buildings
Units with "hold position" behaviour now return to position after resupplying ammo
Road To Early Access - Beta 1.0
Ahoy!
Much progress has been made with There Will Be Ink this past month, making this perhaps the most significant update yet for the game. And so we are drop our Alpha undies to the floor and pull on our Beta short shorts!
I had my finger on the trigger, er, mouse button, a couple weeks back to release the game on Steam Early Access but decided to hold off until later this summer in order to polish things up a little and fill out the content. It turns out the Steam audience is significantly larger than that of any other PC platform. Who knew (besides everybody)?
Visit the Summit Fever website for a short gameplay video showing off a new level and a few new elements.
Now, onto the things!
Behaviours and Map Editor Enhancements
Recruits can now be customized with three different behaviours. First, there are aggressive units who will charge forth to the nearest enemy unit and attack at will. This is the default behaviour and the one found in previous versions of the game. Second, we have defensive units, who will hold their position and their fire until either they are fired upon or a nearby unit is fired upon and calls for assistance. Defensive units will pursue their attacker and then return to their starting position once a threat is neutralized. Third, we have units who will hold position. These recruits will not move but will attack any enemies that come into their range of fire. These behaviours can be toggled in the map editor. Additional unit customization has been added to the editor, including having a unit start the mission by paradropping in, starting with no ammo, or starting the battle wounded (or any combination of those). Map objects can now be repositioned by dragging them with the mouse, and all items can be shifted by using the ASDW keys (hold shift for fine adjustments). There is now also a timer in the map editor, so "countdown" style timed missions can be created. These new customizations make for much greater variety of missions.
Reworked Weather System and Terrain Variety (and Lightning!)
The old weather system included "sunny" and three levels of "rainy", which were implemented with a pretty basic visual effect. I've redone the weather system to include the following four weather states: sunny, cloudy, rainy, and stormy. Gone are the old blue rain lines of yesterday. In their place is a particle system with gradient, semi-transparent raindrops that fall and make little splashes. Long live the blue rain lines of today! The battlefield is also slightly darker in rainy and stormy conditions, and I've added a particle system for cloud shadows that drift and fade across the battlefield. Clouds and rain are also affected by the wind speed and direction. Pretty fancy stuff for notepad doodles, right? Oh, and watch out for lightning during stormy times! Trees are most likely to be struck and set aflame, while buildings are somewhat likely to be hit, and on occasion unsuspecting units will be turned to little piles of ash. The weather can now be set in the map editor.
Story Text and the New Campaign
The game will now display optional briefing text before a mission starts. I've started on a new campaign from scratch that incorporates the new story feature. It is a work in progress but hopefully adds a little character. At present the new campaign has five missions, with more missions and campaigns (official and hopefully unofficial too) to be added. There is also the option on the main menu to toggle between available campaigns, and I've included the Alpha campaign for good measure.
Pro Tip: Although the Campaign Editor is not yet built into the game, player-created campaigns can be made by simply dropping alphabetically ordered .map files into a specific folder and the game will pick them up. Check out the Summit Fever website for more info!
Powerups
Powerups are a new type of ability that are unlocked and spawned automatically based on player actions. Wounded with no medics nearby? Maybe a crate of medical supplies will parachute down! Just ran out of ammo? Maybe an ammo crate will save the day! Powerup unlock requirements and descriptions can be viewed on the Barracks page. So far there are two in place, with more to come. The following is only a minor spoiler:
Other Things
Those are the major changes going into Beta. There are many smaller updates, fixes, tweaks, and enhancements as well. I won't list all of them, but here are a few of the more significant ones:
What's Next?
I'll continue to add more abilities, powerups, and missions to the game, while polishing up some of the existing mechanics and graphics to get things in order for Steam EA. There is a lot of untapped potential in mission variety that I'd like to get to with the new campaign. I'd also like to flesh out the Engineer's abilities some more and possibly work in some new weapons. There won't be much going on in July, but I'll be back at it come August. Pew pew!
