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[Hollow-Headed]

I've fleshed out bullet-proof vests some more. They are now visible on enemies, as well.

In this example, two of the enemies are wearing vests and the other one is unprotected. The first enemy takes eight shots to kill, four to break the vest and four to the body. Similarly, the unprotected unit in the middle takes four shots to kill. However, despite wearing a vest, the last unit only takes two shots since both are headshots. Headshots will bypass the vests and deal damage straight to the enemy, so if an enemy is protected, headshots are especially important.

Unlike when the first unit died, the last unit's vest still had protection available, so the vest was dropped so that players can pick it up for themselves.

[Hollow-Headed]

I've gotten a lot of behind the scenes work done recently, improving some things that have been functional yet still in need of work. One primary example being how dynamic depth has been handled up until now. With those issues out of the way, though, that solves a bunch of minor visual issues that have nagged at me.

Going over my to-do list, I'm thinking these will be my primary goals for the next week or two:

Add screen-shake when shooting or getting shot. Mostly finished, should be next update.
Add muzzle flash while shooting.
Display total ammo count for a weapon, not just current/max per clip.
Add ammo pickups. Probably collect just by contact, not by needing to interact with.
Make enemies have a chance of dropping ammo along with the weapons that they drop.
Make weapons, vests, and ammo pickups stand out better from the rest of the environment.

[Hollow-Headed]

There are three new things to be seen in this example:

First, the total amount of ammo for a weapon is now visible, which is shown below the primary ammo display. Up until now, these examples have had practically unlimited ammo for demonstration purposes, but ammo is going to be getting some focus soon, so this is the first step towards that.

Next, screen shake has been added to the game. Whenever you fire a weapon or get shot, the screen will shake slightly in order to provide a bit more feedback for those actions. It is completely optional, so you can disable it if you don't want it, as seen in the example, where the weapon is fired with it on, but also with it off.

Finally, an options menu. Up until now, I've just been using keyboard inputs to toggle certain options, but now there is an actual menu for it. Some options that are currently available are strictly for development purposes, so those won't be actual options in the end, but the following are currently planned to be available to the player, allowing them to adjust certain elements of gameplay:

Fullscreen- Toggles the game into fullscreen mode.
Regeneration- By default, all characters regain health over time. Without it, once hit, the damage stays.
Damage Indicator- This is the red coloring that appears when you take damage.
Zoom Correction- When you aim, your view zooms out. This keeps the cursor in position.
Reload Indicator- The bars that appear around the cursor when you're reloading.
Laser Sights- Allows you to have laser sights on your guns, to see exactly where they're pointing.
Team Locations- If you have friendly units, this puts indicators on the screen pointing towards them.
Enemy Alerts- If an enemy spots you or becomes suspicious, an alert will pop up, pointing towards them.
Screen Shake- Shakes the screen if shooting, or getting shot.

[JWK5]

I was a little disappointed because the title led me to believe there was flatulence involved (as "silent but deadly" is what you call a potent silent fart)...

Maybe you could add in an anti-camping measure where if you stay in place for too long the character let's out an SBD (maybe they have irritable bowel syndrome or it was taco tuesday the night before) alerting all within smell radius that something is amiss and causing them to investigate the area (preferably going "Eew... what the hell is that smell!?). It could be the comical hook that sets your game apart.

Anyways, despite the current lack of farts the game looks interesting. Keep up the good work! 

[Hollow-Headed]

I was a little disappointed because the title led me to believe there was flatulence involved (as "silent but deadly" is what you call a potent silent fart)...

Maybe you could add in an anti-camping measure where if you stay in place for too long the character let's out an SBD (maybe they have irritable bowel syndrome or it was taco tuesday the night before) alerting all within smell radius that something is amiss and causing them to investigate the area (preferably going "Eew... what the hell is that smell!?). It could be the comical hook that sets your game apart.

Anyways, despite the current lack of farts the game looks interesting. Keep up the good work! 

Hah, sorry to disappoint. Rest assured, though, that the title is completely intentional. Although I justify it with the different aspects of play styles that the game allows, in how the player is capable of both stealth and violence, ultimately, it was the double-meaning that really sold me on it while trying to come up with a name.

There will probably be some subtle references in that regard, but need to build it up more, first.

[Hollow-Headed]

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I recently improved the depth system, in how things appear above/below other things. Visually, it's mostly the same as the original system but fixes many little bugs that had nagged at me. This example shows the new system in action by blowing things up and stacking some bodies, where the one that you're placing is always on top of others, even when it's a body that was originally from the bottom of the pile.

Also seen here is how weapons (and other pickups) now appear above everything else that is on the ground. This is the first step towards emphasizing pickups and trying to make them stand out more from the environment.

[Hollow-Headed]

As suggested, this update introduces muzzle flash and bullet impact effects.

Now, when a gun is fired, each shot lets out a very brief explosion/flash. Similarly, when a bullet hits something other than a character, the impact will cause a sort of shattering effect.

[Hollow-Headed]

Ammo packs have been added. These are items that will be found throughout levels in order to help replenish one's ammo supply. Each type of weapon has it's own pack, which is currently identified by box size, color, and weapon silhouette.

Unlike other things that the player can interact with, you don't need to press the interact button to pick them up, you just need to contact them.

[Hollow-Headed]

Ammo packs now have a chance to drop when enemies die or get knocked out. The ammo that they drop is linked to the gun(s) that they were using, so if they're carrying a shotgun, then they might drop shotgun ammo.

Currently, the drop rate varies depending on how empty the enemy's gun was at that time, so a gun with no ammo has a higher chance of dropping ammo than a full one would.

[CesarD8]

Nice! Shooting looks better now. Good work. 

[Hollow-Headed]

Nice! Shooting looks better now. Good work. 

Thanks for suggesting them, it really does make a difference. Feel free to let me know if you have any more ideas.

I have one more ammo-specific thing that I'll be doing, but after that, I should be wrapping up some other long-needed visual elements, putting the final touches on making pickups stand out more, and based on how it is going, probably adapt it into interactions, as well, so that those will finally be visible.

[Hollow-Headed]

Because ammo is automatically collected, I wanted the player to get some sort of visual cue that they've gained ammo. A notification will now pop up when the ammo is picked up and lasts just a few seconds, eventually fading away.

It might be changed to show which type of ammo was picked up, but for now it's just a vague notification.

[Hollow-Headed]

Pickups now have a pulsing border around them, so that they can stand out from the rest of the environment.

[Hollow-Headed]

I've adapted the pick-up border to interactables, so that the player's current interactable object will have a constant red border around it, finally giving that some long-needed visibility.

The interactable object is determined by being within a certain distance from the player, and in case there are multiple suitable objects, it is narrowed down to whichever one of those objects is closest to the cursor.

Because ammo packs are picked up by contact rather than by using the interact button, they're not considered interactables.

[Hollow-Headed]

The border colors for pick-ups and interactables can now be changed. Choose between various colors in the options menu, or choose "None" to have no border.

[Hollow-Headed]

You can now change the cursor's color, similar to the previous update for pick-ups and interactables.

The cursor itself has also undergone some changes, as well, as you can see in this example. When you shoot someone, the cursor will temporarily change in order to reflect the type of hit, whether it was a normal hit, a headshot, or a kill shot. The hit/headshot indicator was in before, but has been redesigned, but the kill indicator is new.

One last minor improvement is the accuracy gauge seen while aiming the shotgun, the circle extending out from the cursor as it gets further away from the player. Before, it was just slightly off-position from the cursor, but it is now aligned.

[Hollow-Headed]

In very early development, when the weapon system was a good bit more unwieldy than it is now, I had planned for a mini-gun to be one of the weapons in the game. Compared to the other weapons, though, it was complicated. Unlike the others, it required animation, a charging time, for the user's hands to be above the gun, rather than below, and some other issues. Long story short, I cut it in favor of a more generic machine gun since it required too much unique work.

Even longer story short, I've brought it back. With the game being in a much better state than what it was back then, those requirements are no longer problematic.

When you hold down the fire button, the gun will start powering up, providing a visual spin that increases as it gets up to speed. Once fully charged, it will begin firing off bullets very quickly. When you release the fire button, the charge will begin decreasing back to nothing, requiring more charging before being able to fire again.

[Hollow-Headed]

The mini-gun will power up while aiming, so that it can be kept charged without actually firing a shot.

[Hollow-Headed]

An example of an enemy carrying the mini-gun. They operate it in the same way as the player, in that the gun must be powered up before shooting. As such, it is possible to catch them unprepared but if they're on alert or searching for you, they'll have it constantly powered up until their alert level drops.

In terms of enemy usage, I'm thinking this is more a boss-level weapon, especially if they have bullet-proof vests on, like in this example. Of course, if you kill them, you can pick the gun up for yourself.

[Hollow-Headed]

This update is a change to how carrying a body impacts the player's ability to hold certain guns.

Before this, if you had picked up a body, you were still allowed to hold any gun, even if it was a large one. The only limitation was that if you were dual-wielding two smaller guns, the extra gun would be put away. Now, though, when you pick up a body, you are only allowed to hold the smaller weapons, the weapons that don't require two hands to operate. This is the same rule for what defines which guns can be dual-wielded.

As seen in this example, what happens now is that if you have a large weapon selected and a body is picked up, it will put that weapon away while you're carrying the body and then bring it back out once the body is dropped. This adjustment brings some consistency to the game's logic between carrying and dual-wielding, in the sense that if you were allowed to carry the larger weapons with just one hand while carrying a body over your shoulder with the other, then why would you only be able to dual-wield the smaller guns?