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[bencelot]

Cheers man. And yeah GTA2 and Soldat were huuuuge inspirations when I first started the game. Though that was back in 2008. These days the game is more inspired by CS:GO and DOTA2 as those are the sorta games I like to play.

As for a configurable HUD size it was an option in the past, but I removed it for some reason... not sure why actually  There would be no harm in readding it though. Thanks for the feedback!

[bencelot]

More sexyness today. I added a whole bunch of spawnable objects. We have health kits, mana pots, weapons, vehicles, chemicals and cash piles! Map makers have so much control over how the game plays now. Just like the guards that protect them, these objects can be configured to spawn on certain checkpoints and for certain difficulty levels. So in the standard difficulty you might discover an MP5 with 60 bullets in it, but on Insane difficulty you might only find a Deagle, or nothing at all!

There is a special rule for how all of these discoverable objects work with co-op. They can be picked up by all players. So if there is a mana pot then ALL players can use this mana pot once each. Same for weapons, cash piles etc. Vehicles are the only exception as there is only 1 vehicle spawned, but seeing as players can ride shotgun in a vehicle anyway it's all good. The whole point of this is to encourage cooperation and prevent one player from taking all the loot away from their allies.

[bencelot]

Been working on how to "teach" newbies the content in the game today. I've got this popup which appears whenever a newbie discovers a new skill for the first time. I've left out a lot of critical information, but sometimes less is more.

This whole singleplayer mode I'm working on at the moment is really just a giant tutorial. The game is and always will be a multiplayer game at it's core, but it's simply too complex right now. There are 33 skills and if you don't know how they work you're going to get slaughtered in a PvP server. Not a good first impression for a new player!

And it's far too overwhelming to try and read through all 33 skill descriptions as well. Which skill do you choose? Will you make the wrong choice? Newbies are hesitant, overwhelmed and end up not getting skills at all. This new game mode solves this perfectly though. You aren't even able to unlock your own skills for the first few levels, and so there's nothing to worry about. You'll simply explore the level, stumble across a new skill like shown in the screenshot, an learn them 1 at a time. Furthermore the levels will be designed like puzzles/challenged which require you to actually use the skill to complete it. Teleport over a wall for example.

Players are introduced to the skills one at a time in a fun and challenging way - the perfect way to learn!

[bencelot]

Hells yeah, added dialogue today! With one days worth of coding stories are now possible in the game. You create "text zones" in the map editor and assign them to specific AI characters. Whenever you talk through a zone the AI will speak the text. Simple!

[bencelot]

Hey dudies, I haven't updated for a while because I've been doing menu stuff and it takes forever. But I've finally finished all that and the whole campaign STRUCTURE is complete. Whatever do I mean??



1) The database now keeps track of your progress through each campaign. There are 4 separate campaigns you can play for the 4 difficulty levels. You can start on either Playful or Standard, but can only play Hardcore and Insane after completing the campaign before it. When you stop playing the game records your progress and when you come back you'll continue right where you left off.

2) When you finish a campaign you will be added to these special new campaign leaderboards. This shows the combined time for all the stages in the campaign. I expect these will range from 2 to 10 hours based on player skill. I'm very excited about these. The current leaderboards are very spread out with no central focus point. Why care about the Asylum Outbreak time when the Barn, Core and Downtown are equally as important? But now we have 1 leaderboard to rule them all. The complete Standard campaign. Hardcore and Insane leaderboards will always be cool to place on. Players will attempt Insane simply to BE on the leaderboard, let alone do it quickly, because it will be such a great achievement.



3) I've done lots of polishing to make the whole campaign feel a lot more like a story/game and less like a series of maps. Between rounds I'm now showing some stats while the map loads. I'm very excited about the "Items Discovered" stat as this will let players know that they missed some items and encourage them to explore more on the next round. Also I think I've made it very clear that you are earning experience (you get +500xp for each stage) and that it's contributing to your multiplayer profile.

4) I've also done some nice tweaks like fading into and out of black when the round ends, hiding the end of round scoreboard, and also removing the popup how to play guide when newbies first join. These things break immersion, and I want it to be a nice flow of progression.



5) I've added a hell of a lot more options to get difficulty working. Guards can now have custom damage, health and ammo drop values based on what difficulty setting you are playing in. This means that Hardcore will play basically the same as Standard, but guards will deal more damage and drop less ammo. Insane even more so (and 150hp which importantly removes 1-shot knifing).

6) However in addition to these raw stat boosts I'm also able to configure guards to appear just in certain difficulty settings. So I can have an extra set of guards that appear in Hardcore but not in Standard. This makes each map play a bit differently and of course more challenging. As a general rule I will try and balance Standard for a brand new player, Hardcore for a veteran player, Insane for a masochistic player, and Playful for my grandma.

7) I have also been playing around with the text the guards say and having them say different things in Hardcore mode as well, as a fun little reward/easter egg for replaying the game. This new story content, combined with the increased difficulty, combined with the prestige of getting onto the Hardcore leaderboards, combined with the ability to replay the game with all your progressive unlocks, should provide plenty of fun when replaying the game on Hardcore and Insane modes.



The final thing I've been doing this pas week is polishing up the first map - LaboratoryS01. I still have to add graphical stuff but I'm pretty happy with all the puzzles and story now. For a first map it's a good mix of tutorial, story, stealth and action sequences. I've got it working for all the difficulty levels as well. Should be good! I'm very close to being 100% done code-wise and just being able to smash out all 10 campaign stages. Hooray!

[bencelot]

Weeew been a while smashing out maps for the singleplayer campaign. Only done 3 stages in a whole month. But I just did something exciting today, I coded up an awesome table to track player data as they play. I love this stuff!



Every time a player completes a checkpoint in the singleplayer campaign I send some stats off to the database such as time taken, deaths, how many players (for playing coop). Today I coded up a sweet table to display it all visually and it arouses me greatly! I even learned about standard deviations to highlight the troublesome stages in red.

So now once the version is released and I get a good amount of data in here I can take a glance and see what needs fixing. If the average stage has a 50% death rate and then one of the stages has a 400% death rate I know it's way too hard and can go rework it. Takes all the guess work out of things to make the experience as smooth as possible. Woooo!

[bencelot]

I decided to update the particle system today and added something very cool - dynamic lighting on particles! Map makers can now have actual lights on their particles and this opens up a huge number of possibilities. Before we only had 2 lighting options, phase A and phase B. Now we have infinite lighting options as each particle can be configured separately. You can have moving lights (maybe pulses of energy), you can have multiple lights each with their own custom timing (think red lights zipping up an airport runway), you can simulate explosions anywhere and anytime you want in the map, and of course you can create your very own disco party!

[bencelot]

I thought it might be fun to post daily updates as I make a brand new campaign map. Now is a good time as I've just started making the 6th stage which is based on Inferno. I will try and update this post every day to show all the amazingly slow progress I'm making :D

The first thing I did was plan the map. This involves planning the story, gameplay and route. Thinking of what events would occur, what fun gameplay you'd experience, where all the item unlocks would be discovered and how you would make your way through the map. The main thing is thinking of a simple and intuitive way to make the map linear. This was fairly easy to do with Inferno but required the adding of a few walls here an there. Here is my horrible handwriting sketching some ideas up:



The basic story of this map is that you're going deeper underground and are on a mission to rescue your fellow scientists who have been captured by the Rebels. I'm going to code in a way for text zones to award you cash when certain conditions are met. This will be used to award you bonus cash for every Scientist you successfully escort to safety. Kinda like rescuing the hostages in CS! Anyway There will be a few other fun mechanics and events in the map but I don't want to ruin the surprise. Anyway here is how the map looks after the changes I've made today:



The main thing I've done today is just made the map linear. You can see up the top left I've added a pathway, this is where you'll start the round. I've put the start up there in the top left because you leave Asylum (the previous stage) in the bottom left. It makes the most sense here I think. I've then placed a few key walls and boxes which force you to travel clockwise around the outside of the map before you can eventually enter the centre area to rescue the hostages. I've also added a few 1-way situations which will play an important role with vehicles:



A ramp no more! These sort of 1-way elements can't exist in the PvP version of the map but they'll be very interesting and useful in the campaign mode. That barrier next to me in the screenshot is new as well and at 3m tall you are unable to jump over it. Thus forcing you to keep exploring around the outside of the map. I've also made a rather drastic change to the centre of the map, incorporating both a vehicle jump as well as the exit of the map which will lead out to Stage 7 - Filtration. I've added water to lead nicely into the water theme of Filtration, and the water in this map will be made super steamy to go with the water+fire theme of Inferno.



Anyway that's all for today! Mostly just planning and reworking the map to make it nice and linear. Tomorrow I'll get started on Stage 1!

[bencelot]

Did lots of good work today (and yesterday but I didn't have time to post). I've finished the first 2 bombs for all difficulty levels. I'm averaging about 1 bomb per day it seems. But this is with designing, developing, testing and also adding of cool new features. Just today I added the following map editor features:

1) The ability for text zones to award cash.
2) The ability for text zones to enable other text zones.
3) The ability for text zones to require other text zones to be enabled/disabled to work.
4) The ability for text zones to be triggered when a guard dies.

Number 3 is probably the most useful yet the most abstract. But it allows you to create complex conditions for when text zones operate. For example if I want Knickers to say something if and only if all 5 enemy guards are killed I can now do this. I would create a text zone that says something like "Yay we did it sir, we killed those 5 guards!". But this text zone would have a requirement that 5 other specially made text zones were all disabled before it would work. These 5 text zones would be triggered when each of these 5 guards dies (using the new feature added). So that only after all 5 guards are dead will all 5 intermediate text zones be triggered and the final text zone be allowed to work. Prettty cool!



Anyway here is the map editor so far. You can see the green line which shows the general path you'll be taking through the map. Starts up the top left and spirals inwards clockwise. You can also see all the guard and text zones I've added - god damn it takes a while! I've already put in the custom hardcore/insane text bubbles and I'm quite proud of them for this map! I've also added most of the secret unlocks and jumps too.



This is bomb 1, where you get the Flare Gun. Also a bit of story stuff. Those poor prisoners are in a tough situation! Also notice the boxing on the left with the ramp providing 1-way movement. There will be some sweet vehicle jumps off that ramp!



And here's a part of bomb 2, after you get the SAW. I've got a few vehicles lying around for sweet explosion action. You could just start shooting these guards or do some trickery with noise to get stealth kills - but there's a far better way to kill these guards stealthily... I'll let you figure that out on your own though

[bencelot]

BIG 8 MONTH UPDATE!!!


Weeeew I got lost in a land of dev and have been a bit lazy to update here. Oops!! I've been working very hard over the past 8 months though and have made some huge improvements if anyone is interested!


1) Firstly I changed the name of the game to Geneshift. This is the third time I've changed the name, but I'm happy with this one now I had to do this because typing "Mutant Factions" into google returned a whole bunch of old ugly screenshots, and I wanted to give a good first impression.

2) Secondly, I've made some delicious graphical improvements. The main one being adding 3D player and vehicle models. Sprites no more! The models are fully 3D, animated, and have diffuse and specular lighting as you move past lights. Gives a much nicer effect.

3) Thirdly, I've finished the singleplayer campaign. This took over a year to do and I basically just decided to do it on a whim one night. Had no idea it'd take this long.. but I'm glad it's done! All I'm doing now is polishing the story and making sure I fix all the typos in the text and stuff.

4) Fouthly, I made a new gameplay trailer! This is my first trailer to use music that I created myself, rather than having to get public music. Short and sweet. Check it!





5) Finally, I moved the game into a demo-system. I think is a necessary step for a successful launch of the game. I've got a nice vertical slice going in the demo that provides both singleplayer and multiplayer. I'm about 4 months from release now.. a bit nervous!

Anyway here are some new screenshots of how the game is looking today. I'm very happy with the rebranding to Geneshift just in time with the new screenshots.

Drive-by shooting into the Barn

Killing bad guys with a vehicle explosion chain-reaction

Sniping the Rebels in the new singleplayer campaign

My totally-not-staged bazooka shot in PvP combat

Ok more updates to come soon. In a few days I'm going to get back to making music!

[KevinTillman]

This game is coming along very nicely! I love everything your doing.

[bencelot]

Thanks man, much appreciated

Just a little update, I've started making more music for my game. It's really fun and a nice change of pace from the logic-based coding all day long. I'm using a sweet program called Renoise, which was reccommended to me because it's more "mathsy" and good for coders to learn. Lots of numbers. Anyway it feels very intuitive to me and looks like this:



Has anyone used Renoise before? I love it!

[bencelot]

Yay I'm excited to say that after 8 long years of working on this game, Geneshift is finally coming to Steam. I'm launching on the 27th of April, 2017. Feels a bit crazy for it to almost be over! (Who am I kidding.. I'm doing Early Access - you can never truly finish a game).

Anyway check out this cool trailer:


And the Steam Page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/308600/

I've now entered the marketing phase and wanted to share my main strategy for anyone who's about to do the same:
1) Find similar games to yours.
2) Search for them on youtube and see who's making videos on those game.
3) Get their emails and send them free Steam keys.
4)
5) Profit?! (hopefully)

I've just started this process but got a few videos made so far. I'll keep y'all updated on how it goes. Marketing is the one thing us indie devs neglect the most, so the more help we have doing this the better I think.

[io3 creations]

The trailer and gameplay looks good.

The only gameplay related issue I'm wondering about is driving at high speed.  I saw that GTA 2 was a reference but IIRC in that game when you drove faster, the camera zoomed out more to give you a better view.  But based on the trailer making certain turns would only be possible if you are familiar with the level.

[bencelot]

Thanks man, I appreciate the feedback. Many other people have pointed that out too, so I've made the camera zoom out when driving now. You're right I was certainly relying on map knowledge before, but now it should be easier for newbies

[Reefpirate]

At first I was surprised and frustrated that someone already took my Username... And then it said the e-mail was already in use too. I guess I signed up sometime between now and 2008?? I seem to vaguely remember playing a game similar to this one, but this version is definitely a lot more polished up.

Congrats and good luck on Steam!

[bencelot]

Hah yeah it's been up for a while. It first came out in 2009 as Subvein, and was later renamed to Mutant Factions, and finally Geneshift (I'm indecisive lol). I just checked and it looks like you signed up and made a forum post back in 2010. Long time.. Thanks for the continual feedback!

[Zireael]

Is there a demo I can check out?

[io3 creations]

Hah yeah it's been up for a while. It first came out in 2009 as Subvein, and was later renamed to Mutant Factions, and finally Geneshift (I'm indecisive lol).

To me, Geneshift sounds great! Mutant Factions could work but is kinda "generic" and Subvein could mean a few other things as well.  As Reefpirate mentioned, changing title could lead to recognition related issues but it's better before game release than after.  So, overall, it was worth it.