Tom vs. The Armies of Hell
Tentative Release Window
I figured I should stop by and give a long overdue update on the progress I've been making. To avoid overcomplicating it... I've made a lot of progress. In fact, I just finished the final piece of environment art for the game! Even better, the only gameplay element remaining is the final boss.
In light of that, I am comfortable posting a tentative release window. My goal is to have the game "complete", aside from cinematics (which are in progress) by the end of the year. I feel that's actually very, very doable and I'm really hoping to be there sooner than that. Once I get to that point, I'll be pushing out an update with all the levels for the early access supporters. Then, I'll spend some time gathering final feedback and balancing things out/improving the "fun" factor that has been neglected while I was in content hell.
After a bit of that, and with the final cinematics complete, the game will then be set to released. I expect that to be somewhere in the Jan/Feb window. I could probably rush it out for December, but A) rushing at this point would be stupid, and B) I'm pretty sure releasing in December is a recipe for being lost below the Steam noise-floor.
Anyway, that's where things are. It's been a long, slow, grindy road, but its coming to an end. Can't wait for everyone to see how the game came out, and to get to spend some time making it fun, instead of just desperately trying to get it finished.
So... yeah... back too the coal-mine for me. There's digging to do.
-Sean
Still trudging along...
So here's the current release plan. I've cut things down to 6 levels (there is a 7th, but it's not really a full level so I don't want to call it one officially). I'm trying to wrap up levels 5 and 6 (5 is currently playable-ish, and boss art/animation is complete but not hooked up, 6 still needs to be laid out, but primary art is done, including boss art). In addition to finishing that up I'm finshing up the story-boards for the remaining two animated cinematics (which I think will be pretty cool). Once I get the level content done, I'll do an update for early access customers that includes some gameplay changes as well. That way I can be gathering feedback and tweaking that while the cinematics are finalized and voice-work is done. Then... the game will actulaly be released! I'm still not sure when that will be, because I'm still at the mercy of my day-job, but I'm really pushing because I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Anyway, hopefuly have more soonish, but one way or the other it's coming.
Marching toward content complete...
Just wanted to give another update. I'm currently still working my way through the remaining levels, but am getting closer and closer. My hope is to be "level complete" in June, but we'll see how that goes. Either way, its getting close.
I'm not posting periodic updates at the moment because the way I'm attacking getting things done isn't really conducive to that. One, I'm not working in a totally linear order, and two, releasing story stuff piecemeal at the end would not be an ideal experience. Once I get the levels/story finished however, I'll be going back and doing another pass on weapons/powers/playability/balance and will likely be doing weekly builds or so until I get that stuff where I want it.
So yeah, that's KIND of a useless update, but I wanted to keep everyone aware of the state of development. Can't wait for everyone to see the final game.
-Sean
New Art Work in Progress
So I'm working away on the rest of the game, and I wanted to post one of the things I've been working on for anyone who is interested in checking it out. I'm currently working on Levels 5-7 (which will complete the game), and the various characters that will be included. To give you an idea of progress, level 5 is art complete, level 6 is layout complete, and level 7 is... not any of those things. I have a few more characters/enemies that need to be made, and obviouslyl then I have to hook everything up/make it fun. That might sound like a ton of stuff, but it's actually starting to look like there's a light at the end of the tunnel ;)
Anyway, since I'm not doing a lot of incremental updates (I think releasing the remaining levels as one big update makes more sense), I wanted to at least show off some art periodically. This is the rough early sculpt for Wrath, (spoiler alert) the boss of The Fortress of Wrath. You may recognize him from the intro cinematic:
Wrath Turn-table
So, that aside, I'll try to keep posting periodic updates here to let everyone know how things are going. I'm hoping to have the game completed and out of Early Access in the next two months, but we'll see how things progress. The plan is to get the last levels complete, and then have a week or two of balance/gameplay updates/fixes before making the offical transition. With any luck I can stick to something resembling that schedule, but I'll know much better once I get the rest of the remaining character art completed (that's the major heavy-lifting from a time perspective).
-Sean
Game Scope Update
So now that I'm a ways in to Early Access and have had a chance to do my first major update, it's time to take a look at the game's overall scope. If you look at the store-page, you'll see I altered the final level-count estimate from 9-12 to 7. I just wanted to take a minute and explain that, since 7 is obviously not between 9 and 12.
First, it might not end up meaning anything. If I can, and it adds to the game meaningfully, I may well end up with more. However, when potential customers are looking at the page I feel it's my job to give them my best estimate of where things will end up. Having completed some necessary rewrites, I now know the game will have at least 7 levels, so that's what I updated the page to say. Doubt anyone will be mad if it ends up with more, but erring in the other direction would be lame.
Second, I need to make sure the game gets done. To the surprise of no one, Early Access, unless you are extremely lucky, is not really a money-making enterprise. I was prepared for that, but part of that preparation means having to potentially go get a full-time job again. Anyone who has ever worked in the games industry knows full-well that a 40-hour work-week is rarer than a unicorn sighting, so trying to balance that and produce another 5-7 levels would be asking for failure.
Anyway, I don't really think it's even that big of a deal. From a story perspective it honestly helps a bit by making things tighter. A few less levels will also mean the opportunity to better focus on features/overall feel/gameplay. In the end, if the game gets done and people are clamouring for more, great, that's a problem I'd love to have, and one I can easily respond to by making more levels ;) It's just very important to me to be clear and honest about what players can expect as the game continues moving forward.
-Sean
3-20-15: Level 4, The Bog of Agony, Released!
Changes
- Level 4 Unlocked
- Plasma Cannon can now be obtained
- Controller targeting updated to allow teleport melee attacks to function
- Some story rewrites throughout (if you remeber hearing about a "soul collector"... forget that. It was needlessly complicating the story.)
- More interactivity (by which I mean non-interactive dialog) in Beezle's cave between levels. Depending on how far you've progressed Beezle, and any other aquired allies, will have different things to say.
- Probably a lot of other fixes I'm forgetting
Planned Upcoming Changes
- Weapon upgrade rework (still not liking how this functions)
- More demon powers (ideally giving the player a choice of how to fill out slots pre-level)
- Actual balance (the big demon power/ammo changes have definitely upset an already percarious balance situation, but its on the list to get ironed out)
Progress Report: 3-15-2015
Just wanted to post a quick progress report on the upcoming release. Today I hit "content complete" for level 4, which means the release of level 4 is imminent. I just got it out to some testers, and will spend the next few days squashing bugs and filling in some holes, and then I should be able to push the update out some time this coming week.
This update will add Level 4, The Bog of Agony, as well as a few new enemy types native to that locale. Once this update is out and major issues are fixed, I'm going to turn to doing a polish pass on how weapons/weapon upgrades work. Currently I'm not thrilled with that system, and it feels a bit sloppy/haphazard. My current plan is to remove the super-charger "currency" and simply make those upgrades more expensive (so maybe they require 4-5 weapon upgrade tokens). I'm also considering changing the upgrade system to being level based (more kills with a weapon lets you level it up). I think this might be more interesting than the current system, but does lose the "treasure hunt" aspect of finding parts.
Anyway, just thinking out loud there. Either way, priority one is getting Level 4 out to everyone this week, and then I can worry about fixing up weapons and adding in a few more demon powers.
-Sean
3/4/2015 - Experimental Branch Big Gameplay Update!
KNOWN ISSUES:
- Audio artifacting. Occasoinally (or often if you are unlucky), there will be audio artifacting that sounds like extra clicks. I haven't figured out the exact cause yet, but its on my priority list. For now just ignore the crappy clicking sounds.
ORIGINAL POST:
Hurray! I finally got this out the door. This is a pretty big update, so it may have some weird issues (you are warned). If you find anything, just let me know and I'll add it to my list, but it seems stable enough to put on the experimental branch.
TLDR For those who don't like walls of text:
- Updated to Unity 5 (improved physics performance and other internal goodness)
- Completely revamped demon powers (now slot-based, by default activated by 1-4 on keyboard)
- Energy is now generated by using your melee attacks
- Over 66% energy grants passive demon powers and teleport melee attacks
- Preliminary re-lighting of levels 2 and 3. They were WAY too dark before.
- Lots of other little stuff I'm forgetting... and I'm sure a few new bugs too
The biggest technical change is that I updated to Unity 5. This brings a host of internal improvements (and should speed up performance on a lot of machines that were CPU bound), but also added a lot of minor issues, some of which I'm sure I haven' t caught yet.
In addition to a lot of little changes, I've completely revamped how demon powers work. This will be an ongoing process, but for now I think it feels better. The major change is that you now have 4 demon power slots that you unlock over time that are (by default) bound to 1-4 on the keyboard. Gamepad players can hold the left bumper and hit the cooresponding face-button (x,y,b,a on xbox style pads). Currently you just get one power with each slot, but the plan is to actually add more powers and let you chose which ones to bring to a given level.
In addition, energy is no longer regenerated, and in fact decays over time. You can still drink caffine to get more, but the primary way to get energy is to use melee attacks. The more damage you do with melee, the more energy you build up. When you get over 66% energy, you gain additional passive demon powers. Currently you get increased melee damage, speed and the ability to teleport short distances to melee (targets the enemy under the mouse). This works like crap with the control pad at the moment, but it's on my list to revamp how the control pad targeting works.
So yeah, big change, hope you like it. Balance is probably terrible now (I think the game is probably WAY to easy now, but we'll see. I'll probably need to lower ammo drops a bit since melee is MUCH more powerful now).
Progress Report 2/18/2015
Well, crap, Thurdsay came and went. I ended up making this update a little more involved than I planned, so it's not quite ready yet. Just wanted everyone to know it is still coming. Should hit the Experimental branch very soon, hopefully later today (Friday), or this weekend. Most of the major issues have been solved, just putting the last things together.
FURTHER UPDATE:
Well, I'm finally "better". Took longer than I wanted, but I got there. So after losing several days of productivity, I should be back hammering away full time now. Expect the next update sometime in the Tuesday-Thursday range, assuming no further unforseen issues.
ORIGINAL POST:
Hey everyone,
Just wanted to let you all know that things are progressing on the next update, which will make some pretty big changes (that hopefully everyone will like). I'm trying to get that update out this week (and then focus on next week for l4 release), but I just got sick and have been slowed down substantially by that, so we'll see how that works out.
I'll put up another post when the new update is ready to go (it will definitely live on the Experimental Branch first because it will likely have some major changes), but I wanted to at least post something so you know I'm still alive.
-Sean
Experimental Update 2-17-2015 (Now Up on Default Branch)
This update is primarily bug-fixes. I reverted the ammo prioritizing the current weapon because, as someone pointed out, that was just a terrible idea. I also fixed some issues with the laser rifle, hopper leaping, and the l3 boss (never ending sfx). Bigger changes will be coming in the next update that affect actual gameplay (weapon upgrades and demon powers are likely getting an overhaul), but I want to make sure this build is at least stable before I move on to that.
If this build doesn't cause any major problems for anyone, I'll push it to the default branch, since the current default branch build has the Level 3 issue that makes it basically unplayable.
NOTE: The mining bots can still spawn in crazy numbers in L3... turns out there were two things causing that. I'll fix that in the next update, but at least there's one less reason for now.
Changes
- Minor balance changes to l2 pre-boss encounter
- Minor balance change to mining-bot (should be slightly less of them per pack now
- Laser rifle bug fixes, just kind of miscelaneous assortment
- Hoppers should no longer leap onto impassable terrain