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[Jasmine]

On one hand, I think the wall shadows make the structures pop a bit more and make everything feel less flat. On the other, I can't shake the feeling that the wall shadows make it seem as if the walls are floating ever so slightly above the ground. So I can't decide if I should keep them in or discard them. What do you think?

Consider making the shadows wider and with a softer edge.

[Christian Knudsen]

it's hard to tell ... maybe a fist, for punching?

Yep, a fist for a melee attack. I guess it's not too obscure then? I was worried that you couldn't even tell it was a fist, but you can?

[jotapeh]

Yeah, it looks like a fist, but I read that bit of text before I looked, so I may have been subconsciously prepped for that

[Christian Knudsen]

Development video sneak peek
October 19th

I hope to have a new development video to show soon. I just need to finish work on elevators and some optimizations with the x-ray effect. In the meantime, here's a screenshot showing the current state of Hostile Takeover:

[Christian Knudsen]

Development Video #14
November 12th

Here, at long last, is the new development video for Hostile Takeover, now featuring my fabulous radio voice!

New stuff in this video:
   * Added a bunch of environment assets
   * Added action icons to show interaction options
   * Changed color of Combat Mode border from red to green
   * Added z-layers and multiple floors in buildings
   * Added elevators to move between layers

There are still some minor bug fixes and optimizations I need to do before I'll consider the rendering engine done for now. Two of those bugs actually show up in the video -- I didn't notice them until I'd started editing the video.

I'll be working on making more environment assets next to fill in those empty floors of the building. I'll probably also be working some more on new GUI elements, such as a minimap in the upper left corner showing the various area types and the location of your target. For now, I've got three area types in mind that will be indicated with green, yellow and red and affect how suspicious characters will be when spotting you. Green areas are public areas where other characters' suspicion level is just the default. Yellow areas are non-public, but also not restricted areas, for example the lobby of an office building. The suspicion level here will be double. Finally, red areas are restricted areas that you're not supposed to have access to, so the suspicion level of other characters here will be 4x the default.

The point of most missions in the game is to be as stealthy as possible. Your stealth rating for a mission will decrease when characters spot you, or you otherwise draw attention to yourself. So I'll also be making a Stealth bar for the GUI that shows your current Stealth level, as well as a Health bar and a Noise bar. The latter shows the level of noise you're generating as well as the environment noise -- so that you can set off environment noise such as fire alarms and car alarms to drown out your own noise.

[Christian Knudsen]

Interface pretty much done
December 1st

In between moving from our small two room apartment in Copenhagen to a larger and (almost) brand new three room apartment outside of Copenhagen, I've had a little time to finish up the interface for Hostile Takeover. Have a look see:

Starting in the upper left corner and going around clockwise, we first have the minimap with a simple outline of buildings and areas color coded green, yellow or red to show how restricted they are. There's also buttons for rotating the map (and game world view) as well as for toggling on/off whether or not to keep the view centered on the player. You'll also be able to drag the minimap around to examine the game world.

Next is the combat mode button and then the stats display. From top to button the stats are: Noise, Health and Suspicion. There are two noise bars; one showing the environment/background noise and one showing the noise you're generating. If your noise level is below the environment's, NPCs won't hear you. The health bar is pretty self-explanatory with the character outline showing damage to specific body parts. Finally, the suspicion bar goes from 0 to 100 percent and shows how much attention you've drawn to yourself during a mission. That percentage will be deducted from your payout for completing the mission, so 50% suspicion raised during a mission means you'll only get half pay.

We then have the movement buttons, which from top to bottom are: Kneel, Sneak, Walk and Run. Again, pretty self-explanatory, but damage to your legs will render movement options unselectable. I'm thinking 33% damage will remove run and 66% walk, or something to that effect.

I'm playing around with blood splatters on the buttons to show when an option cannot be selected because of damage. This will also work with damage to your arms. There'll be blood splatters on the equipped item boxes, aiming will be more difficult and melee attacks will fail more often when your arms are damaged. I'll slap up a screenshot when I have these blood splatters working properly.

[Christian Knudsen]

Interface now actually completely done
December 5th

Aaaaaand here's the final look of the interface:

I redid the stats bars in the upper right display to better fit with the overall style. And I've redone the combat mode border to fit the new interface elements. Finally, I made the blood splatters that will appear on the equipped item boxes when your arms are damaged (1-5 blood splatters on each to indicate amount of damage), as well as the splatters on the walk and run buttons when those selections are unavailable due to leg damage. The blood splatters shown here don't actually match the damage to the player in the screenshot -- it's just to show what they look like.

So I'm now locking the look of the interface, except for any future features that may creep in. The minimap is quite buggy at the moment when the map is rotated and you can't drag the minimap to examine the game world yet. So that's next for me to do.

[Christian Knudsen]

What's on the menu?
January 1st

It's a new year, so here's a new blog post!

Even though it's a bit too early in the development cycle to worry about them, I've been working on the game's menus. When I get fed up with a particular part of the game that's hard to figure out, instead of taking a break completely from the game, I just shift to something easier and more rewarding, which will eventually energize me to continue work on the original part. So that's what caused me to make the menus, as they're quite easy to program.

Here's the main menu screen:

The smoke is animated, which you'll see in the next development video I plan on releasing in a few days, and when I've scripted out the game's story and universe in more detail, there will be fiction related stuff (newspaper clippings and photos) fading in and out where the logo currently is.

And this is what the load/save game menu looks like:

I always loved the little thumbnail images that each savegame had in Fallout, so I've borrowed that for Hostile Takeover. I'm currently working on the options menu (mostly screen resolution settings, fullscreen/window mode, toggling some visual effects off on older computers) and then I'll return to the main game itself.

Anyway, I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! The past year saw excellent forward momentum on the development of Hostile Takeover and that will continue in the new year with the first playable pre-alpha demo being released sometime in 2012, preferably in the first half of the year.

[Christian Knudsen]

Development Video #15
January 12th

It's video time again!

Watch it on YouTube!

New stuff in this video:
   * Finished the in-game interface
   * Almost finished the menus
   * Tied player actions to noise and suspicion generation
   * Particle effects to show characters growing suspicious
   * Added pauses to character dialogue
   * Resolution can now be changed in-game
   * Added small thumbnail images for saved games

I've also almost finished work on doubling the directions for the male aiming and shooting animations (from 8 to 16 directions). After that, I'll make the missing sprites for female characters (aiming, shooting, hit, and fall/die). There's also still a bunch of minor things, bug fixes, optimizations and tune-ups.

When all that's done, I think I'll begin working on the AI, since that's the biggest component missing before I can really start playing around with actual gameplay -- and not just building the surrounding framework. I'm really looking forward to create a simple mission where you have to sneak past patrolling guards or get in a firefight. That's when all this stuff will hopefully come together and be an actual game! After that, a release of the first pre-alpha version shouldn't be far behind. Stay tuned!

[allen]

I forgot all about this. I just checked and it seems my RSS reader is broken for your site, last post for me shows Oct 19. I've missed all these updates.

Looks good, I have a few videos to watch I suppose.

[Christian Knudsen]

Oh, I hope it really is just your RSS reader and not something on my site. When I click the RSS button on my site, it does show all blog posts, but I'm not really sure how RSS feeds work on the technical side. Anyway, I hope you find the updates since October 19th interesting!

In other news, Hostile Takeover just got mentioned by The Indie Game Magazine:

http://www.indiegamemag.com/hostile-takeover-when-project-zomboid-met-hitman/

My first press mention!

[Craig Stern]

This is coming along really well. I look forward to giving this a shot when it's released!

[bentleyhg]

Congratulations on your first press mention! This game looks really fascinating, any chance there's a playable demo out there? If not might there be one in the future?

[Christian Knudsen]

I'm hoping to release a pre-alpha demo in the first half of 2012, so hopefully sometime within the next 4 months.

[bentleyhg]

Sweet, I'll look forward to that. Keep up the good work, I'm excited to play it.

It's really impressive how much you've been able to accomplish on your own. You are a multi-talented dude!