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[CiroContinisio]

I finally am confident enough (and found the time ) to show you the new project I'm working on with SantEnnio and ojabim...

Links:

Steam •

• Website • On Twitter • FB page

Marketing blurb:

FATAL ERROR is a local multiplayer shooter where camouflage is your most dangerous weapon.

What does this mean? Basically, everybody is looking at the same screen (local multiplayer, right?) but there is information that only one player knows. We achieve this through what we call stealth mechanics*, which add a lot of spice to the matches and have proved to be kinda fresh, and a lot of fun.

For instance, this is the blue player using the Transport System to sneak on the pink player who's getting back to his base with the flag (CTF mode):

Notice how he enters the purple pit, presses the B button to exit from the red exit, and he sneaks on the pink robot killing it with the sword.

The game has:

• 4-player local multiplayer
• Hectic 3-minute matches
• 4 ingenious camouflaging mechanics, which can also be combined
• Single-player challenges, co-op challenges up to 4 players
• Different game modes: Capture the Motherboard, Hack the WiFi, …
• Dozens of scenarios tailored for the stealth mechanics
• Tournament mode to setup long gaming nights with plenty of friends
• Tight controls for the characters, physics-based mayhem on the environment!
• Electrifying soundtrack by composer Joakim Karlberg

Screens:

A 2v2 CTF match in the Foundry


A 2v2 CTF match in the Lab


A 2v2 CTF match in the Dump

About Early Access

FATAL ERROR is currently on Steam Early Access and expected to release in full at the end of October, so some of these things are not yet in it. It's an advanced public beta and we're updating it every two weeks: just yesterday we added 2vs2 matches, and three maps specifically designed for it.

We are very serious with Early Access, and we have a big plan to keep everything open and get in as much feeback as possible before releasing a 1.0 version.
To do this, we've opened a Trello Development board to show everyone what we're working on every second, and a Bugs board too for the issues we're trying to address.
We also have a Roadmap on Wunderlist, to show players where we're going, and when


That's all for now! I'll post updates as we make progress and turn this thread into a proper Devlog!

* it's in Italic not because I feel like I invented a new term, but because it's the official term we use to refer to them

[CiroContinisio]

I'm working on one of the new "stealth mechanics" we plan to introduce in the next update. It's called Doppelganger, and what it does is that it creates a clone of the player that moves in a symmetrical way along an axis. It can shoot, it can slash the sword, but it's totally inoffensive.

The doppelganger lasts until it's killed, the player is killed, or for a bunch of seconds (like in the image below).



It can be used to confuse opponents and create a decoy. Which one is the real one?

[jctwood]

This is a very nice looking game and I love Monaco which it seems to share a few similarities with. For the decoy maybe you could make it fully symmetrical. In that case the hand shooting the laser could be used to determine which is the player and which the decoy. If that makes sense...

[CiroContinisio]

Hey, thanks! It's a bit more frantic than Monaco I guess, very fast-paced. Some people have said it looks a bit like Bomberman (but don't ask me in which respect :D).

For the decoy maybe you could make it fully symmetrical. In that case the hand shooting the laser could be used to determine which is the player and which the decoy. If that makes sense...

This is a nice suggestion actually! Just, it may prove a bit complicated to do (not in the near future, but it may be annoying when we add more robots, swords, weapons, etc.)

Yesterday was a slow day, I did the whole ventilation duct system but I'm not too convinced about it:



You can see the player's light from outside, and at the same time, the player who's inside doesn't have that big of a surprise effect when he comes out. But it all has to be tested in real world situations.

So, feeling bad because of the non-productive morning, I went on to do something simple to give me some instantaneous satisfaction, and I made some new props

[jctwood]

transform.scale.x = -1 flips the model

[CiroContinisio]

transform.scale.x = -1 flips the model

Yeah, we might do it this way, I just hope there's not too many things to adjust apart from flipping the X axis. But now it's late so I cannot think...


In other news, last weekend we have put out the game on Linux:

Porting was a piece of cake (thanks Unity :D), having it work on Linux a bit less but in the end, it was our mistake. Turns out Linux uses inverted slashes as path separator, so while the game was working fine on Mac and Windows, on Linux it wasn't loading sounds at all... something which drove us nuts for a day

Now I'm curious: I don't expect too many sales from Linux in general, but our game is perfect for Steam Machines (being local multiplayer)... is there a market for that?

[CiroContinisio]

Today I'm putting some serious effort into the "Challenges" mode, which is a single-player mode that's going to be both a small tutorial, and a series of hard challenges for players to test themselves on.

So, first thing this morning, I made a sweet elevator to act as a point that you have to reach in some early challenges which will be focused on moving around

[CiroContinisio]

We've made a lot of progress on the game, but today I want to share something stupid (which VERY few here will fully grasp, but well...)

https://twitter.com/ccontinisio/status/645566664893988864

After Italian, English, French, German, Spanish, Swedish and Czech, we're translating FATAL ERROR in Neapolitan





As you can see it's full of apostrophes to represent the schwa sound that we have basically in every word!