Hey Gearheads!




We spent last week in San Francisco, at the Game Developers Conference. So we weren’t around to put up a standard Workshop Wednesday. But we’re back and we’re gonna do something different for the next two weeks.

Have a burning question?

Possible feature ideas?

Just want to tell us how awesome we are?

Or not awesome?

This is your chance! We will be taking, from now until the next update, any comments from here, facebook, twitter, or directly from the steam forums. We will be compiling them and answering as many as possible for the next week’s update.

So welcome to the Question portion of this Q & A.

Ask away Gearheads! We’re ready to answer.

Hey Gearheads!




We spent last week in San Francisco, at the Game Developers Conference. So we weren’t around to put up a standard Workshop Wednesday. But we’re back and we’re gonna do something different for the next two weeks.

Have a burning question?

Possible feature ideas?

Just want to tell us how awesome we are?

Or not awesome?

This is your chance! We will be taking, from now until the next update, any comments from here, facebook, twitter, or directly from the steam forums. We will be compiling them and answering as many as possible for the next week’s update.

So welcome to the Question portion of this Q & A.

Ask away Gearheads! We’re ready to answer.

Hey Gearheads, its that time again. We invite you into the mech bay to see what we have under development. As always these are not implemented into the current steam build. But you will get to play with them soon.

Quality of life Update

Welcome to the Workshop Wednesday update, Gearheads!

While a lot of development focus goes into refining gameplay and adding new features, we also spend a lot of time squashing old bugs and improving existing mechanics.

Here are just a few of the recent changes and improvements we’ve made:

Weapon Pickup Mechanic

Weapon pickup code has been simplified. It is now more reliable and makes picking up weapons much easier.



Jump Bug fixes

Jumping while running uphill has been vastly improved. Hitches and hiccups while ascending have been removed completely. Gears also now jump higher and fall faster.



Damage when fallen down

Fallen Gears now take damage as they should. Previous code had a bug that made fallen Gears much harder to kill. Now you’ll be dead even sooner!




Camera squash prevention

One of our personal pet peeves was the camera behavior in close quarters while in third person. Backing up against a wall used to push the camera up into the Gear’s rear plates. That’s not the case anymore, since we are switching to FPS camera dynamically if there’s an obstacle blocking the view. Moving away from a rear-obstruction restores the camera to third person automatically.



Respawn Button and Counter

You can now respawn by going into the ESC menu and pressing the respawn button.
A simple respawn counter was added to show players the time remaining before you are allowed back into the action.



FPS/TPS FOV

First person camera and Third person camera now have variable Fields of View. They are both based on the FOV that you specify in the settings. The FPS camera gives you a 10 degree wider angle, while TPS camera is more focused in front of you.


Death Polish

We did initial polish pass on the Death Event. Now, once you’ve been demolished in combat, there’s a small explosion and special effects that are left behind. Future iterations here are planned in an effort to make deaths even more fun and cinematic. Losing should be fun too!



Broken Limbs stay visible

Destroyed plates stay visible and fall onto the ground after they’ve been disabled. This is a great feedback indicator that “bad stuff is happening to you.”


Camera Shakes

We did a camera shake pass on a lot of in-game mechanics that needed to feel more impactful.
Landing after a high jump, falling off a tall ledge, or receiving significant damage will shake your camera making things feel a lot more dynamic.



New Single Wield / Dual Wield Aim Poses

All aim poses have been redone from scratch.
Dual wielding now features stretched out limbs that showcase weapons better and provides a greater range of aim, while two-handed weapons now properly matching the shape and angle of the big guns.




Armor Destroyed Event

Voice overs have been added when you lose your limbs and armor plates. The added notification makes it much more obvious that part of your Gear is gone.

Additional Selfie Cams

As a part of our new aiming mechanic testing, we’ve added a few extra debugging cameras. These are now available to you in game as additional “selfie cams”. Press ALT+C to switch selfie cams.



Scoreboard improvements

Scoreboard now displays Kills, Deaths as well as Captures in annexation mode.



More updates are coming next week. Stay tuned, join our Discord https://discord.gg/KfQG2qb
And we’ll see you at the arena!

Cheers

Hey Gearheads, its that time again. We invite you into the mech bay to see what we have under development. As always these are not implemented into the current steam build. But you will get to play with them soon.

Quality of life Update

Welcome to the Workshop Wednesday update, Gearheads!

While a lot of development focus goes into refining gameplay and adding new features, we also spend a lot of time squashing old bugs and improving existing mechanics.

Here are just a few of the recent changes and improvements we’ve made:

Weapon Pickup Mechanic

Weapon pickup code has been simplified. It is now more reliable and makes picking up weapons much easier.



Jump Bug fixes

Jumping while running uphill has been vastly improved. Hitches and hiccups while ascending have been removed completely. Gears also now jump higher and fall faster.



Damage when fallen down

Fallen Gears now take damage as they should. Previous code had a bug that made fallen Gears much harder to kill. Now you’ll be dead even sooner!




Camera squash prevention

One of our personal pet peeves was the camera behavior in close quarters while in third person. Backing up against a wall used to push the camera up into the Gear’s rear plates. That’s not the case anymore, since we are switching to FPS camera dynamically if there’s an obstacle blocking the view. Moving away from a rear-obstruction restores the camera to third person automatically.



Respawn Button and Counter

You can now respawn by going into the ESC menu and pressing the respawn button.
A simple respawn counter was added to show players the time remaining before you are allowed back into the action.



FPS/TPS FOV

First person camera and Third person camera now have variable Fields of View. They are both based on the FOV that you specify in the settings. The FPS camera gives you a 10 degree wider angle, while TPS camera is more focused in front of you.


Death Polish

We did initial polish pass on the Death Event. Now, once you’ve been demolished in combat, there’s a small explosion and special effects that are left behind. Future iterations here are planned in an effort to make deaths even more fun and cinematic. Losing should be fun too!



Broken Limbs stay visible

Destroyed plates stay visible and fall onto the ground after they’ve been disabled. This is a great feedback indicator that “bad stuff is happening to you.”


Camera Shakes

We did a camera shake pass on a lot of in-game mechanics that needed to feel more impactful.
Landing after a high jump, falling off a tall ledge, or receiving significant damage will shake your camera making things feel a lot more dynamic.



New Single Wield / Dual Wield Aim Poses

All aim poses have been redone from scratch.
Dual wielding now features stretched out limbs that showcase weapons better and provides a greater range of aim, while two-handed weapons now properly matching the shape and angle of the big guns.




Armor Destroyed Event

Voice overs have been added when you lose your limbs and armor plates. The added notification makes it much more obvious that part of your Gear is gone.

Additional Selfie Cams

As a part of our new aiming mechanic testing, we’ve added a few extra debugging cameras. These are now available to you in game as additional “selfie cams”. Press ALT+C to switch selfie cams.



Scoreboard improvements

Scoreboard now displays Kills, Deaths as well as Captures in annexation mode.



More updates are coming next week. Stay tuned, join our Discord https://discord.gg/KfQG2qb
And we’ll see you at the arena!

Cheers

Hey everyone,

In anticipation of our next Steam patch we will be undergoing service maintenance over the next 24-48 hours. During this time our services may be degraded or offline. This patch will be available for preview on our beta branch for testing by our Community after maintenance is complete.

Yours truly,
HGA Dev Team

Hey everyone,

In anticipation of our next Steam patch we will be undergoing service maintenance over the next 24-48 hours. During this time our services may be degraded or offline. This patch will be available for preview on our beta branch for testing by our Community after maintenance is complete.

Yours truly,
HGA Dev Team

Hey Gearheads! Another week, another update! As always these are a first look, they have not made it to live servers as of yet. So that aside, let's pull open the bay doors, and see what's going on in the workshop!

HUD, UI, Minimap updates

The User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) both remain as important, long term commitments to us. As we continue with that endeavor, here are some of the recent made to the UI and HUD. These changes are a work-in-progress and will be rolled out in order of completion.





The hud layout has been updated so that central elements are more spaced out around the central reticle, giving the player additional visibility around the aim target. The reticle itself is a lot more obvious now with an additional highlight added to it allowing the reticle to stand out regardless of the background. Elements, like the health indicator, have been scaled down while the Minimap, as well as resources bars, have been scaled up. You’ll notice that the score indicator moved from the top center of the screen to the lower left corner above the minimap. This places all of the tactical match info in one corner and enables you to see the overall score and objective status icons in a quick glance.




One of the more noticable changes is the updated minimap. The new setup is a hybrid between in-game capture and artist generated masks. We use captured backdrops with artist generated masks to highlight or dim down portions of the map based on importance. The new minimap uses simpler graphics making map features easier to distinguish on a small scale.

While the minimap has been updated, there are still two additional modes that are a work-in-progress:


Currently a rough implementation that gives player a more detailed view of the map. Accessible through Escape key menu, eventually it will display locations of all teammates as well as the status of all capture points. This mode can be used to provide player with a global tactical overview of the match




A mode that provides the player with an up-close view around their gear. While active radius of the radar is limited by gear capabilities, it can be more useful for close quarters skirmishes showing enemies that are not directly in the line of sight




We’ve reworked how the in-match scoreboard display works. By pressing `Tab` a new Scoreboard has been added with a more lightweight design that does not block player input while visible. This makes it easier to check the score without interrupting your movement.




Gear resources are going to be more important in the next set of updates. Hence we made it much more clear when resources are low or depleted.



In addition to on-screen animations, resources, and many other in-game mechanics, received voice-overs to indicate critical status information.



We’ve added a directional damage indicator to the HUD. It shows the direction of enemy fire when taking damage. While a simple addition, it adds a ton of situational awareness and allows you to decisively respond to incoming fire.




Although not crucial to the gameplay, we are continuing to update the game menus to use unified UI elements. It is a long term commitment and we expect a few more iterations until the new design is fully implemented.




While we are still experimenting with new weapon equipment mechanics, we have updated the current UI to make things a little more streamlined in the meantime. Previously, all of your weapons and storage locations were displayed at once. With so many weapons and slots, there was a certain degree of sensory overload, especially to new players. Now, only elements that are in-use are displayed. Elements that aren’t currently being used, such as empty slots or slots that have jump jets equipped, are hidden. Once you equip a weapon into the slot, it becomes visible either on the left or right side of the gear depending on which hand you equipped it into. We also fixed a little bug that could result in you getting stuck in “equipping mode” when trying to equip weapons from an empty weapon slot.



More updates are coming up next Wednesday! Stay tuned for more and join the conversation on discord https://discord.gg/KfQG2qb
Until next time, Gearheads!

Hey Gearheads! Another week, another update! As always these are a first look, they have not made it to live servers as of yet. So that aside, let's pull open the bay doors, and see what's going on in the workshop!

HUD, UI, Minimap updates

The User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) both remain as important, long term commitments to us. As we continue with that endeavor, here are some of the recent made to the UI and HUD. These changes are a work-in-progress and will be rolled out in order of completion.





The hud layout has been updated so that central elements are more spaced out around the central reticle, giving the player additional visibility around the aim target. The reticle itself is a lot more obvious now with an additional highlight added to it allowing the reticle to stand out regardless of the background. Elements, like the health indicator, have been scaled down while the Minimap, as well as resources bars, have been scaled up. You’ll notice that the score indicator moved from the top center of the screen to the lower left corner above the minimap. This places all of the tactical match info in one corner and enables you to see the overall score and objective status icons in a quick glance.




One of the more noticable changes is the updated minimap. The new setup is a hybrid between in-game capture and artist generated masks. We use captured backdrops with artist generated masks to highlight or dim down portions of the map based on importance. The new minimap uses simpler graphics making map features easier to distinguish on a small scale.

While the minimap has been updated, there are still two additional modes that are a work-in-progress:


Currently a rough implementation that gives player a more detailed view of the map. Accessible through Escape key menu, eventually it will display locations of all teammates as well as the status of all capture points. This mode can be used to provide player with a global tactical overview of the match




A mode that provides the player with an up-close view around their gear. While active radius of the radar is limited by gear capabilities, it can be more useful for close quarters skirmishes showing enemies that are not directly in the line of sight




We’ve reworked how the in-match scoreboard display works. By pressing `Tab` a new Scoreboard has been added with a more lightweight design that does not block player input while visible. This makes it easier to check the score without interrupting your movement.




Gear resources are going to be more important in the next set of updates. Hence we made it much more clear when resources are low or depleted.



In addition to on-screen animations, resources, and many other in-game mechanics, received voice-overs to indicate critical status information.



We’ve added a directional damage indicator to the HUD. It shows the direction of enemy fire when taking damage. While a simple addition, it adds a ton of situational awareness and allows you to decisively respond to incoming fire.




Although not crucial to the gameplay, we are continuing to update the game menus to use unified UI elements. It is a long term commitment and we expect a few more iterations until the new design is fully implemented.




While we are still experimenting with new weapon equipment mechanics, we have updated the current UI to make things a little more streamlined in the meantime. Previously, all of your weapons and storage locations were displayed at once. With so many weapons and slots, there was a certain degree of sensory overload, especially to new players. Now, only elements that are in-use are displayed. Elements that aren’t currently being used, such as empty slots or slots that have jump jets equipped, are hidden. Once you equip a weapon into the slot, it becomes visible either on the left or right side of the gear depending on which hand you equipped it into. We also fixed a little bug that could result in you getting stuck in “equipping mode” when trying to equip weapons from an empty weapon slot.



More updates are coming up next Wednesday! Stay tuned for more and join the conversation on discord https://discord.gg/KfQG2qb
Until next time, Gearheads!

Hey Gearheads! Another week, another update! welcome back to Workshop Wednesday. So this week we have a great update about my personal favorite game mode. Annexation!

As always this is a first look at things in development. These are not currently live on the steam build. But they are headed there soon!

So how about we pull back those bay doors and see what we have in the workshop today.

Annexation Updates

Gameplay and in-match mechanics are a main focus for development moving forward. In that endeavor, we will be updating the various game modes to promote more dynamic gameplay. The first game mode to get a major overhaul is Annexation.



A core mechanic of any flag/point capture mode is the Capture. It was important for us to make this process as smooth and accessible as possible, while keeping it fun.

Generator capture in Annexation is now proximity based. Meaning that, instead of pressing and holding a shortcut, all you need to do to capture is to stand close to it for a set amount of time. Not only does this increase your situational awareness it also frees your hands, maintains your character’s mobility, and allows you to defend your capture point from opponents.

Annexation is a team based match type and to that end we want to emphasize the importance of teamwork. Capturing a generator with your teammates will boost the capture rate significantly. Each additional teammates reduces the capture time by a percentage. While you’re in the process of capturing a point, however, keep an eye out for any enemies. Capturing can be slowed down and even stopped if one or a few enemies enter the capture zone at the same time. The team with the most players within the zone will gain control of the capture. Basically, a big game of tug-o-war but with Gears and guns!



Visually, the generator art has been updated to match the art style more closely and serve specific gameplay needs. A huge beam of light emits from the top of the generators into the sky, its color indicating the generator’s status.




A circle around the generator delineates the outer edge of the capture zone. The circle spins and changes color as you capture the generator.




The HUD indicators have also been streamlined a bit to better depict the most important information at a glance. As a part of our HUD/UX update we are removing unnecessary clutter without sacrificing the functionality. A lot of UI elements are now context sensitive and only show up when it’s relevant.

More about HUD updates and exciting UI changes, in the next week’s Workshop Wednesday.

Peace out, Gearheads!

Hey Gearheads! Another week, another update! welcome back to Workshop Wednesday. So this week we have a great update about my personal favorite game mode. Annexation!

As always this is a first look at things in development. These are not currently live on the steam build. But they are headed there soon!

So how about we pull back those bay doors and see what we have in the workshop today.

Annexation Updates

Gameplay and in-match mechanics are a main focus for development moving forward. In that endeavor, we will be updating the various game modes to promote more dynamic gameplay. The first game mode to get a major overhaul is Annexation.



A core mechanic of any flag/point capture mode is the Capture. It was important for us to make this process as smooth and accessible as possible, while keeping it fun.

Generator capture in Annexation is now proximity based. Meaning that, instead of pressing and holding a shortcut, all you need to do to capture is to stand close to it for a set amount of time. Not only does this increase your situational awareness it also frees your hands, maintains your character’s mobility, and allows you to defend your capture point from opponents.

Annexation is a team based match type and to that end we want to emphasize the importance of teamwork. Capturing a generator with your teammates will boost the capture rate significantly. Each additional teammates reduces the capture time by a percentage. While you’re in the process of capturing a point, however, keep an eye out for any enemies. Capturing can be slowed down and even stopped if one or a few enemies enter the capture zone at the same time. The team with the most players within the zone will gain control of the capture. Basically, a big game of tug-o-war but with Gears and guns!



Visually, the generator art has been updated to match the art style more closely and serve specific gameplay needs. A huge beam of light emits from the top of the generators into the sky, its color indicating the generator’s status.




A circle around the generator delineates the outer edge of the capture zone. The circle spins and changes color as you capture the generator.




The HUD indicators have also been streamlined a bit to better depict the most important information at a glance. As a part of our HUD/UX update we are removing unnecessary clutter without sacrificing the functionality. A lot of UI elements are now context sensitive and only show up when it’s relevant.

More about HUD updates and exciting UI changes, in the next week’s Workshop Wednesday.

Peace out, Gearheads!