Devlog #49: Getting closer to the finish line

Howdy!

Another week has passed, and another small piece of progress has been made on the game.

I spent some time on adding more animations for the soldier class to the game and on creating sounds for them. I'm actually very glad that I'm almost done with dealing with sounds - it can be a frustrating process, especially when you're unable to find a matching sound...

Anyways, the soldier class looks awesome!

Other than that, I am focusing on finishing any programming work that is left in the game so that I can focus on the visuals. So I have that main list of stuff that still needs to be done (like all the menus, credits screen, steam page etc.) and a second list, holding some ideas on gameplay tweaks. I focused on the latter this week, adding some minor gameplay adjustments.

One of such changes is the way other characters react on a shot: they are now ducking when an ally performs an attack, which looks nice, even if it's barely noticeable:

Additionally, I've added some more character texts that are being displayed in different situations (e.g. when a character panics):

To make the demo more fun, I've removed some very negative character quirks (like "very hungry", which was giving a -20% penalty to aim) that were causing too much frustration. I mean the game should be challenging and somehow unpredictable but it should not be stupidly difficult, right?

Oh, and I also reduced the required animations count (again!) by simplifying the way in which the healing animation is being displayed. Basically each character can either heal themselves or any other person standing next to them. The "heal self" animation is quite cheap, as it only comes in one flavor. However, the "heal someone standing next to you" animation would have to have a lot of directional variants (aiming up/down/to the sides).

So I simply dropped the "heal other" animation. When a character heals another person, that other person's "heal self" animation is played. I know that it is not perfect as one could expect that it is the character who is active would be doing the healing, but hey - I am on a small budget here and deal with very limited spare time.

What's next?

Next week will be all about adding all the missing screens/menus to the game so that it looks complete.

Also, I will be investigating on how to create a game Steam page, and if it is actually possible to upload a demo on Steam. It might be that the demo does not have to be hosted on the Steam itself, but I surely want a Steam page to exist. I heard that giving the players the possibility to wishlist a game is a good thing ;)

Also, the game name will change :) - but I will write more about it later.

Thanks for reading!

As usual, if you'd like to receive more frequent updates about the development and a heads-up about release of the demo, follow me on Twitter at @bryquTheDev.

Also, do help me out reaching a bigger audience! Share information about the game with anyone who you think could be interested in this.

Take care!