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[Madguy]

StreetsOfRogue.com

Twitter

Streets of Rogue is a rogue-lite about player choice, freedom, and anarchic fun. The game takes inspiration from fast-paced top-down rogue-lites like Binding of Isaac and Nuclear Throne, and adds free-form, experimentation-driven, emergent gameplay elements of RPGs like Deus Ex.

Free Alpha Available Now

Latest Update: September 29, Alpha 13

Download from the game's website

Gameplay Demonstration Video

I recently released a free alpha version of the game to my website in the hopes of getting some feedback.  Beyond bugs, balance and gameplay issues, I’d love to hear anyone’s suggestions for future content.  The game's world is super goofy and chaotic, and lends itself to having a wide variety of weird and wacky crap.  This, combined with the open-ended nature of the gameplay, means that if anyone has a suggestion for something cool they want to see in the game (items, character types, playfield objects, etc.), there's a very good chance I'll be able to add it!

What's the Gameplay Like?

Rather than taking place in a dungeon, the game is set in a functioning, procedurally generated city, where complex AI informs denizens from all walks of life, who are just trying to get by in their daily activities. In order to progress, the player will need to accomplish specific mission goals in any way they see fit through use of their special character traits, items, and the environment.

Will you play as a soldier who shoots first and asks questions later?


A stealthy scientist who uses chloroform and tranquilizer darts to silently take down the opposition?


A genial bartender who can talk his way past the most intimidating of guards?


Or how about a hyper-intelligent gorilla, rescuing other caged gorillas to form a small mobilized gorilla army?

My Goals for this Game

Open-Endedness, Freedom, and Emergent Gameplay

Basically, I want players to be able to play through this game however they want.  With a large number of options at your disposal for dealing with the game’s challenges, complicated AI patterns, and procedural generation, it’s inevitable that players will get themselves into all kinds of situations that I would have never dreamed of.

For example: Maybe you need to sneak past a group of rival gangsters, so you pay a street musician to create a distraction.  One of the gangsters spots you anyway and tells his friends, who all give chase while firing their pistols at you.  But one of their bullets hits a water fountain, creating an explosion of water that drenches a nearby soldier.  He fires his rocket launcher at the gangsters, turning a couple of them into piles of giblets, and spurring the others to fire back at him.  Rather than engage, you run past the carnage onward to your destination.  The rules that govern the world are constantly playing off each other in interesting and unpredictable ways.

Variety

I’m taking every available opportunity to add variation to as many aspects of the game as I can.  Every run will be completely different, never the same game twice, blah blah blah typical roguelike stuff.  The final game will have hundreds of items, around 40 character classes, 5-ish level varieties, and a whole bunch of quest types.

Progression

Much like other recent rogue-lites, Streets of Rogue is not a true “perma-death” game.  With each failed run, you’ll gain a little bit of progress in the form of unlocks for your home base.  Through your achievements, you’ll gain the ability to play as new character types, skip to higher levels of the city, go on “special” runs that change up the world (i.e. something like “every character in the game is drunk”.. I dunno, just an idea), begin the game with certain items, and other fun stuff.  I haven't added this progression system yet, but my hope is to have it implemented in some form within the next few months.

Fun

Whether you’re discovering new and unique treasures, blowing up buildings, or throwing a bacon cheeseburger through some guy’s window, I want you to feel a giddy joy when playing this game, like anything can happen in this virtual playground city.

Some gifs!

(Thanks Screenshot Daily!)

This Devlog

As of this posting, Streets of Rogue has been in development for nearly two years.  I’ve been meaning to start up this devlog for.. well, nearly two years!  But I fully intend to make up for it.  I’ll be detailing some of the game’s earlier development, and posting updates on a regular basis.

Thanks so much for checking out my game! <3 <3 <3 <3

[Madguy]

This is going to be the first in a series of posts about Streets of Rogue's last couple years of development...

Conception

Streets of Rogue initially came as something of a reaction to Wasteland 2’s first alpha in late 2013.  I’m been a big fan of the Fallout series since the first game was released.  My most standout memories are of visiting Junktown for the first time, running around town doing quests for people, finding a new companion, drinking at the bar, and ultimately teaming up with the sheriff to take out a corrupt casino owner.

So I loaded up Wasteland 2 in the hopes of finding similar experiences.  Then I was immediately hit with a nearly impenetrable wall of stats.  I tinkered around for a bit in the world, but found the game’s UI so cumbersome and the level of complexity so overwhelming for a first-time player that it actually gave me anxiety.  I’m sure InXile has made vast improvements to the game in the nearly two years since I played, but my initial reaction got me thinking: What if I could create a similarly open-ended, city-based world full of quests and RPG trappings, but get to the real core of what I personally like about these games in a much more streamlined, action-oriented sort of way.  I had also long been a fan of the roguelike genre and was currently playing a lot of Spelunky and Isaac, so hey, what if my game were also a rogue-lite along these same sort of lines?

I started envisioning scenarios that could potentially play out in a game like this, and there was one that stuck with me.  Let’s say the player has a mission to retrieve a piece of paper with a valuable formula from a science lab.  He could run in, shoot everyone and take the formula.  He could bribe the guard, walk in, stealthily tranquilize the scientist with a dart and take the formula.  He could poison the lab’s air filtration unit, causing the scientists to run out, at which point he could pickpocket the formula off a scientist.  He could hack a computer and open the doors of some caged gorillas, causing them to run out and beat up the scientists and allowing the player to grab the formula in the hullabaloo.  That one caused me giggle out loud, which meant I obviously had to make the game. (And by the way, it’s actually possible to do all of those things in the game right now!  Took nearly two years to get there, but it was worth it!)

Another big part why I wanted to make this game, is that I hadn’t seen another rogue-lite that tried to do this sort of freeform Deus Ex-ish gameplay.  Two years later, I still haven’t seen one.  I don’t really know why, either -- it seemed like a logical place to try and take the genre.  The closest example I can think of is Catacomb Kids, which is still a FAR different game from the one I’m making.  Really cool though, check it out!  And if you know of anything similar to SOR, please let me know!

I suspect that the lack of attempts is in part due to the fact that it’s really, really hard to pull off something like this.  The more freedom you give the player, the more complex things get for the programmer, and I wanted the player to have a LOT of abilities beyond combat.  Then, add in AI-based agents in a city environment who own property, have alliances, and are generally expected to act like human beings in a real(ish)-world environment and react appropriately to the player’s most edge-case-y actions.  Then add in all the randomness that comes with the roguelike genre, and things can get pretty hairy.

From a game design standpoint, it’s equally tricky to create this type of gameplay in a highly randomized world.  Right from the start, I knew that game balance was going to be a major issue.  And truth be told, this game is never going to have the carefully crafted level of balance that a lot of roguelikes do.  I’m not even sure if it’s possible.  Spend a bit of time in the game and you’ll see what I’m talking about.  Unless I can really pull off some miraculous feats of game design, SOR is always going to be on the messy side.  But I think that’s ok!  I want hardcore min-maxers to have fun figuring out ways to exploit the crap out of this game (which I’ll certainly attempt to alleviate with patches), and I want more casual players to have fun just messing around with the game’s systems and creating cool/interesting scenarios.

Anyways.  Streets of Rogue was initially meant to be a fun little side-project experiment that I could chip away at while developing my then-dream game, a big beautiful Metroidvania that may or may not ever be completed.  Within a half-year, SOR became my primary focus.

----

On an unrelated side-note, I just recently posted a few minutes of raw gameplay footage for PAX.  Check it out if you wanna!

[Malloy]

This needs a bump,

Great game man, spent a good hour playing it, love the diversity! Keep it coming xD
Are you going to go Greenlight?

[PaleBlueSock]

This game looks really cool, I'm interested in seeing how it turns out.
I don't actually have a windows machine to try it out on at the moment, but I'm planning on buying a new computer in the near future, so will try it out then hopefully.
Good luck for the project. 

[c023-DeV]

Hey!
Had a lot of fun playing! I think you are heading in a good direction.

Only problem I encountered was that the keyboard controls didn't work once I've pressed escape.

It's really worth a try TIG folks, don't be so shy!

[Madguy]

This needs a bump,

Great game man, spent a good hour playing it, love the diversity! Keep it coming xD
Are you going to go Greenlight?

Thanks for checking it out, glad you liked it!  Yeah it'll eventually be on Greenlight.  At the moment I'm doing a sort of slow rollout on letting people know about the game.  I haven't done any real promotion for it yet, and the game isn't even available on IndieDB , GameJolt, itch.io, etc., just my website.  Before I go heavy on that stuff, I want to make sure that I have a really representative vertical slice of game, and there's still a lot left to do.  I'll write about all this on the devlog as it happens, so stay tuned.  Greenlight will probably happen before mid-next year.  To anyone interested in getting notified about that stuff, there's a mailing list signup on my website (don't worry you won't get spammed, it's only for big important announcements).

This game looks really cool, I'm interested in seeing how it turns out.
I don't actually have a windows machine to try it out on at the moment, but I'm planning on buying a new computer in the near future, so will try it out then hopefully.
Good luck for the project. 

Thank you!  By the way, the game will eventually be on Mac/Linux assuming all goes well.  It's made in Unity so I don't imagine the port job will be terribly difficult, knock wood.

Hey!
Had a lot of fun playing! I think you are heading in a good direction.

Only problem I encountered was that the keyboard controls didn't work once I've pressed escape.

It's really worth a try TIG folks, don't be so shy!

Thanks!  I haven't encountered a bug like that before, where the keyboard controls just stopped working entirely.  I'd appreciate if you could help me narrow it down a bit.  Did you press Escape while you were playing the game to bring up the menu, and this is where the bug occurred?  Had you rebinded the controls at any point?  Did you switch from keyboard/mouse to gamepad controls at any point?  Are you able to reproduce the bug a second time?  No one's mentioned this to me yet, I wonder if it's some weird issue with Unity and your computer configuration...

[Madguy]

Version #1

The first version of the game was created with Construct 2, which I’d been using to create my Metroidvania for the past year.  I like Construct 2 a lot, and it was a great way for me to get back into game design having not done any real programming for about four years.  Unfortunately, it ended up not being ideal for this particular game, which I’ll elaborate on in a bit.

The original version in all its crappitude

There were two major elements of the game that I wanted to get working reasonably well before attempting to add gameplay: The artificial intelligence, and the basic level generation.  Having little experience programming AI, I began reading the book “Programming Game AI By Example”.  Admittedly I skimmed most of it, but the chapter on goal-driven agent behavior was particularly interesting to me, and ended up providing the basis for my game’s AI system.  I was quickly able to create a working script where agents could follow goals and subgoals based on environmental conditions and their own status.

For the level generation, I took inspiration from this article on Spelunky to create my levels from hand-crafted “chunks” that contained randomized elements.  This was a good fit for my game, as the city would need to have structures and other real-world elements that made sense.  Creating these elements entirely from procedural generation would have been a herculean task that still wouldn’t end up looking as good as something made by hand.

Throughout the first half of 2014, I continued to flesh out a bunch of systems, including the user interface, objects and items for the player to interact with, and a quest system.  At this point, I wasn’t making much of an attempt to create a fun “game” (very basic and unbalanced combat, crappy physics, etc.), but rather just something that functioned and had all of the core elements that I had originally envisioned.  Of which there were many.

This goes completely against a piece of advice that I see time and time again on game dev forums: Before embarking on a huge project, it’s a good idea to create small prototypes.  If something turns out to be a lot of fun and is well received by others, you can make that your huge project.  This seems like a very solid piece of advice.  Unfortunately, my concept for this game wouldn’t have allowed for me to create a quick prototype that came remotely close to representing the final gameplay.  That said, it was far, far too long into development that I actually had something that felt like a game rather than an AI experiment.  I probably should have spent some time ironing out some basic shooting, looting and progression mechanics to make the game at least somewhat playable and fun.  But, instead I spent a bunch of time grafting on new feature after new feature: animated menus, a full-blown trade system for the characters, and even a working online multiplayer component.  A lot of these things were later dropped.  Truth be told, I think I was scared to attempt to actually make the game “fun”, for fear that I wouldn’t be able to pull it off.  It would be nearly a year and a half into development before the game actually reached the point where I could even begin to consider it “fun”.  I don’t recommend developing this way, because that was a year and a half of worrying whether this big mess of a project was actually going to gel into something playable.

By mid-2014, I had completely dropped my Metroidvania and made Streets of Rogue my only game dev priority.  As I made headway on the game’s artificial intelligence and level generation, it became increasingly evident that HTML5 was perhaps not up to the task of running the game that was in my head.  I was having significant frame rate issues that seemingly no amount of optimization could solve in a way that didn’t force me to alter the gameplay in not-so-beneficial ways.  Having spent the past year and a half working with Construct 2 on two different games, I was very reluctant to start all over again with different tech.  But, that’s exactly what I ended up doing...

[Madguy]

Early Unity Development

In late summer 2014, I decided to suck it up and make the switch to Unity, for a few different reasons.  First of all, the whole performance thing.  Second, Unity’s plethora of export options -- console seemed like it could be a good fit for SOR, and this wouldn’t have been possible with Construct 2.  Third, I’d have the chance to work with tech that’s widely used within the games industry.  Even if the game completely flopped, being a Unity veteran certainly couldn’t hurt my future job prospects.  Fourth... Much as I like Construct 2 for gently easing me back into game programming, I believe that its visual scripting system is better suited to games that are less mechanically complex than SOR.  If you’re doing a straightforward action game, it’s fantastic.  But my scripts ended up getting pretty hairy pretty quickly.

I optimistically hoped to port the entire project to Unity in around 6 weeks, given that a lot of what I’d be doing was translating my original logic over to C#.  Of course, it ended up not being quite so simple -- Learning the intricacies of a new engine was a significant undertaking, and some systems such as the UI were completely rebuilt to take advantage of the new tool set.  In reality, it took around 3.5 months to get the game working as well as it had been before.  Which is to say, not particularly well.  Functional on a very basic level with a bunch of core systems in place, but lacking much in the way of content, balance, polish, or any real substance.  But at least the game’s performance was a whole lot better!

The early months of 2015 were spent dealing with major technical hurdles and slowly attempting to add that ever-elusive “fun” factor.  I gave myself my first deadline as well.  Coincidentally, IndieCade takes place less than a mile from where I live.  To be eligible for the show, I would need a build that did a decent job of representing the game by the end of May.

I've posted a couple of short videos that were recorded in early 2015.








About a month prior to the deadline, I did something that I had never once attempted during the duration of development: I spent a couple of hours actually playing the game -- and breathed a huge sigh of relief upon realization that the all of my systems were actually coming together and forming something relatively cohesive and fun.  The IndieCade build can be seen here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjgvgtLUbho

It looks rough compared to its current iteration and is pretty lacking in content, but is otherwise a not-so-terrible peek at the game’s direction.  The game’s physics and combat are quite functional, the player can receive and carry out missions of various types, and there are hints at the game’s open-ended design intentions, though most abilities at the player’s disposal are distinctly combat-oriented.

[Chris MacAdam]

Hey the devlog was a good read! I too made the switch from construct 2 to unity recently and I am having a great time with it.
All my projects have been bigger projects also and I haven't exactly finished a game and released it. (with any engine) I tend to get overwhelmed and start a new project.
Good luck though on your project! It seems pretty cool so far! I will have to try out the alpha sometime when I get the chance.

[Madguy]

Recent Development

Over the past six months, I’ve been expanding upon the rough base of the IndieCade build, adding content and heaps of polish.  Development over this period has been a highly iterative process.  In stark contrast to earlier development, I play the game frequently -- at least a few hours a week.  Every single time, I find a host of new bugs and gameplay issues.  Currently, I’m devoting most of my time to polishing what I have and working on new game systems (such as progression).  I won’t be adding much in the way of new content until all of these systems are fleshed out to a decent degree.

Streets of Rogue wasn’t an IndieCade pick, which was pretty expected honestly, because it’s not the sort of game that tends to do well in their selection process.  However, the feedback that I received was quite useful, and I was also given the opportunity to show the game at their IndieXChange event, which gives developers a 2-hour window to show their games amongst peers.

IndieXChange was the first time that SOR had been presented to anyone who wasn’t a close friend or family member, so this was initially a pretty nerve-racking experience for me.  Fortunately, the response that I received was extremely positive.  Of course, in that sort of environment, a positive response is to be expected.  But regardless, it was a huge relief that people seemed to understand what I was going for, and were able to pick up and play the game without a ton of guidance on my part.  Someone with tens of thousands of Twitter followers even tweeted about the game, which I took as a sign that the game needed to have some sort of web presence.

I quickly threw up a website and gameplay demonstration video.  As a result of my making the game public on distribute(), four or five YouTubers created videos about the game, including a French YouTuber whose video received a few thousand hits.  As of this writing, the bulk of people who have signed up for my mailing list and sent me feedback are from that territory, which is kind of cool.  I’ll have to get the game translated into other languages at some point.  I’ve learned a lot about how people interface with the game from watching all of these videos, and I look forward to more in the future.

Also of note, the game was recently selected as one of the winners of Taco Bell’s “Indie Game Garage” program.  Apparently, I have won “$500 in Taco Bell gift cards and have access to a private forum of gaming industry experts where you can gain valuable advice on bringing your game to life”.  I’m not sure what to expect from the second part of that, but admittedly I’m stoked about the prospect of this scenario occurring:

[CBStegeman]

Had a lot of fun playing this at Indiecade. Looking forward to seeing more progress. Awesome to see you're doing a devlog for it!

I'm not sure though if $500 in Taco Bell gift cards is a blessing or a curse.

[Madguy]

The Future

Core Features
As of this writing, there are still a few major systems that the game lacks.  While the core game loop is becoming fairly solid (with plenty of room for improvement), the macro game is nearly non-existent.  Once a level ends, a new and slightly more difficult level is generated.  That’s about it right now.  I have plans to add all of the usual progression-related trimmings that are typical of games of this type -- Multiple level varieties, tons of unlockable content, character progression, extra game modes and modifiers.  You’ll see the beginnings of this stuff in the next version that I release.  In addition, the game will have an actual storyline.  How it’s going to be told, I’m not entirely sure.  I definitely want to establish some kind of cohesive universe, even primary story ends up being light.

Content
Much of my development next year is going to be oriented toward greatly expanding the game’s content.  My processes for adding new items, characters, AI behaviors, level chunks, etc. have become very efficient at this point, and I plan to add new stuff at a rapid rate.  The amount of content that I have planned out is frankly kind of enormous, but I think it will be doable.  The nice thing about content creation is that it’s much easier to estimate the time that it will take than feature programming.  So if it’s looking like I won’t be able to pull off what I have planned in a reasonable timeframe, I can always scale back a bit.

Music and Sound Effects
Currently, all of the sound effects in the game are placeholder, and there is no music.  While I’ve created music for my games in the past, I don’t feel like my skills in this area are quite up to par.  So, I’ll be hiring a musician (or possibly more than one musician) to provide the soundtrack.  It’s something I’m taking very seriously.  Given that the game’s title is a play on Streets of Rage, I’d imagine that players will have high expectations of the music.  The musical style of that series may not be the best fit for the gameplay of Streets of Rogue, so I’d love to hear some ideas on what this game could sound like.

As for sound effects, I haven’t quite decided on how to handle this.  I’m open to the idea of bringing someone on to establish a general tone for the sound effects, and then handling the rest of them myself.  Given that I’ll be adding tons of new content that I may not have originally planned for, I’ll require new sound effects to be created on a moment’s notice, so I’ll definitely need to take at least partial responsibility for their creation.

Money Stuff
In regards to actually making money from SOR: I’d like to!  I started working on this full-time back in March after a round of layoffs at my employer.  Fortunately, I’d managed to save up enough money to self-fund the project for a decent amount of time.  In order to continue development,  the game will need to enter Early Access at some point.  Probably when I’m comfortable that gameplay is super-solid and the amount of content in the game is going to give players their money’s worth.  That’s still a ways off.  Kickstarter is a possibility, though it would mean taking a significant amount of time away from the game’s development in order to run a proper campaign.

Marketing
Beyond IndieXChange, some Twitter activity, and distribute(), this devlog is really the only place where I’ve made it known that this game exists.  I don’t plan to do any real promotion for the game until I’m confident that I have a killer "vertical slice".  I’m aware that a lot of devs hate the marketing aspect of gamedev.  Personally, I’ve taken a real interest in indie game marketing, and have been reading up on the subject for the past couple of years.  I have a lot of ideas for promoting Streets of Rogue, and I’ll definitely be writing about my experiences here in the hopes of helping others, so stay tuned!

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I believe that this game has a lot of potential, and I don’t plan on squandering it.  As the sole developer of this monster, I’ve got my work cut out for me to ensure that Streets of Rogue ends up the very best Streets of Rogue it can be, and reaches its intended audience.  Future updates to this devlog will be more oriented toward current happenings: Cool new stuff I’m working on, calls for suggestions, adventures in marketing.  It should get pretty interesting.

And please do check out the alpha and shoot some feedback my way -- and don’t be afraid to be harsh!  Now is the time for me to be fixing major flaws and making significant changes to the game's systems, before I start really building out my content.

[Madguy]

Alpha 5 of Streets or Rogue is out, after nearly 2.5 months of development since the last one.  As a result... here's an enormous changelog!  It's been way too long between build releases.  In the future, I'm going to try to make them a month apart tops.  I'd also like to find the time to update this DevLog more, but GAMES JUST TAKE SO MUCH TIME TO MAKE  

Grab it if you wanna

If you played any of the previous builds, I'd recommend reading at least the "Big Features" part.

Big Features

• Added Experience system.  Player is awarded skill points for various actions.  Upon gaining a level and reaching the end of the floor, player is given a choice of Traits that improve the character.
• Added various related pieces of UI: Traits menu, on-screen Traits display, Skill Points meter
• Added “Level Challenges”, that currently occur every third level (though this will change in the future):

• • Riot!
• • Periodic outdoor radiation blasts
• • Bombs are dropping
• • Find and disarm all bombs before time runs out
• • Killer Robot hunts you down (sadly didn’t quite make this build, I need to put in graphics)

• Added support for new quest types (though most do not appear in-game yet, I need to add them  to existing content):
• • Operate switch
• • Operate multiple switches
• • Destroy multiple objects
• • Destroy an object and retrieve an item from it
• • Give a person a status effect
• • Plant an item
• Added Killer Robot character class

Partially Implemented, but don’t appear in this build

• Added new level generation method to create new “dungeon-like” levels to add variety
• Added support for levels with giant holes instead of border walls
• Added scripting controls for Cinematics
• Added scripting for Tutorial
• Added scripting for triggering Unlocks
• Added various Unlock menus
• Added some small features to the Home Base

Other Additions and Changes

Graphics

• New environment art added (shown below)
• Added dizzy stars when person is knocked out
• Improved fire effect
• Added flamethrower effect
• New teleportation particle effect
• Improved explosion effect
• Improved melee hit particle effect
• Improved blood particles
• Improved object destruction particles
• Improved bullet hit particles
• Certain particle effects are now capable of scaling up or down
• Screen shake for melee hits is now based on the strength of the hit
• Bouncer now wears a plum-colored suit

UI / Controls

• Added scroll bar to stats screen
• Added level title animation
• Added yes/no prompt when choosing to reset control bindings
• Added yes/no prompt when switching between keyboard and gamepad for player 1
• Added “Protip” text
• Added link to Devlog on Main Menu
• Added tooltips instructions for combine-able items
• Added “Optional” text to optional missions on quest sheet
• New animation for opening Mission interface
• Added more Protips
• Changes to item descriptions to make it more clear what they do
• Rearranged some of the information in the stats screen

Combat

• Melee combat works a bit differently: People are pushed slightly forward when performing most melee attacks, but their mobility is limited during the attack
• Added ‘freeze frames’ during combat to emphasize impact of hits

Level Generation

• Level generator finds more varied quests for the player

Sound

• Added ducking effect to explosion sound effects (preliminary)

Gameplay

• Using more tranquilizer darts on someone reduces the time until they pass out
• Breakable items like syringes only break when hitting people and not walls/objects
• Some people may be constrained to a smaller area when wandering around their property
• All locked doors can now be opened from the inside
• People are knocked back further when they die from gunshots
• When a melee weapon breaks, the player will not automatically switch to a projectile weapon
• Player can operate objects while under cardboard box
• People can now walk through small chairs.  They also take less damage to destroy.
• Workers have lower chance of wearing Hard Hat
• ‘Follow Me’ is now the first command on people’s context menus after you tell them to stand guard

Bug Fixes

UI / Controls

• Fixed issue where controls would stop functioning after entering menu on some PCs (#%#@ this one)
• Fixed issue where right-clicking might activate the wrong item slot (#%#@ this one too)
• Gamepad is more responsive when using right-trigger attacks
• Accept button on character select screen is a slightly different size
• Inventory items no longer being placed in toolbar slots at times when they shouldn’t be
• Player can no longer try to combine objects in chests using gamepad
• Camera no longer makes unnecessary movements when opening quest sheet from questgiver
• NPC shop inventory is no longer partially blocked by tooltip when using gamepad
• Pressing ‘Q’ on the character select screen no longer causes the selection box to disappear
• Fixed issue where interacting with signs would sometimes open and close the text very quickly
• Clicking Read This background no longer closes this screen
• If the player is holding down a direction and opens a menu, menu won’t immediately select in that direction
• Menu animations play more smoothly
• Gamepad selection boxes now disappear while interface animations are playing
• Fix for graphical glitches when closing quest sheet
• Text now fades in and out when opening and closing Sign UI
• ‘Completed’ text on Missions screen now has proper lime color
• Item slot “white flash” animations now appear behind tooltips
• Fixed issue where tooltip would flash for a second after throwing an item and re-entering inventory with gamepad
• Changed proportions of tooltip titles so that they could fit better
• Fixed issue on Character Select where player 1 couldn’t select a character that player 2 had chosen

Graphics

• Fix for object shadows not always appearing on the correct side
• Animation for people growing or shrinking plays more smoothly
• Screen shakes properly on shotgun deaths
• Objects stop “lighting up” once you interact with them
• People have correct leg color instead of all legs being grey
• When doors are destroyed by fire, they no longer leave a shadow in their wake.
• Rate of “red flashing” on objects like grenade has been slowed a bit
• Items no longer spin briefly when knocked around

Playfield Objects

• If a door is opened while on fire, it will be destroyed
• Gas can no longer affect people through walls

Items

• Armor now stays on player after they have died
• Melee Durability Doubler’s effect is no longer negated when picking up a new weapon
• Can no longer combine silencer and tranquilizer gun
• Melee durability loss is affected by the size of the person
• Player no longer takes off Cardboard Box when left-clicking outside of inventory
• Active traps are no longer set off by dead bodies
• Using chloroform hankie or sticky glove on sleeping people no longer hits the bed as well
• Cigarettes no longer appear in reward chests
• Boombox and Friend Phone are now stackable items

Status Effects / Traits

• Putting acid in air vents no longer causes dead people to spout a geyser of blood
• Acid status effect text has been corrected
• Status effects caused by gas from air vent and syringe now cause the syringe to be identified
• Fixed issue where player could gain status effect permanently by exiting a level with 0 time left
• No longer possible for attacks to do 0 damage.  Must do at least 1
• Acid status effect text does not remain on the screen anymore

Gameplay

• Correct dialog appears when player can’t open a door
• Can now end the game while invincible

Quests

• Fix for quest rewards sometimes disappearing if player has full inventory.
• Correct player is awarded item when completing quests through questgiver
• Improvement to how items that the player must retrieve are distributed on quests
• Improvement to randomness in quest generation

Artificial Intelligence

• People return to their buildings properly after being gassed if the player is far away
• Fix for people not always getting angry when you hit them
• Fix for people running to windows after a door was opened
• Fix for people not always being able to follow the player through locked doors
• Fix for people staying outside their home after fire had gone away
• Fixed issue where clones of the player sometimes wouldn’t have a working brain
• Knocking on doors no longer wakes up sleeping people in other apartments or houses
• Fix for slaves not always following directions from the player
• Fix for party members sometimes refusing to knock on people’s doors when commanded to attack
• Fix for errors occurring with party members when player fights someone behind a locked door
• Fixed edge case where people might not notice that you attacked an aligned person if you knocked them out of view quickly
• Fixed issue where people might think you were inside a building if you got close to the window

Level Generation

• Objects that could block the player’s path are no longer spawned
• Slaves can traverse between levels
• When bringing followers to a new level, they no longer spawn directly on top of you
• Fix for freeze if the player died immediately after entering a level
• Added a system that prevents weird issues from occurring when upgrading to new versions of the game

Performance

• Dozens and dozens of optimizations to make the game run better!  Severely cut down on stuttering!
• Fixed some nasty memory leaks and made memory usage more efficient.

Other

• Alphas will be built for 64-bit Windows from now on

[/list]

-------------------------------------


New Media

I've been working with an artist to help spruce up the environmental art.  This is still a bit preliminary as the tile set for this area isn't complete yet, and I'll probably do a bunch more fiddling around with it, but it's a taste of things to come.

Before

After

Before

After

I've also posted a 1-minute "highlight reel" featuring some of the more amusing things that can happen in the game:





The video was made for an upcoming exhibition at which I'll be showing the game off, but I'm embargoed from talking about just yet.  More details to follow!

[Madguy]

A few things!

Just announced today, Streets of Rogue is going to be at GDC in the Indie Megabooth next month!  Stop by and say hello if you wanna.

-----------

Here is a preliminary version of the new Streets of Rogue logo. I'm not done tuning this by a longshot, so if anyone has suggestions as to what I could do to improve this or make it more standout, I would love to hear them!

I'm looking for a sound designer

Want to help out making sound effects for this game?  Shoot me a message if you're interested.

[Madguy]

I've been a little nose-to-the-grindstone lately preparing for GDC.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, at this point I'm basically holding off on creating any new content for the game (locations, items, character classes, etc.) or making any real stabs at balance until I feel that the base game is solid.  My priorities for GDC have been primarily bug fixes, aesthetics, and features that make it easier to play the game, such as the two "Big Features" listed below.  Lots of new art has been added recently, and the next build will hopefully have a brand new set of sound effects to replace the current placeholders.

GDC should be interesting because I'll have a fully functional dual-gamepad 2-player mode available to try.  I haven't had a chance to do much testing on this because I don't always have people around to play co-op with.

Post-GDC, it'll be back to working on the last of the really huge/important/difficult bits of code (for now at least), and hopefully I'll be full-swing on content creation by May.

Anyways, here's the changelog for the newly released Alpha 6.

Check it out

Big Features

• Inventory Auto-Sorting
• Objects in the world that can be combined with an inventory item will glow green

Partially Implemented, but don’t appear in this build

• Twitch Integration - Added special vote-based events for Twitch streamers
• Added ‘Demo Mode’ for use at conventions
• Added Unity Analytics custom events

Other Additions and Changes

Graphics

• Lots of new wall and floor textures added
• New fonts added in various spots
• First pass on new logo
• Ghost and Hologram are less transparent
• Glow effect on objects and people when targeting with a non-weapon has been altered
• Melee kills now have a chance to trigger slow motion

UI / Controls

• Added small delay before you can press Accept on Traits screen so the player doesn’t accidentally choose something too quickly
• Added copyright information to title screen
• Mission Complete notification stays on the screen longer
• Status text appears when leveling up

Combat

• Modifications to melee combat timing
• It is now slightly harder for enemies to gang up on you
• Added subtle auto-targeting when performing melee attacks

Level Generation

• Level generator finds more varied quests for the player

Level Generation

• Wall generation system now allows for variation in wall tiles

Gameplay

• Slavemasters are more vigilant about investigating noises
• In coop mode, dead players do not receive skill points
• Rioters have a lower chance of dropping items
• Signs at the beginning and end of levels do not appear past level 1
• ‘Friend of the Common Folk’ trait only makes people “Loyal” with you instead of “Aligned”
• Light that emits from dropping bombs is brighter
• Bombs take slightly longer to fall from the sky
• Added ability to threaten people in Retrieve Item quests

Bug Fixes

UI / Controls

• On Trait menu in coop mode, “Player 1” no longer appears over text
• If you are teleported while throwing something or using an item such as laptop to target something, you will stop doing those things
• In gamepad mode, target emits from player properly when telling a person where to go
• In gamepad mode, thrown item target emits from player properly
• Fix for player being able to skip Trait Selection if they press Accept too quickly
• Quest Completed notification waits until Quest Sheet has closed to appear
• Fix for camera trouble in coop split-screen when talking to questgiver
• Performance fix for opening scrolling menus
• Fix for people appearing on quest sheet when they aren’t supposed to
• Fix for colored lines appearing on quest sheet when they aren’t supposed to
• Fix for player 2 buttons not always appearing the correct size
• Gamepad users can now press Interact to tell a person where to stand guard
• Switching screen resolution in full-screen mode works properly now
• Fix for context buttons not appearing when there were too many options
• When using gamepad, cursor text now appears when viewing items
• Fixed inventory issue where dragging items onto other items in the toolbar sometimes resulted in a message that the inventory was full
• Fix for chest inventory slots sometimes appearing red
• Weapon switching now uses delta time properly
• Disallowed player from placing items into chests, since this has no purpose
• Fix for interfaces not opening properly the first time they were opened in coop mode
• Target fades out properly when returning to player in 2-player mode
• “LightAligned” changed to “Sorta Aligned”
• Fixed issue where Player 2 skill points animation was appearing behind minimap

Graphics

• Slow motion does not stop if a large notification appears while interface is on the screen
• Weapons appear above headpieces rather than beneath them

Playfield Objects

• Corrected hitbox for north/south-facing shelves
• Generator can’t be interacted with when it is set to explode

Items

• Using Hypnotizer Mark I on people who are annoyed at you will now make them become friendly
• Fix for thrown money not having correct graphic when thrown using gamepad

Status Effects / Traits

• Acid gas no longer gibs people extremely quickly
• Nicotine is no longer a permanent effect

Gameplay

• Bombs will cease dropping when both players have exited a level
• If the player has just chloroformed or stolen from someone, the melee hitbox will not connect with other things

Stats / Unlocks

• Player now receives Skill Points after breaking an an object that includes stealable items, and picking them up
• Player can no longer gain Skill Points by stealing from aligned agents’ property
• Gorillas with Charismatic trait are now welcomed by shopkeepers

Quests

• “Find Bombs” quests will always have 3 bomb locations now

Artificial Intelligence

• People will always get angry if you open “Do Not Enter” doors
• People will not get angry at you for hacking doors open unless you are in view at the time
• People in your party won’t chase down enemies as far as they currently do, they’ll stick closer to you
• Fix for alliance confusion when you make an ally angry at you
• Killer Robot stops movement when you exit the level
• Fix for issue where people who are spawned facing someone they hate would not immediately attack the person
• People do a proper search after finding a body instead of just ignoring it
• People who the player rescues no longer take reduced damage from the player after leaving their party
• People are more likely to be distracted by hologram
• People have an easier time attacking people who aren’t yet aware of their presence

Level Generation

• Safes are never empty, they will always have an item in them

[/list]

[Madguy]

Headed off to GDC tomorrow, so I'm posting the build that I'll be presenting there.  The biggest new addition comes in the form of a whole bunch of real, non-placeholder sound effects, courtesy of Craig Barnes.

Check it out (Edit: Original build had a showstopper, it's fixed now)

If you're planning on coming to GDC, be sure to stop by the Indie Megabooth and say hey!

---------------

In other news, Twitch streamer Swiftor recently played my game in front of an audience of a couple thousand people, mostly teenagers I'm assuming:



I come in around 8 minutes into the broadcast (I had some technical hiccups).  Swiftor was on the judging panel of the Indie Game Garage competition that I was in a few months ago, and he's been doing streams of the various winning games.  Twitch streaming is a bit of a new world to me, and this was a pretty interesting experience.  Unbeknownst to me prior to a few weeks ago, there are actually ways to receive input from a Twitch chat into your game, which allows you to create votes, hold small contests, etc.  I experimented a little with this by allowing users to vote on the different 'Traits' that the player would be awarded at the end of a level.  Twitch is something I really want to embrace going forward, as I'm sure there are a whole bunch of fun ways I could allow viewers to interact with games being played.

---------------

Here's the Alpha 7 changelog:

Big Features

• Added controller rumble (option to turn it off is coming!)
• Added Killer Robot levels
• Implemented Flip All Switches missions
• Implemented Destroy Object to Retrieve Item missions
• Implemented Plant Item missions

Other Additions and Changes

Graphics

• Many more hairstyles are now visible while the person is wearing a hat
• Modifications to floor and wall textures to increase readability
• Rug color is now randomized
• Player position on map screen flashes to be more visible
• Changed one of the Money graphics
• Added Falling Bomb graphics
• Changed Sandwich graphic a bit
• Changed the time bomb images for Find Bombs quest
• Holograms are now ‘Hologram Bigfoot’
• New particle effects for Shrink Ray and Tranquilizer Gun
• Created effect for when player fails in “Find Bombs” quest
• Boombox spouts out music notes
• Added Dancing animation
• Added ‘Switch’ object graphics
• Added Wastebasket graphics
• Ghost has been made more visible

UI / Controls

• Proper support for Xbox One controllers and a number of others
• Player can now access the Main Menu after the game has ended
• Player indicator arrow appears when a player turns into a ghost, or teleports as a ghost
• Player indicator arrow appears for longer when players break into split screen
• On character select, player 2 default characters have different hair color, style, etc. than player 1
• Both players have control on Main Menu

Sound

• Added a whooooole bunch of new sound effects

Gameplay

• Changed hitboxes on some weapons
• When a player dies in coop mode, they are teleported to the other player

Bug Fixes

UI / Controls

• Fixed issue where player might attack twice when pressing RT very slowly
• Fix for triggers not working when multiple Xbox 360 controllers were plugged in at the same time.  As a result of this fix, I needed to remove the option to reconfigure the triggers.
• Can no longer press interface buttons while quest notifications are on the screen
• Fix for thrown items going to wrong location the first time something is thrown
• No longer possible for game to unfreeze on Map screen after Level Feeling notification
• Fix for hang that occurred if player entered main menu during freeze frame
• When two Xbox 360 controllers are plugged in, players 1 and 2 are associated with the correct controllers
• Fix for camera focusing on wrong player when player 2 dies and player 1 equips a thrown item
• Fix for context buttons on objects floating to wrong locations during camera movements
• ProTip text uses different font
• Fix for coop camera focusing on player who had been gibbed
• Fix for coop camera focusing on player who had exited the level
• Fix for non-stackable items stacking on top of each other despite taking up 2 inventory spaces
• Fix for yellow line on quest sheet not disappearing after completing questgiver-based quests
• Fix for item price appearing in wrong spot when using voucher
• Fix for exploit where player could drop voucher while talking to shopkeeper and get free items

Graphics

• Corrected Steel Wall Top texture to not be Wood Wall Top texture
• Shelves are facing proper direction when facing away from walls
• Explosions do not slow down the game when the player is far enough away

Playfield Objects

• When walls near doors and windows are destroyed, the door/window is also destroyed

Items

• No longer possible to hit the hologram
• Spilled items are no longer duplicated when players die in coop mode
• Items no longer do damage when thrown at people

Status Effects / Traits

• Correct number of HP is taken away when knocking out people who are aligned
• When players wake up after being knocked out, their health bar does not read ‘0’
• When players wake up after being knocked out, dizzy stars disappear

Gameplay

• In coop, bombs are no longer dropped near ghost player, only the living player

Quests

• No longer possible to complete missions after death
• Free Slave quests do not automatically fail during riots

Artificial Intelligence

• When people are transfixed by a noise, they no longer lose focus occasionally
• People react more appropriately when you shoot their property
• Fix for people sometimes not getting angry after being hit with tranq dart
• Fix for issue where opening a door with a detonator remotely wouldn’t free people from prison

Sound

• Fixed a number of issues relating to how sounds are played

[/list]

---------------

Giant slew of new images

And a few gifs

[Madguy]

Belated GDC Wrap-Up

Been meaning to sit down and write this for like a month, but here it is finally!

This year was my first GDC, and my first time showing Streets of Rogue at an event in any major capacity.  It was interesting, useful, fun, and maybe just a tad bit tiring.  I wanted to share some of my experiences for anyone who's thinking of showing their game for the first time.  And don’t worry, I’ll try to be concise about it!

How I Got In
Originally, I had applied to be a part of the PAX East Indie "Minibooth", which is a lower-cost alternative to the Megabooth.  I received an email in late January telling me essentially "we're going to put you in the GDC Megabooth instead", which was perfectly fine by me, as I am based out of Los Angeles.

Expenses
The booth, PC, monitor, accessories, and All Access GDC pass were all free, thanks in part to a sponsorship from Intel.  My money for this trip went toward the plane ride, Muni fare, meals, snacks, water, tylenol, extra equipment for the booth, business cards (I gave away around 400), t-shirts for myself and my partner, and posters.

The Megabooth Setup
Here's a picture of what my booth looked like.

The booths were located on the third floor of the Moscone Center West Hall, where a number of talks were being held.  Throughout the show, I saw a fairly consistent stream of foot traffic, and 90% of the time there was at least one person at my booth.  The other booths around me seemed to be having similar luck.

Manning the Booth
I'm the only full-time team member working on Streets of Rogue, and thus the only person available to work the booth full-time.  My sound designer Craig was also at GDC, so thankfully he was able to swap in occasionally when I needed to grab lunch or go to a meeting.  Overall, I ended up standing at my booth for around 35 hours total, and probably talked to more people than I have in the past year.

Physical Fatigue
The first day of the conference, I didn't eat lunch.  This was a remarkably poor decision, as I ended up feeling dead beat by the end of the day despite occasional snacking on nuts and granola bars.  I also forgot to bring a water bottle.  No bueno.  Don't do that.  I felt a lot better on the subsequent days when I stopped neglecting my physical needs.

As I found out rather quickly, standing all day can take a toll on your feet.  Specifically, my heels.  Maybe next time I’ll try some Dr. Scholls or something.

I found myself gradually lowering my vocal tone throughout the show.  As it turns out, talking in my normal tone for too long causes my throat to get sore.  Lemon tea is an excellent remedy, which was fortunately free every morning of the show.

The Crowd
By and large, the people who visited my booth were universally friendly and supportive.  I got a lot of great critical feedback on the game as well, which has definitely helped me to shape the game over the past month since GDC ended.  I am told that the crowds at more public events like PAX tend to be harsher and less tactful, which makes me glad that GDC was the first opportunity I've had to show the game to a large number of people.

(A word to the wise/those who want to make friends: Critical feedback is best sandwiched in compliments.  Don't be Overly Negative Guy/Gal, nobody likes that, and fortunately I only got one of those the entire show.)

I also got to meet a number of people whose games I was familiar with.  That always gives me a weird, minor "starstruck" feeling.  Watching a few people play my game for a full 45 minutes and realizing "oh crap, I actually know your work!" is a pretty cool thing.

Connections
I met publishers, PR agencies, potential partners like Humble and IndieBox, a guy with no business card who was curious if I would outright sell my game to him, lots of musicians, some artists, very few SFX people, and only one writer.  Having decent writing in a game can make a huge difference!  Why aren't there more writers out hustling at GDC?

The Press
Members of the press are easily recognizable due to their red badges.  I didn't spot a ton of press throughout the course of the show, but when I did I always made it a point to try and grab them if they appeared to be moseying on by the booth.  Game Informer ended up including me in an article on indie games at GDC, so I suppose my efforts weren't in vain!

The Rest of GDC
Sadly, I didn't get much of an opportunity to explore the rest of GDC, since I was manning the booth the entire time.  I didn't get to attend any talks, but I don't consider this a major loss since I was able to watch them online later on.  It might have been cool to see some of the more spectacular booths (I heard the VR booths in particular were pretty badass), but duty called!  Perhaps most disappointingly, I barely got any time to check out the other Megabooth booths and meet the developers, despite the fact that they were practically (sometimes literally) right next to me.

Lodging
While a lot of developers stay in "Game dev hostels" near the conference, I stayed with a friend who was a half-hour Muni ride away from the show.  I never felt like I was as "in the know" about after-hours goings-on as many of the attendees, but frankly after talking with people all day and being a somewhat enormous introvert, I wasn't in the mood to do much after the show aside from hang out with my long-time SF friends.  Everyone tells me that the parties are great for networking.  Of course, so is having lengthy conversations with dozens of people each day at a booth, so I don’t feel like I missed out TOO too much!

High Point
Any time I got to put a face and voice to someone whose games I'd played or articles I'd read in the past.  Like I said... starstruck.

Low Point
Someone stole the $12 bag of nuts I'd purchased.  On the other hand, they were pretty fatty.  So it's probably a net positive.

Things I learned from watching people play Streets of Rogue

• In a show environment, people are really, really inclined to murder everything in my game, even when characters are minding their own business.
• People don't know LB and RB from LT and RT.  I eventually ended up saying R1 and R2.
• Many people didn't know the word 'rap', as in 'rap on window'.  This was maybe the biggest surprise of the entire show.
• No one wants to play as the doctor.  Everyone wants to play as the gorilla.
• A good chunk of people have still never heard of roguelikes.
• Throwing items in this game is wayyy too hard with a controller, which led to me removing the feature entirely.
• The in-game interface needed a bunch of work, which is my worst nightmare because code-wise it's sort of a mess.  So that's how I've spent the past two weeks.
• People either think the 'screen splitting into two' sequence in co-op mode is really well designed, or really badly designed.  It's been tweaked a bit.
• Most asked question: “When’s it coming out?”  No surprise there.  Also, I don’t know the answer.
• Least asked question: "What engine are you using?"  No I’m just kidding, this was the second most asked question.  Next time I should just say QBasic non-jokingly, and really mess with people.
• Barely anyone asked about the AI, despite it being really, really complicated and having to take into account a ridiculous number of scenarios.  I guess that means it's working well?
• No one wants to use headphones.  They put people in a little "bubble" away from the outside world, which can make them uncomfortable.  I just put the monitor’s speakers on low volume.
• The title of the game and tagline (“The world’s only RPG roguelike action stealth shooter brawler co-op megagame”) attracted a bunch of people.  Never let an opportunity to show people your “hooks” pass you by.

Overall, I’m really happy with what I consider to be an incredibly valuable experience.  A big thanks to the Indie Megabooth for making this possible.  And if you’ve got any questions about anything I’ve written here, feel free to ask!

[Madguy]

New build available!  This one has a ton of fixes and improvements (like 150+) based on feedback that I got at GDC -- especially on the interface.

Check it out

---------------

Here's the Alpha 9 changelog:

Big Features

• Significant changes to interface animations and on-screen placement of interface elements
• Rebindable controls are back in the game
• Ability to throw normal items (not weapons like grenade) has been removed from the game due to this being too tricky to pull off properly, particularly with the gamepad.  Adjustments have been made to the interface to compensate.
• Removed “Item Menus” from gamepad interface.  Pressing Interact will now immediately use that item instead of bringing up a menu.  RT/R2 is now used to drop items from interface.
• If the player holds down the Interact button, information about all of the people on the screen is displayed.
• In coop mode, minimap is off by default.  It can be toggled by holding Interact.

Other Additions and Changes

Graphics

• NPCs who are turned invisible are now actually invisible instead of being transparent

UI / Controls

• D-Pad can be used on Main Menu, Character Select, Object Context Menus, and Scrollable Menus
• Added word bubbles for when people talk
• “Canceled!” text appears when the player fails at Operating (i.e. lockpicking, poisoning air vent, etc.), and “Success!” appears when successful
• Placed small delay on being able to press context buttons when they are opened to prevent people from accidentally pressing them
• When speaking with Mission Giver, other missions appear less prominent on the Mission Sheet
• Completed or Failed missions appear less prominent on the Mission Sheet than other missions
• When a mission is failed, the player is told exactly why.
• When targeting using an item or person (Laptop -> Hack, Gangster -> Attack, etc.), a verb describing the action appears near the target
• Items that can be combined with other items are now combined by “using” that item and targeting a second item, instead of dragging and dropping an item onto another item.
• Improved UI for Operating Bar
• Smarter camera movement
• In coop mode, interface is better represented by different colors for the different players
• Added keyboard mode indicator to show how far an item can be thrown
• When transitioning from split-screen to full-screen, player indicator arrows tween from the center of the screen to their respective player to help players get their bearings better
• If the player tries to drag an item into their inventory when it is full using the mouse, the item will be dropped rather than the player stating that their inventory is full
• When the player has a key or safe combination, its associated door or safe will glow yellow instead of green
• When rescuing people, their text changes to ‘Escort to Entrance’ to make it more obvious what you’re supposed to do
• Split-Screen Only mode now works properly
• Player can also choose to have no split-screen at all in coop mode.  When player 2 gets far enough away from player 1, they are teleported closer to them.

Gameplay

• Removed context buttons from bed for the time being
• Slaves from the same pen are aligned with each other
• When a Giant hits a wall or object with a melee attack, they object will be destroyed
• People are slightly less vigilant about detecting you under cardboard boxes
• It is now possible to score ‘Kill’ skill points by poisoning people through gas
• ‘You Can Go’ is now ‘Dismiss’
• ‘Not Seen’ bonus has been changed to ‘No One Alerted’
• Skill points gained for kills now take into account whether the person was an ‘innocent’
• ‘Innocents Killed’ is now tallied in your stats
• If people are aligned, you can ask them for mission items, Keys, and Safe Combinations directly, and they will give them to you.
• Cologne now acts more like Charismatic, and doesn’t allow you to enter heavily guarded buildings without invoking people’s anger
• EarWarp Whistle makes people completely deaf, instead of allowing them to hear nearby noises
• Timers for radiation blast and bomb countdown continue after the player dies
• Play can bring more than 3 party members to a new stage
• Item throwing distances now work on a per-item basis
• Rage Poison lasts for 30 seconds instead of infinitely
• When Rage Poison is used by the player, control is taken away and AI controls the player for the duration of the Rage Poison’s effect
• Party members follow behind you at a greater distance
• Key and Safe Combination are now stackable
• Limited the types of items that you can give to party members to weapons, armor and consumables
• Empty chests become non-interactable
• Clone Machine can now clone throwable weapons
• When people are Enraged, they explore until they find someone to fight
• Questgivers will prioritize talking to you over other things like fleeing danger
• Explodable items will now explode when used in conjunction with Killer Thrower pills

Bug Fixes

UI / Controls

• Fix for objects not appearing highlighted if  one player exits Targeting mode while the other is still in it
• Gamepad target can no longer stay stuck on the screen after the player becomes a ghost
• Control instructions at the beginning of the game read properly now
• Important character dialogue can no longer be preempted by other dialogue
• Fix for cursor becoming permanently green when commanding a party member to attack
• Players cannot speak to people when the other player is commanding that person to attack, walk somewhere, etc.
• People do not appear highlighted when they are being commanded by the player, since they cannot be interacted with until the “commanding” stops
• Fix for player 2 being able to control player 1’s menu selections in coop mode when player 1 was using keyboard
• Fix for certain icons not appearing when both players are using gamepad
• Character Select Menu controls cannot be rebound
• Game Over Menu controls cannot be rebound
• Scrolling Menu controls cannot be rebound
• Pressing ‘E’ on Character Select menu chooses the currently selected character
• Correct keyboard prompts appear on the Game Over screen when playing coop mode where Player 1 is using the keyboard
• Correct keyboard prompts appear on end-level Stats menu
• No longer possible to press Trait Selection buttons multiple times, or press other buttons after trait has been selected
• Fixed positioning of yellow line on Mission screen
• Fix for lines on Missions screen sometimes staying after screen was closed
• Mouse no longer highlights slots that it’s not supposed to
• Take All button is highlighted properly
• Added better color highlighting for buttons
• Fix for attack trigger not working as effectively as it had been in previous builds
• Cannot assign nonexistent items to toolbar slots
• Fix for slow motion sometimes occurring after mission completion in coop mode
• Player cannot go through “End Game” process after game has ended
• Fixed a case where the game wouldn’t be paused on the main menu sometimes if you had been cycling through weapons
• No longer possible to throw a hazardous item so close to you that you are immediately harmed by it (like Banana Peel or Bear Trap)
• Fix for melee weapon amount sometimes displaying as 0
• Fix for Attack sometimes not working after coming back from minimizing game
• Fix for game returning to full-speed when it was supposed to be in slow-motion when returning from the main menu
• The amount of time that “talking text” stays on the screen now takes slow motion into account, so it won’t stay on the screen for longer than normal
• Camera now zooms in as the game starts in coop mode
• Fix for object graphic not appearing properly for Plant Item missions
• On character select screen, players start with different characters selected instead of both selecting the Soldier
  
• Improved proximity between cursor text and cursor
• Better algorithm for finding the size of the Context Buttons
• Gamepad no longer vibrates when radiation blast occurs after player has died
• Fix for camera speed being too fast for player 1 if player 2 finished level first
• Fix for many settings not being saved between sessions
• Fixed an issue that could prevent people from performing melee attacks if the game believed that the mouse cursor was over the interface

Graphics

• Corrected small visual glitch with green glowing objects
• When lots of people are bunched up next to each other, their lighting won’t appear as bright
• People’s talking animation does not slow down during slow motion

Playfield Objects

• Fix for slot machines never breaking
• Player can no longer rap on windows from the inside
• If bars next to a door are destroyed, the door will also be destroyed
• Counters no longer stay in “highlighted” state when interacting with a person behind them
• Player stops interacting with door if someone else opens the door
• When melee weapons hit objects and walls, particle effects now emanate from the weapon’s position instead of the object’s central position

Items

• Resurrection Shampoo is no longer used when a player wakes up after being knocked out
• Items no longer go flying all over the place if a player is killed, resurrected, and killed again
• Haterator now works 100% of the time
• Fix for items being duped when equipped sometimes
• Game Over screen no longer appears when a player has used Resurrection Shampoo
• Slave Helmet Remote no longer drops from a player if they accidentally blow themselves up
• Fixed issue where player would sometimes not pick up an item from the ground
• When people are spawned into the game during gameplay, they no longer automatically have starting armor as the player does (for example, the Soldier Helmet)
• Descriptions are no longer missing for Slave Helmet and Soldier Helmet
• Fix for Food and Ammo converters not converting Armor items properly
• Mission items can no longer be cloned
• Food and Ammo Processors don’t consume an entire stack of thrown weapons
• When an item is added to your inventory through the use of another item (Banana Peel, Food Processor) and there is no room for that item, it is dropped on the ground.

Status Effects / Traits

• Players no longer lose their entire inventory when they are knocked out
• When players are resurrected, health number is rounded off properly

Gameplay

• Gorilla can now revive ghost players who aren’t also gorillas
• Fix for grenade blasts sometimes not colliding with people
• Cloned Shopkeepers can no longer sell you items
• Fix for cloned Shopkeepers not being able to talk to you after entering a new stage
• Fix for being able to give people items when you shouldn’t be able to
• It is no longer possible to target invisible NPCs when commanding someone to attack or attempting to use an item on them
• Fix for people sometimes not noticing holograms right after they were placed
• Radiation blasts can no longer gib ghosts

Stats / Unlocks

• No longer possible to get ‘Not Seen’ and ‘Killed No One’ bonuses when the other coop player did either of these things
• No longer possible to earn skill points after a Game Over
• Fix for “Alerted No One” not being earned after chloroforming someone

Missions

• “Destroy / Retrieve” now reads “Destroy + Retrieve”
• No longer possible to complete ‘Retrieve’ missions with a player in coop who does not have the item
• Find Bombs missions are guaranteed to have 3 bombs

Artificial Intelligence

• When a player bribes a guard, the other player’s followers can enter as well
• Fixed a bug where some people would get angry when a player entered a building after bribing the guard
• Fix for people not always noticing when you begin tampering with their stuff
• People no longer tell ghosts and invisible people to leave their home
• Fix for people sometimes not getting angry when you opened a “Do Not Enter” door near them
• Sleeping people pay attention when you rap on a window
• When the player destroys someone’s door when invisible, they no longer follow the player
• Slavemasters no longer try to fight each other if one of them accidentally hits a slave
• Party members no longer bunch up around a door when knocking
• Slaves no longer try to leash during combat after they have been freed
• When using All Attack, groups of people are better at chasing down a fleeing opponent
• Can now properly command the other player’s party members to attack in coop mode
• People stop dancing immediately when a Boombox becomes non-functional
• People are better at judging when they should be scared of fire and gas
• People are more inclined to stay indoors on levels with radiation blasts
• Fix for people sometimes not noticing when you knock out one of their friends
• Fix for people sometimes not reacting correctly when you steal their property
• Fix for people noticing you destroying their property behind their back when their hearing is blocked

Sound

• Sound effect always plays when unequipping items
• Corrected sound effect for items hitting other items
• Generic “talk to person” sound effects cannot overlap each other if the player tries to spam interactions with the person
• Equip Weapon sound now plays when switching weapons even when the fist is the only weapon available
• Sound effect no longer plays when clicking empty chest slots
• Sound effect always plays when giving items to people
• Teleportation sound can be heard properly when the player teleports far away
• Window break sound effect plays after using Window Cutter
• Mission Complete sound effect plays at the correct time
• Fix for Equip Weapon sound playing at the beginning of stages when you bring party members
• Sound effect plays when opening Gamepad Bindings menu
• Sound effects play when moving items around the inventory
• Sound effect now plays when selling items in the Sell-O-Matic

[/list]

---------------

Some of the new interface elements

[Madguy]

A couple days ago I got to appear on Geek and Sundry's Twitch channel.  An interesting venture into the wide world of "on camera"!



I was able to get on this show through a connection I'd met at GDC.  Also the fact that I live in the Los Angeles area and could basically show up whenever need be.

---------------

New Build

Aaaand here's the Alpha 10 changelog:

Big Features

• Certain characters have special abilities, such as Steal, Chloroform, or Primal Lunge, that are triggered by the Right Mouse Button or Left Trigger.  (If using gamepad, Quick Health is now triggered by the B button)
• Added ability to teleport between different objectives.  This can be done by either pressing the Ctrl button if using the keyboard, holding the Mission Screen button if using the gamepad, or by selecting specific icons on the map from the Mission screen.
• Lots of new options added to Settings menus: Camera Speed, Gamepad Vibration Amount, Freeze Frame Disable, Damage Numbers Disable, Object Glow Disable, Minimap Disable, Auto-Sort Inventory Disable

Implemented, but don’t appear in this build

• Work on Home Base
• Work on Tutorial
• Added Game Save feature, so you can pick up where you left off
• Added ‘Attract Mode’ with video for demo’ing the game
• Support for moving objects that aren’t people, items, debris or bullets
• Partially added ‘Ghost Blaster’

Other Additions and Changes

Content

• Added Freeze Ray
• Added ‘Primal Lunge’ ability for Gorilla
• Slightly changed “Body Vanishing Salt” and “Cologne” descriptions to be more specific

Graphics

• Gameplay and interface look correct in aspect ratios other than 16:9.  Letterboxing and interface adjustments added.
• Darker outlines around characters’ skin
• Wreckage now appears darker when destroyed by fire
• Made ‘Player Identifier’ markers that appear beneath coop players brighter

UI / Controls

• Camera is better at keeping up with the player on Slow camera speed
• Items glow when they are capable of being picked up
• It is now possible to skip “Quest Complete” and other notifications with various buttons
• Added a set of more beginner-oriented Protips that appear earlier than other Protips
• Protips that the player has seen are now saved in the player’s save data to avoid repetition
• Mission Screen in gamepad mode is now controlled using a targeting reticle
• When a player dies in coop, a message indicates that the other player can revive them
• Changed clock placement in split-screen mode
• If the player throws something while using the gamepad and targeting with the right stick, the throw distance is based on whether or not the player is currently moving
• Added varying colors to controls instruction text around the game

Gameplay

• Non-giants can no longer block the melee attacks of giants, and the same goes for shrunken people and normal-sized people
• Gorillas who are freed from prison will immediately join your party if you’re a gorilla, regardless of whether you freed them personally
• No longer possible to knock syringes and other objects into people and have them receive the effects.  This is a remnant of the Throw system, which was removed.
• When you bribe someone to complete a quest, you can no longer kill them and take the item back
• Anyone in your party can be told to “Stand Guard”
• Door Detonator now has a countdown timer in addition to its previous functionality
• Fires are now capable of damaging people
• Changed mathematical formula for how player’s current skill level is determined
• Teleportation is not immediate -- there is a delay to help the player get their bearings
• When someone dies by being burned, their body is set on fire
• Message appears to indicate when you have used Quick Escape Teleporter
• In coop, if a player gets knocked out, the other player can revive them.

Bug Fixes

UI / Controls

• UI looks correct in non-16:9 resolutions.  Letterboxing occurs in these cases.
• Split-Screen mode does not function in non-16:9 resolutions.  Game reverts to Full-Only mode
• Player doesn’t walk in place when two opposing movement buttons are pressed at the same time
• Better z-sorting of UI elements
• Fix for some hairstyles not appearing on mission sheet portraits
• Fix for player 2’s Operating Bar appearing on Player 1’s screen during split-screen
• Fix for “Escort to Entrance” appearing when the player is supposed to escort someone to a questgiver.  Now it says “Escort to Questgiver”.
• Operating Bar is slightly wider to accommodate more text
• Fix for some visual weirdness when opening and closing Character Select
• Fix for ProTips repeating before the list became exhausted
• Player 2 is now capable of closing the Character Select interface
• Fix for right stick on gamepad “snapping/sticking” at axes
• Fix for the game sometimes freezing when Esc was pressed while in a freeze frame
• Fix for gameplay sometimes not freezing while on the Main Menu
• Chest and Buy interfaces can no longer appear above Mission Sheet in coop mode
• No longer able to pick up items while on the Main Menu
• Indicator that shows how far an item can be thrown no longer displays while other interface elements are up
• Player no longer attacks when items are dropped by dragging them to the playfield
• Fix for rare errors when attempting to drag and drop from one box to another on character select
• Text when dead in gamepad mode reads “Home Base (Coming Soon!)” instead of “Home Base”
• Player is prevented from pressing the right mouse button in rapid succession on interface
• Fix for Player 1 being able to operate Player 2’s items sometimes
• Fix for Player 2 not being able to choose hairstyle properly when Player 1 had selected Bald

Graphics

• Fixed issue with player 2 selection box not disappearing properly when exiting character select
• Improved effect when the player highlights people
• In split-screen mode, highlighting something on one screen won’t cause the object or person to be highlighted on the other screen
• Fix for people not appearing to hold their equipped weapon while sleeping
• Wreckage no longer floats over holes

Items

• Banana Peel can no longer be used on sleeping people
• Quick Escape Teleporter no longer triggers from Poison, Acid and Nicotine

Status Effects / Traits

• Enraged people will enter owned property

Gameplay

• No longer possible to ask scientists to identify syringes when you have the Drug-A-Lug trait
• Fix for being able to hit objects through steel walls
• Major improvements to collision detection for knocking people through walls and objects

Stats / Unlocks

• Player no longer receives skill points for freeing prisoners when they had nothing to do with it

Missions

• No longer possible to receive missions in locations where people who are Aligned with you reside
• Can no longer barter/threaten for mission items if the player has not yet accepted that mission

Artificial Intelligence

• People are better at determining when they should enter red “no entry” doors
• People only knock on doors once instead of repeatedly
• If people wait too long at a door, they find another activity
• If a person’s employer dies, they will no longer consider themselves “employed” by that person
• Fixed an issue where people might not notice you when you stood still while making a noise
• AI is better at dealing with the results of the player knocking down a wall with a melee weapon
• Killer Robot is properly marked as “Hateful” toward the player

Sound

• Sound effects stop playing when the action is paused
• Certain sound effects will stop when a person dies

Performance

• Improved performance while riots are occurring

Other

• Fix for the game not starting properly when the user had previously run certain earlier versions

[Madguy]

In lieu of writing long blocks of text on a regular basis, I've decided to start up a video devlog.  Here's the first entry showing off a bunch of the new character classes I've been working on:





In the future, all changelogs are going to be posted to my new tumblr.