Undead Blackout
Patch 1.4 Update Notes
Patch Notes
*HOTFIX DEPLOYED* 1.3.1
- Fixed an issue where SURVIVAL MODE in Redfield Manor launched with the camera in the ceiling.
Undead Blackout 1.3 Has Arrived At Last!
So what brought about this raft of changes? Firstly, the previous version of the game had all manner of issues with performance thanks to me being an idiot and not building it properly. Since April, when our last update came out, I have made huge efforts to understand where I went wrong and fix those issues. The remainder of this post will be highlighting what has changed, why I changed it and how it affects the game as a whole.
The core of the game has not altered much, this is not suddenly Undead Karting (oh my god I have just had a great idea), you still run around shooting zombies and collecting keys. There have been lots of tweaks under the hood to improve the gameplay as well as bigger changes to the design of the levels in order to streamline the action.
What comes next though? Well I am still working on the Xbox One version, in fact a lot of these changes have come about as a result of porting the game to console. Steam achievements are pencilled in for 1.4 as well as some aesthetic changes to the doors to make it more obvious which needs keys and which do not. There will also be further optimisation efforts across the board. Lots to crack on with then.So without further delay, to the changes!
I'm Gonna Level With You
First, a confession - I built all the old level's wrong. Not necessarily in their layout, but the actual materials used to build them. You see I used a lovely and very useful Unreal Engine Marketplace pack called SuperGrid Starter Pack which is brilliant for planning out your levels, what you are not supposed to do is actually ship your game with them as they are more expensive than basic static meshes. I am sure at this point you can guess what I did.
But it has been remedied now. Every single SuperGrid instance has been replaced with a much cheaper static mesh that I build using my own two hands (well, my mouse) in Blender. The Docks have remained largely the same in terms of the layout while The Sewers, Jarvis Prison and Redfield Manor have kept many of the original elements in place but the (renamed) Shoreside Hotel and Bunker have been massively re-designed.
The Frames Per Second (FPS) look to have doubled across some of the busier levels so there has been a marked improvement in performance.
Don't Go Upstairs!
Idiot people in horror films always go upstairs instead of heading for the front door and running in a straight line. That doesn't have much to do with our game but it does annoy me. Anyway, the whole upstairs element of the game has been problematic from the very early days of Undead Blackout. Having to create levels with enormously high ceilings to accommodate the top down camera meant really, long annoying staircases.
I tried to make it so the top level would disappear while downstairs but this caused so many bugs and issues with zombies appearing and disappearing in thin air that I gave up on it. Plus fighting on stairs was crap. So the obvious solution was to simply get rid of upstairs and that is what I have done, some stairs still remain purely for aesthetic purposes but they have been blocked off by debris.
The Big Picture
The lack of stairs means that I can zoom the camera out some more and that is what I have done, meaning the player can see a larger area and therefore anticipate zombie attacks and navigate the world in an easier manner than previously.
Torch The Place
The extended field of vision led me to decide to also increase the length of the torch light, again to aid with navigating the levels. I have also given it a slight blue tint as it just looks cooler than before.
Dumb Zombies
The AI for the zombies was previously written entirely in BluePrint code, that is to say I did not make use of Unreal Engine's Behaviour Tree functionality, mostly because it looked really complicated and scary.
But I got over that fear and learnt how to make use of it as (apparently) it is a much cheaper way of getting your zombies to run about the place which means it should have resulted in an improvement in performance. And I think it did! Can't say that I did any super scientific testing but it looked to increase the FPS by maybe 10-15 on most levels.
The other thing I have done is to actually simplify the zombie behaviour, previously once they lost sight of you they would investigate the place they last saw you and then if they cannot find you, would wander around.
Now while that is realistic it actually meant the amount of action decreased as the player sprinted around the level losing zombies. Zombies will now follow you once they spot you, less realistic yes but it is a zombie game so not exactly aiming for realism here. It is more fun, you get to shoot more of them and that really is what the game is about.
Spawned From Hell Itself
Zombies spawn into the world in specific areas based on the number of zombies that are currently in the level. As soon as you kill one, a new one will appear somewhere in the level in one of the spawn areas the player is not standing in.In order to increase the action/fun levels, I have applied a bit more logic to this so that now the zombies will also not spawn too far away from the player, some of the levels are quite big so a zombie spawning all the way at the other end means you are unlikely to ever see it and blow it's brains out.Also, I have set some spawn areas to not activate until the player has made a certain amount of progress through the level. This also helps to keep the zombies vaguely clustered around the player.
Don't Wander Too Far Now
Another element of keeping the zombies near the player without simply just telling them all to go to the players location is that I have now set zombies to destroy themselves should the wander too far away from the player. They will then respawn based on the logic previously discussed.
Burn Baby Burn, Zombie Inferno
In a couple of the levels there is a "Burned To A Crisp Zombie" which was actually quite hard to see in the darkness, so to help with that (and also because it looks awesome) the "Burned To A Crisp Zombie" is now the "Currently On Fire Zombie". Yes, they are an undead source of light.
Collision Course
The Collision Box that surrounds the zombie and tells them when they are close enough to the player to attack them has been slightly increased in order to make the zombies a little bit tougher. It seemed to me like they had become a little too easy to fight.
Tread Softly
The logic I used previously for deciding what footstep noise the players and zombies should use was terrible. It was a load of trigger volumes and if I wanted to alter a sound I would have to go and alter it on every single trigger which was terrible. These triggers have been replaced with a BluePrint version which now tells the player/zombie which footstep audio file they should use and it means I can make one change which will filter down to all levels instantly.
To B Or Not To B
Sprinting was previously mapped to the L trigger on an Xbox pad but this has now been moved to the B button (right hand side button of the four) while Reload have been moved to X (left hand side) and Toggle Torch has moved to Y (top button).These minor tweaks make it somewhat easier to control the game plus there was a weird thing where the player would sometimes not sprint when using the L button, perhaps that was just two of my controllers but whatever, it is done now.
Docked Music
Fixed an issue where the 'Danger' music in The Docks was completely wrong and didn't match up with the main track. No idea how I missed that one but there you go.
Windows Vista
The Toggle Window function in the Options didn't actually work properly it turns out. Now it does though! Toggles between fullscreen and a much smaller windowed screen should you want to play in the corner of your monitor or move it to a different screen. I assume the latter is the main use case but I mean, maybe someone only has one screen and also wants to keep an eye on Twitter or something.
That's your lot for now, chat soon.Tom
Patch Notes 1.2
CHANGE LOG
All-New Aimed Shooting – Previously aiming (holding left trigger/left shift) would essentially double the power of a bullet, so pistols killed zombies in two shots while shotguns did it in one. I thought about this and realised you could obviously head shot a zombie with a pistol while aiming probably and so have updated the aiming accordingly. Now when you aim, a red laser sight will appear once a bar found in the bottom right hand corner has filled up. Then you can one-shot kill any zombie with any weapon. The speed at which this fills depends on the weapon, getting a headshot with a shotgun is quicker than a pistol as you have to be less accurate with the shotgun, vaguely wave it at their head and it will do the job. This has resulted in much more satisfying gunplay.
Keys Are Easier To Find – One thing that was clear with the game is that actually it can be a little confusing where you have to go and where the keys spawn within the level so that has been addressed. You still need to search high and low for the keys, but they will now always spawn beside some kind of flame, be it a candle or a burning oil drum. This means if you see a golden light at the corner of the screen, chances are you should check it out. This also has the added bonus of giving the player more light in the darkness.
There Is More Light! – Yes the point of the game is to wander around in the dark and trying not to get killed, but perhaps it was just a touch too dark so that has now been solved by the addition of a second (not very obvious) light on the character. What this does is provide a little pool of light behind you and gives you a vital second or two to spot a zombie creeping up from the rear.
Super Fast Boot-Up – While working on the Xbox One version it became very clear that rather than just being a bit slow to boot up, something was actually wrong and that was causing a delay to the game launching. This was to do with a portion called the Game Mode and after much investigating, tweaking and swearing those issues have been resolved and the game boots up in around ~2 SECONDS. This is absolute lighting speeds compared to where we were at before.
Game Now Running On Unreal Engine 4.15 – We have updated to the latest version of Unreal Engine which has brought a host of changes and improvements to many aspects of the game, Epic’s change log can be found here but things such as Texture Streaming improvements mean that loading is quicker for us.
How To Play Section Added To Main Menu – There is now a very helpful How To Play section which details….how to play the game. It covers everything from controls to spawning behaviour and should allow players to go into the game for the first time a bit less confused.
Improved Mouse Controls – The game was primarily designed to be played with a controller but we do of course accommodate those who wish to play using a keyboard or a keyboard and mouse. Previously the mouse controls were pretty rubbish so they have been tweaked and improved. For secret reasons you now need to activate Mouse Control from the Options but this ten means that moving the mouse left rotates you left. The character does not orient itself to mouse position though, it simply rotates the way you move the mouse.
Zombie AI Tweaks – At times it felt a little lonely and this was down to the zombies having their own set of commands which meant unless they saw or heard you, they would just be wandering around the place. Something I discovered though was that occasionally they would get to a point where they stopped wandering and just stood there, which meant the chances of you bumping into them were decreased, well no more! Now zombies continually roam the halls and the action does seem to have been increased.
Further Tweaks To Level Layout – Some changes were made in the previous update and this expands on that a little further with updates to the position of spawned items but also the improvement to the actual design of the levels. Nuclear Bunker and City Sewers being the chief beneficiaries here. Further improvements are very likely.
More Blood – This is pretty self-explanatory isn’t it? Zombies now spurt more blood when you shoot them or smash them with the axe. Gross.
Story Mode Narrative Updated – I mean who cared about the story really? This is not that kind of game, it is just running through levels shooting zombies. So the story text has been simplified, no more tracking a missing sister now it is simply getting to the Bunker before the nukes drop.
Windowed Mode – As requested by Steam User Heiach, we now have the ability to toggle between Full-Screen and Windowed modes. This is found in the Options menu.
UI Improvements – Across pretty much all the menu’s there have been improvements from changing fonts sizes to making the text all capitals. Anything that I felt improved the quality.
New SFX and Ambient Sounds – Levels now features some ambient sounds such as birds chirping, the wind howling or distant gunfire. This helps add to the realism and immersion of levels but also just sounds nice. The pistol has also had it’s sound made a little beefier.
All New Soundtrack – New music has been provided by Harry Burt and all old tracks have been replaced.
Our First Month On Steam
Undead Blackout was never going to win any BAFTA’s but I think it is an enjoyable game which is challenging, replayable and has enough modes to keep you and a friend entertained over the course of a few hours. I am still working to improve it and the version on Steam now is hugely improved over the version that launched but that there is the issue, the current version should have been the version everybody saw first of all. Anyone in the Press that saw this version might actually take the time to review it and any reviews we did get might have been more favourable. So the lesson is, if you think your game is ready then spend another two weeks polishing and improving before releasing it.
Before launch I was flitting between $9.99 and $7.99 as the launch price. I had looked at a few games that were vaguely similar and while some were $3.99 others were $12.99 so I felt going in somewhere in the middle would be the right call and allow us the wiggle room to bring the price down if we felt necessary. Unless you are coming out of Early Access you can never increase the price without looking like a dick. What I had not realised and what is now annoyingly obvious to me is that we had not earned the right to charge $7.99 or $9.99 for a game, nobody knows who we are and won’t gamble money on such an unknown quantity when there are other games from better know developers for similar money.
To help with this issue Undead Blackout is now and shall forever be $4.99/£3.99 and aside from sales and discount weeks, that is the cheapest it will ever be.
The current objective is to work on the Xbox One version of the game and get that released sometime this Spring. Lots of the improvement that have been made to that version will quickly find their way into the Steam version. Then it will be a case of harassing the lovely folk at Nintendo to get a Switch dev kit and porting the game over there.
A challenging few weeks for certain but I am optimistic that the lessons learned will serve me well in the future and push Borderline Inappropriate Game Studios onto something resembling success.
Undead Blackout v1.1 - What has changed?
- Survival Mode has been completely redesigned. The player is now stuck within an enclosed arena type environment e.g. the main hall of the Manor and must survive for as long as possible. This increases the amount of action as the zombies spawn within meters of the player. To further increase the action and (hopefully) the fun, more ammo and health spawns nearby and weapons will spawn every minute or so. This means Survival Mode is very much its own beast now as before it was too similar to the main style of play.
- The location of the keys has been tweaked in all levels to make it so that there are three distinct areas within each level, essentially the bronze, silver and gold areas, meaning the player no longer has to wander the entire level looking for keys but they cannot access certain parts of the level until they have the required key. This helps stop players getting lost as often and improves the flow of each level.
- Jarvis Prison has been completely redesigned to accommodate for the new key positioning and the requirement for a Survival Mode "Arena" area.
- The Sewer layout has been changed for the same reasons as above.
- All levels now have big bright orange arrows in the general vicinity of the Level End so as to avoid any confusion of how to actually finish a level.
- There are now three ammo crates in the level as opposed to two and there are four additional spawn points.
- There are now two health packs at any time as opposed to one, there have been four more spawn points added.
- Mouse Aim has been improved and there is now an setting in the Options Menu to let the game know if you will be playing using mouse/keyboard.
- The Down Button on the D-Pad now goes to the previous weapon.
- The Camera has been pulled out to allow for a wider view of the area and allow the player more time to react to threats
- The max speed of the zombies has been increased slightly to compensate for the factors giving the player more of an advantage.
- Zombies now also deal out a bit more damage. Again, if the player gets more ammo then it needs to be balanced with more threatening zombies.
- The zombie AI now has a wider radius to pick a location from within when randomly wandering around the map. This should lead to more varied positioning.
- Zombies now recoil from attacks and will pause their movement momentarily. This gives the player a chance to escape or to continue attacking safe in the knowledge they cannot be harmed during the recoil animation.
- The zombies spawn in specific areas and if the player happens to be standing right in that area, the game will no longer spawn a zombie there.
- The blood decals which popped in when a zombie died now fade in for a more realistic look and there are five designs which will randomly appear.
- The HUD has been redesigned to make the information less overbearing and more minimalist.
- The current weapon is now displayed with a small picture in the corner, making it easier for the player to know what is equipped.
- A targeting aid/crosshair has been added to the HUD. This will change to Red when the player is aiming.
- Weapons now make a brighter and larger flash to briefly illuminate the surrounding area, thus providing the player with a brief look at their entire surroundings.
- Weapons now carry over from one level to the next in Arcade mode. If you die, then you start with nothing.
- Loading Screen now fades in and out of view. Just because it looks nice. As does the Level Complete screen.
- The Loading Screen now requires players to hit Start to being the level.
- Level Restart now unloads the level and reloads (loading screen and all). This is to iron out a few bugs with resetting positions of actors within the level, everything goes back to where it should be if you start from the beginning again!
What happens next?
Undead Blackout is far from a perfect game and there will be a number of improvements rolling out over the the short-term to fix some minor issues and some larger issues.
Expect the first of these updates later this week, what will be in that we will detail at the time as it very much depends how much we can get through *pours large coffee*
Back to work!
We are live!
We hope you all enjoy it :)
Undead Blackout launches on the 3rd February!
I hope you all enjoy fighting zombies in the dark :)
Is Undead Blackout still releasing in January??
The long and short of it is that we still hope to have the game out this month, January 31st to be precise! Read the blog for a bit more info but that is pretty much it.
http://www.borderlineinappropriategamestudios.com/games/january-is-almost-over-so-where-is-undead-blackout/
Right, back to work :)