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[Ramos]

Re-calculating development plan

Current dev stage:
- implement zoom in function (this week)
- creating final tutorial and intro (will take 2 weeks)
- creating 15 custom scenarios ( will take around 1 month)
- polish random maps(will take around 3 weeks)

Next stage:
- adding multiple endings( around 2 weeks)
- finishing story/text/cutscenes ( around 2 weeks)
- adding achievements with new game rewards ( around 1 week)
- extra polish ( around 2 weeks)
- final tests ( around 3 weeks)

Final stage:
- creating a new trailer
- creating a demo version
- uploading on steam API
- final marketing stage



In rapport with the stuff that is already done, I would say we are now around 85% done and the above tasks are all that is remaining unless I miss something

[Alain]

Nice! Sharing your ETAs might put some kind of pressure on you, but you have done these things before and know what you are talking about, so I am sure you will make it! Exciting times

[Ramos]

I already got A lot of pressure on me and the ETA is usually x2 or x3 times bigger than the first estimations so yea, things are hard in-game dev life.

Meantime ...

We decided to remake the tutorial.

In the final version, we are going to make the road animated & loopable while conversation and basic instruction are issued within the APC, also we plan to combine them with the story.

The main inspiration for both interior and exterior of the squad APC is:





So here it is:





Can you guess from which movie is this from?

[Alain]

Having the road loop will be a nice touch, I'm sure.

Regarding the movie: My guess was that it was Han Solo in the trash compactor scene in A New Hope, but I just rewatched it and he does not mention any smell, so I'm out

[Ramos]

Having the road loop will be a nice touch, I'm sure.

Regarding the movie: My guess was that it was Han Solo in the trash compactor scene in A New Hope, but I just rewatched it and he does not mention any smell, so I'm out

Oh, I am sorry, my bad, I meant from what movie is the vehicle inspired not the actual scene I only posted pics of the vehicle but did not say the title.
Again, my bad, I cannot express myself very good lately, I feel like a zombie, exhausted and all that

[Beastboy]

Aliens 

[Ramos]

Aliens 

YES !


So, the tutorial is now in the final implementation stages.

Few notes:

- tutorial miss one is for basic controls learning mixed with a bit of story and setting out the mood of the atmosphere
- after the first-time player finish the tutorial he will get an achievement for it that will have as a reward a skip tutorial button unlock for next time he starts a new game(I want all achievements to give rewards that boost re-playability)
- in the tutorial mission, 1 player will be outside any danger but in mission 2 he will have a small taste of danger
- I want everything the player does to feel like a reward, for example in order to unlock the interface player must press some buttons in the command APC. He can choose(optional) if he already wants to move the mouse on them and see the tooltips now or later

Screenshots of the 2 tutorial missions



and

[Alain]

Oh, I am sorry, my bad, I meant from what movie is the vehicle inspired not the actual scene I only posted pics of the vehicle but did not say the title.
Again, my bad, I cannot express myself very good lately, I feel like a zombie, exhausted and all that

I see. But no worries, I enjoyed watching the New Hope scene anyway The tutorial mission looks really atmospheric. I imagine driving to the first mission like the calm before the storm.

[Ramos]

Thank you for the kind words, Alain!
Mockup/little spoiler for one of the upcoming bosses in Chromosome Evil.

Not much time to post lately, lots of stuff happening in the background of this development, good and bad.



And tactical map design for this scenario.

You will need to excuse me, the text from the design pic is full of mistakes and hard to understand, it is meant to be only for my eyes and programmer eyes. So as you can see we are pretty chaotic but it works just fine, we have a lot of history behind so on this final process of development we are going to work guerilla-style.

[Alain]

I think we all make these crazy diagrams once in a while, thanks for sharing yours :D

[Beastboy]

This is starting to get epic level stuff.
I do not understand much from the design sketch other then the player must make a stand in a house and outside its a huge chthulu type creature. Waiting for more progress, release and previews

[Ramos]

I think we all make these crazy diagrams once in a while, thanks for sharing yours :D

Yes, this part of game dev gets crazier the fewer team members are in the team.

This is starting to get epic level stuff.
I do not understand much from the design sketch other then the player must make a stand in a house and outside its a huge chthulu type creature. Waiting for more progress, release and previews

Thank you for the kind words!

[NajibSG]

Wow, you're really moving fast on your project, you already have bosses in fights, it looks great

I really admire those who do their project in large teams, I think it must be more difficult to do it while the pandemic restricts us all (COVI 19), in order to organize, apart from the money and expenses of the project, it must be more difficult, your project is big.

[Ramos]

Wow, you're really moving fast on your project, you already have bosses in fights, it looks great

I really admire those who do their project in large teams, I think it must be more difficult to do it while the pandemic restricts us all (COVI 19), in order to organize, apart from the money and expenses of the project, it must be more difficult, your project is big.

Thank you for the kind words!
4 years of dev time so far 

And yes I admire large teams too because management/motivation in such teams is a nightmare especially if you are indie. But fortunately(or not) I have a very small team, just me and my programmer Sergey Dovganovsky. 

UPDATE

​Since our game is made in C++ and all shadows and lights must be hand drawn/animated, I now resumed some of the light "systems" polish. On the good side, with such a system the game will basically run even on a potato computer.

My aim here was not to create realistic lights but rather atmospherical ones.
- top layer got an alpha object with main shadow shapes
- all walls and big objects generate a shadow PNG
- light object shapes used to cut through the generated wall shadow
So each time a map starts the game will generate one huge shadow / light layer PNG. We also got light animations that we had to fake through some torture procedures.
So here are a few possible shadow/light combos that we use in the game. Hope you enjoy

[Alain]

That's some cool insight and I would not have thought that his is part of your workflow. I guess this process of creating shadows is not a limitation but a great opportunity, although tedious sometimes.

My aim here was not to create realistic lights but rather atmospherical ones.

This is a great way to look at it and you did a fine job on the screenshots. The fact that you have to put a bit of thought into each of your shadows will give them a lot of meaning.

[vivaladav]

Shadows look cool and it doesn't really matter they are not photo-realistic.

So each time a map starts the game will generate one huge shadow / light layer PNG. We also got light animations that we had to fake through some torture procedures.

I am curious about this... how big is it and do you keep the PNG in video memory or do you use for some computation and then discard it after loading?

[SADoff]

I am curious about this... how big is it and do you keep the PNG in video memory or do you use for some computation and then discard it after loading?

We use SDL dll . So on map editor we have 3 png with generated level layers: ground, walls and top. Also it generate 2 png with lights and shadows. all this pics are full level size. So we don't support really big combat zones. Shadows generated with pretty simple pixel calculation.

[Ramos]

This is a great way to look at it and you did a fine job on the screenshots. The fact that you have to put a bit of thought into each of your shadows will give them a lot of meaning.

Thank you Alain!

@

Shadows look cool and it doesn't really matter they are not photo-realistic.

I am curious about this... how big is it and do you keep the PNG in video memory or do you use for some computation and then discard it after loading?

Thank you vivaladav! I have no idea how it works but my partner that deals with programming can explain better.


@SADoff
Welcome to Tigsource Sergey!

SADoff is the magician that brings my art & design to life, nothing of this project would have been possible without him.

 

[Beastboy]

That sounds like a lot of manual work but seeing the screenschots, it was worth it.

[Ramos]

That sounds like a lot of manual work but seeing the screenschots, it was worth it.

Thank you! Indeed a lot of manual work.

UPDATE




We have now the final scenario design. Please note that the game will have a high re-playability value core pilar. SO in addition to the 4 main endings path, those endings will also have 2 additional endings based on secondary vaccine and satellite quests + a variation based on player choices in random encounters. Also, all days between main scenarios got high random elements. In addition to this,​ we also got a starting quiz that will affect player start bonuses and also we made all achievements to give rewards on new games and additional features (example 1: after the first time you play tutorial you get an achievement that will unlock "skip tutorial" button for next time you play game/ example 2: kill 1000 zombies during a playthrough and next time you start a new game you get +100 more bullets at beginning) .