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[Highlandcoo]

Hi everyone,

it's been a few weeks, and I've mainly been working on things UN-related to actually designing and programming the game. You'd be surprised how much is involved!




I've been working closely with a few different composers to get just the right sound and music into the game. I never thought I'd write "grinding, dark and driving is what I want" in an email to a stranger - but hey! Everyday is a skoolday.










I'm also trying very hard to find a good pixel artist to do the animation and drawing for the survivors (the little people in the shelter). I'm happy enough with my own placeholder "standing" and "walking in one direction" sprites. But I THINK that a commercial release needs more than that If anyone knows anyone - please contact me via this website!

Last, but by no means least, I'm now working heavily on a kickstarter campaign. There is just so much to do here and I want to get on with it so badly that my day job is actually getting in the way. Again, I never thought I describe what pays for the roof over my head, and the food in my fridge, as a "problem", but here we are!

I'm hoping to run the kickstarter alongside a greenlight campaign and a general press release. Again - if anyone knows anyone - i'd love to hear from you!





My new boxart!



Speak to you again soon!

R.

[Suedeash]

Looks amazing, man. When can we expect to see a download link? I'm REALLY eager to play it, haha. 

[Highlandcoo]

Looks amazing, man. When can we expect to see a download link? I'm REALLY eager to play it, haha. 

Around the same time as I can stop my little men from crashing the shelter and killing everyone inside

Wait... that sounds kind of fun anyway doesn't it?

Soon! I promise!

[Highlandcoo]

Hey everyone - it's been a while since my last update - but the good news is things are really starting to come along.

I finally figured out what to do with Building Radius Effects - these are area-effect bonuses that speard outwards from your power plants and wells. (I may add other effects to other buildings later..)

Basically, if a building is irradiated by a power plant (for example) then it does not require as much power to run. BUT it is also more likely to suffer a fire if it is not maintained by an engineer.

Further to this I also added the flood hazard. This will crop up if a water connection point is not properly maintained. Currently it will just shut off power to any power connections it touches but I'm hoping to drown some people later..



Another BIG change is the "manufactory" building, prior to the world ending you are able to build your shelter at your leisure with infinite resources. But after armaggedon, everything you have needs to be produced underground!

Enter the Manufactory!



This building will generate materials, whice are required for construction. Engineers will now take materials from the manufactory to the nearest construction project. NB* They will only do this IF
* There is not something needing repaired
* There are no fire hazards nearby
* There are no flood hazards nearby

This new feature really makes you think about the paths your people take to get from point to point in your shelter. AND along with the bonues from Power Generators and Wells, it now pays to really think about the layoutof your shelter and how you are going to expand.

There has been ALOT of general bug squashing...
- fixed an issue where room connectors would not appear on the ends of corridors if the corridor was not yet finished construction
- fixed an issue where medium sized flooded rooms got the wrong sized sprite

- fixed an issue where
 lift names would draw outside of the lift shaft
- reduced the volume of the building noise. It's still a bit annoying but not as much. (alpha!)
- fixed an issue where an inactive (switched off) water/power plug would still keep supplying other nodes
- fixed an issue where adding new lift doors to an EXISTING shaft, BEFORE the existing shaft was finished building, would cause a crash
- fixed an issue where adding additional lift doors cost $0
- fixed a major performance issue with lift node pathing

.. and there is still so many features to add!

Monsters!
Taxation!
Birth Control!
Crime and Punishment!
Casinos, Markets and Bars!
Cinemas and Churches!
... argggh - *head explodes*

Speak to you all again soon!



R.

[Highlandcoo]

This week i've been busy on presentation - music, lighting, sound and graphics!

Behold the new fangled look!





Notice the redone lighting effects, I wanted the outline of the shelter to be far more clear and sharp, without distracting flickering when survivors are wandering around.

I also added a slightly "gamey", but very clear, effect when rooms are inactive (notice the big red room). I think this is WAY clearer than the last look.



Next - I refreshed the survivor sprites. First I had a little chubby guy with wide blinking eyes, he was super easy to animate (yay!) but he's just too cute.




Next I went to a thinner, more pixel-art style of character. This guy actually looked great in screenshots. But this kind of pixel-by-pixel animation is far to labor intensive for my one-man-band operation.





So... following some helpful advice from the tigsource forums I took the FIRST cutesy-looking guy and:
- Made him thinner
- Desaturated the color pallet
- Removed the eyes
- Made him bald(!)





... now i'm not saying bald == evil. But there is no doubt he's looking alot more sinister and grown up!

What do you guys think?

I also FINALLY added an autosave feature. This has 2 advantages this early in development
- when testing, I can re-load shelters, rather than having to build another shelter from scratch each time. yay!

- When you are testi.. I mean PLAYING then you can build bigger more complicated shelters and hopefully expose more lovely bugs for me to squash.



Lastly I've been working closely with PIXEL NOISE, a 3 man outfit based in the states. They've been excellent and really seem to "get" the vibe i'm going for.

Hear the latest title track below

MP3 Link

I really want to get a proper alpha trailer or even just a bit of game play up for you guys to see in the coming weeks.

All the best!

R.

[beestings]

besides small blips (the arm "closest" to the player is a little off as it passes the thicker line of the shirt) I love the adjustments made to the animation! But, I have to say I don't like the faceless, bald look. I think a set of eyes and some aftershave and a hardtop hat would work great with this character and I love the doctor one! Next, I think you're shading too much. I'm not exactly sure what its called, but it just makes a funky look rather than a good one. I'd honestly revert back to only 2 shades of each color (the normal and one for shading) and also I think adding in shading thats not pixalized (preferably in another layer where you can add a sort of gradient shade and adjust the color as needed). I'm not on my normal computer and don't have the proper editing tools to explain, but from the looks of your background it seems you can achieve this. PS: the characters look great with the background!! I saw you posting this stuff a while ago and couldn't offer constructive criticism then (in a bad sort of way..), but when I saw it with the background and the whole lay out, it really did impress me, it looks awesome dude!

[Highlandcoo]

Thanks beestings - it's a work in progress

[Highlandcoo]

UPDATED!


Phew-EE!


Okay so development has taken an unexpected turn! I returned to CASTELLUM from a month long break, and discovered I didn't actually like it. I'd been developing it for 3 months at that point and thought "if this isn't fun yet, will it ever be?".

I do really think CASTELLUM could be a great game, but it's too big a project for a one man operation.


SO, I stripped back the complexity of the bunker, removed disease, radiation, flooding and so on. Then I added the SURFACE...




 

It's now possible (read: required) to venture out to the surface of the planet to gather metal and rescue people to expand your base. The Surface is populated by the enemy (insert plot here!) who will try to take over the map, you must expand your base, upgrade your vehicle and win the war before the enemy can conquer the whole map!


In practice this splits the game into 2 phases. A base building phase and a combat phase.


You start in the base building phase, then ride our to gather metal and people.

 



The combat map is split into sectors which you must defend, whilst also collecting metal and people, plus watching your power consumption. (running out of power == death)


At the end of each combat phase (when your vehicle is destroyed or you return to base) any remaining contested sectors become enemy sectors and will house an enemy spawning base on the next day.


Which gives us a whole new game! CASTELLUM was no long appropriate. It was taken from the latin for "shelter" and sounds too thoughtful and dark to be suitable.So a whole new name then...

At the moment it's all shaping up rather nicely. I can't WAIT to get stuck into the vehicle upgrades and customization. But there is a ways to go before that.


I hope you all like this latest iteration of this project. Let me know what you think in the comments!

[Highlandcoo]

Weapon Testing!

[Highlandcoo]

Hi Everyone,

It's been a very busy few months on "Dusters". We've implemented several new features

- The battle map

- The armory

- Enemy Events

I've going to talk about each of these new features below. But first, a word on the new title. Some of you may have noticed this has changed again. So we've gone from 'CASTELLUM', to 'Situation RED' and now finally to 'Dusters'.

So what is going on? Well, the first change away from Castellum was because of a major change in the gameplay. We moved from a pure 2d base building game, to a mixed base building /real time combat hybrid. The name Castellum just didn't fit any more!

So we moved on, this time to "Situation Red'. I actually quite liked this one. It was a play on the sectors of the battle map changing to red when you lose control. But the branding was eighties-wargamesy, and the tone didn't fit the styling of the game or the gameplay.

So... onto 'Dusters'. I feel the Gameplay, Styling and branding all align with this one. Plus it lets us do a little world-building around the Duster-People and their struggle against the machines!

So onwards and upwards! To new features!

The Battle Map


Ok so it's a little plain right now.

But ultimately, this screen displays the progress of your game, and will be used to plan your next moves against the machines.

This map and the gameplay behind it is heavily inspired by Desert Strike. You need to plan to gather resource, evade enemy scanners, take back captured sectors as well as deal with the dynamic events which will occur when out scavenging.

You also need to keep an eye on your battery life, plan your route to recharge batteries regularly!

The Armory


When built, and fully powered, players will gain access to the armory.

From this screen players can

customise the appearence of their vehicle
Change vehicles (currently we plan to include a Jeep, APC and Battle Tank Hull)
install new engines, weapons, armour and special weapons
craft new parts from resources gathered from the surface
This is a very exiciting part of the game. We want players to have to make interesting choices on what to do with their resources. Do you try to struggle on with basic weaponry so that you can save for a shiny laser cannon? Or invest in armor and engines to avoid the fight entirely?

Enemy Events


During the course of play there are 2 BASIC events that can take place

Enemy Alert - the enemy has seen you! Escape and evade OR destroy all comers!
Incoming Airstrike - Call in an airstrike on enemy bases under-construction. Remain in place until the airstrike destroys the base (pictured)
We are planning many, many other events. Such as the usual pick-up-drop-off-for-reward types but also convoy interceptions, rescue missions, and all out assaults!

Phew, thats a lot of information. The next step is to get the tutorial finished and polished up a bit so that we can make a playable alpha available for everyone to try. This will co-incide with the Greenlight/Kickstarter campaign later this year.

I hope you have enjoyed reading. Please let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Regards.

R.

[Pixel Noise]

Whoaaaaa - it's been a while since I've checked the devlog - and it's an entirely new game! Honestly - I think it's a good move. While it sucks to possibly remove some of the intricacies of bunker life, I think adding a "surface" mode is a great idea. Also, the new title and concept gives the whole world much more depth.