Apr 24, 2020

Height Adjustment and Battle Realism Update

Master Bladesmith - jimmy

Battle Platform:

- New adjustable battle platform to accomodate the vast majority of player heights (4'8 - 6'4"+)
- Platform should allow most teenagers as young as 13 to play the game aswell
- Platform should allow seated play more easily, although this still isn't officially supported

Battle Realism:

- Major update to the sword trace that should eliminate any swing-through misses, independent of framerate or how fast you swing
- physics will act much more naturally in battle, and elements should no longer get stuck in space or explode away un-realistically
- should never be able to swing through arrows and miss
- should be able to cut all elements on a single swing (for example all arrows stuck to your shield)

Changes to stats:

- Stats have a max cap of 100, this should allow players to eventually max out all stats at max level
- Dexterity now influences how fast your arrows will fly into your hands
- Dexterity no longer influences player movement speed (only Agility does)

- Targets close to your face should move out of the way more easily for visibility
- You shouldn't be able to get stuck prior to level 5 with no money or arrows anymore (the game will feed you a small amount of arrows *until* you beat level 5)
- Should no longer be able to swing through flying targets and miss
- All potions of all tiers should be drinkable
- Coal outside the forge should no longer heat as if connected to the forge
- Recipes should no longer erroneously produce tin when they shouldn't
- Walking away from crucible should no longer erroneously produce tin
- Potions shouldn't get stuck very small in scale
- Buying bowstrings should no longer present so many issues
- Level 180 visibility issues fixed
- Wood left on the lathe will no longer destroy on game save
- Whittled bow no longer allowed into backpack
- Textures will no longer *leak* into other books, except in extreme edge cases
- You can no longer block arrows with world objects (for example potions)
- Arrows will no longer sometimes fly through your shield
- Key ring will no longer collide with things
- Ore will always have physics now on game load
- Scoop will no longer stick to hand erroneously
- Weapon parts will glow on scale correctly
- Time chamber dial will no longer sometimes report the selected level erroneously
- Sword will no longer change materials on bag enter
- You can no longer put partially melted ore or ingots into your backpack
- Invar symbol redone for clarity
- Visibility fixes for framerate help
- Player shadow errors fixed for self shadowing
- Player shadows errors fixed for framerate help
- Level up signature will now have a sound
- Lanterns and candles resurrected
- You will only be rewarded the two highest coin demoninations now to reduce extreme amounts of coin in higher levels
- Sapphire Kingdom (code name) now changed to Master Bladesmith in all cases and file directories
- Hard Steel recipe working

Apr 24, 2020

Virtual Battlegrounds Patch 0.6.9.5 Mantis

Virtual Battlegrounds - Cookie

Hello warriors!

This post.
We want to go over two things with you today #1 our plans for EA, seasons, vehicles, more guns, more map locations, tournaments etc! And #2 talk about our patch today and review launch week.

To the people that had bugs/fps issues on launch week.
To be frank, we dropped with a lot more new and unexpected issues. We want to sincerely apologize to anyone that experienced any major bugs or performance issues during launch week. But there's good news! We've DEMOLISHED a ton of the bugs and performance issues people have been reporting and we also fixed a bunch of player exploits like levitating and wall clipping. Honestly without the support from everyone during EA though critical and positive it would have been so much harder for us to make the huge strides we did this week. It's obvious people love the core of our game. We only expect to go up from here.

Here's a full list of performance fixes, bug fixes, and new features we've added since last weds.

==Performance Fixes==

Substantially decreased net lag
Significantly Increased performance for all steamVR users
Performance improvements in matches with a high number of players
GC Allocation improvements to reduce memory usage over time
Better Error handling and logging in key places
Spent magazines are now being properly destroyed to reduce resource usage
Performance fixes related to certain objects not setting properly on game start resulting in issues with main game play loop
There's still a remaining "stuttering" issue we've noticed affects something like 1/20 players. We plan on having this resolved ASAP.

==General Fixes==

Players are less likely to spawn outside of the helicopter
Fixed black screen load bug when spawning in the helicopter
Fixed exploit where players could bring weapons into the helicopter from killroom
Weapons are more likely to spawn
Fixed an exploit for becoming a spectator before the game started
Fixed an exploit for artificially increasing your height making you levitate
Fixed 4 digit leader board numbers not displaying properly
Fixed an exploit where users could artificially increase there rank
Fixed a bug where players would start the game in a swimming state
Fixed a bug where the game would not start and a lobby would break
Fixed a bug where head IK's were looking down
Fixed a bug where mag / pistols get moved when adjusting height
Fixed jukebox in pre-match lobby
Fixed VFX lagging behind guns
Fixed LIV not working for some players
Fixed voting board not visually updating properly
Fixed a bug where voting board would say squads mode when it was actually in solos mode
Fixed a bug where players could become invincible at the end of a match
Fixed bug where rank would be off by one
Fixed exploit where users get multiple victories in one victory giving them outrageous scores
Fix body moving exploit from climbing to not climbing to prevent people leaving helicopter early
Fix displaying wrong rank
Added golden skin
Fixed swimming not working properly
Apples now get fully eaten when you bite them
Fixed icons above everyone heads when pre-joining
Fixed a bug where people were looking at you while there IK's animated looking the other way
Fixed an issue that was causing people's pelvis to feel off center.
Fixed Throwing Knives, now deal damage
Fixed being able to accidentally stab yourself with a knife
Fixed Knife not being able to damage bots and target dummies

==Design Changes==

Reduced the distance that ziplines can be heard from (200m -> 100m)
Reduced the distance that breakable glass can be heard from (150m -> 75m)
Seated mode movement repositioning now lerps (This also fixes some clipping exploits)
Made it easier to grab your backpack and holster items especially when crouching
Increased knife damage from RANGE (25-100) to -> (35-100). It deals more damage based on how fast you swing.
Increased Knife minimum damage from (25-100) to (35-100).
Knife deals damage based on how fast the player swings
Updated the visuals of the zone.
Made it easier to grab items off your body

Additionally we wanted to share with you the core weapon stats and player stats so that you guys have a point of reference going forward. NOTE we will be balancing all of these in the future.

==Wiki Notes==
Player Health 150HP

Headshots deal 3X damage.
Body shots deal 1X damage.
Limbs shots deal 50% damage.

All weapons have a minimum amount of damage they deal and then they begin to lose damage as the projectiles closes in on its effective range up to a minimum amount. This distance is varied a lot from gun to gun.

MKR
Max Damage 52
Min Damage 35
Automatic RPM 600
Bullet Velocity 710MPS
Effective Range 500Meters
Firing Modes: Semi-Automatic / Fully-Automatic

AMRa1 .50 BMG
Max Damage 180
Min Damage 130
Bullet Velocity 1219MPS
Effective Range 1200Meters
Firing Modes: Semi-Automatic

Samuel 1191
Max Damage 39
Min Damage 30
Bullet Velocity 274MPS
Effective Range 200Meters
Firing Modes: Semi-Automatic

SAP22
Max Damage 25
Min Dmage 20
Full Automatic RPM 1000
Bullet Velocity 260MPS
Effective Range 200Meters
Firing Modes: Semi-Automatic / Fully-Automatic

SI-16
Max Damage 42
Min Dmage 30
Full Automatic RPM 937
Bullet Velocity 900 Meters Per Second
Effective Range 800 Meters
Firing Modes: Semi-Automatic / Burst-Fire

TRS-18
Max Damage 42
Min Dmage 30
Full Automatic RPM 900
Bullet Velocity 900 Meters Per Second
Effective Range 800 Meters
Firing Modes: Semi-Automatic / Fully-Automatic

AP5a2
Max Damage 32
Min Dmage 20
Full Automatic RPM 800
Bullet Velocity 375 Meters Per Second
Effective Range 300 Meters
Firing Modes: Semi-Automatic / Fully-Automatic

SUSR-63
Max Damage 130
Min Dmage 80
Bullet Velocity 950 Meters Per Second
Effective Range 900 Meters
Firing Modes: Semi-Automatic

UAP9
Max Damage 34
Min Dmage 22
Full Automatic RPM 650
Bullet Velocity 400 Meters Per Second
Effective Range 320 Meters
Firing Modes: Semi-Automatic / Fully-Automatic

SIP9
Max Damage 27
Min Dmage 20
Full Automatic RPM 650
Bullet Velocity 275 Meters Per Second
Effective Range 200 Meters
Firing Modes: Semi-Automatic

RDI
Max Damage 32
Min Dmage 20
Full Automatic RPM 1200
Bullet Velocity 370 Meters Per Second
Effective Range 300 Meters
Firing Modes: Semi-Automatic / Fully-Automatic

==Minor Features==

Added Version mismatch check. Players on different versions can no longer join each other
Added a "Dev Notes" window inside elevator to address main concerns brought up by the community
Added smooth lerping to seated mode

Road Map

Now for the fun part! We have a ton of stuff planned guys. Please view our FULL roadmap online here.

https://trello.com/b/kvO0EmYl/virtual-battlegrounds-roadmap

Performance
While we feel confident that we have improved performance across the board since launch. Our primary concern is making sure that a majority if not all performance issues are addressed before we begin work on adding new content. We want to make sure that all players are able to enjoy the game and bring them along so they don't miss the launch of major updates due to performance issues.
Load Times
Following performance fixes, we will follow that up with streamlining the game to improve load times. We have an idea that should virtually reduce all load times down to a couple of seconds after the first load into the "Robot Lobby" Creating a seamless experience making it really easy to replay games quickly and easily regardless if you're on an HDD or SSD.
Grenades and more weapons
Our first new weapon to be added to the game will take the form of grenades. This will make for more indirect ways for taking out players that are using cover or in hard to approach areas.
More Weapons
Details to be announced soon. We don't wait to spoil it until you guys see it.
Season One
Here's the really BIG thing we'll be doing. And we'll be doing seasonal updates regularly as the game progresses toward exiting EA. With Season One we'll be resetting the leaderboard and pushing for a competitive season.

The votes are in! And here is our current roadmap.

Season One Features

More Weapons
Air Drops
Unlock-able Skins based on level.
New revised map locations
Physics based climb jumping
More realistic bots
Down State for squadmates
More finger gestures
Top 10 players in solos and squads will each receive a special "Top Ranking skin" for there respective division at the end of the season.
Top 20% of players will receive a special "high achiever skin" at the end of the season.

Guaranteed Features
Vehicles
More guns
Improved VRIK
Ragdolls
Game Modes
Better Achievements
Enhanced Map
More seasons

Stuff we might add
More Drones
Armor
Modding Support
New Maps
Nighttime mode
Tournaments / Events
Quest Support
Your ideas! Join our Discord and tell them them to us.

Just to give you guys an idea of how serious we are take a look at this.

Here's our map as it is today.

And here's the map we had planned to use for VBG. It's several times larger.

We chose to go with the first map not because we wanted to go small persay but because the larger map wasn't as "fun" with 20~ players. People spent most of there time searching for other people instead of battling, it created a pretty dull experience that involved a lot of wait time. But damn was it cool to look around and see that giant world.

We're not promising this BUT we do want to go bigger, and really the only way to go bigger is to get more players and improve the games core. We know our game is early right now, we know it needs a lot of work but the foundation is there and it's fun as is. There isn't a better way for us to make this a 100 person VR battle royale game one day then to work with our community in EA in our opinion. That's what we're doing now. Like I said we can't promise that it really depends on how the future goes but I promise we'll try our best to make that a reality.

We're going over roadmap on Twitch now! Ask us anything!

Seanybaby2 Twitch Stream

See you on the battlefield soon warriors!

Apr 24, 2020

Dead Man's News #02: The Idea of Colt Canyon

Colt Canyon - Headup Games

Howdy fellow gunslingers!

Let's dive a bit deeper into how the idea of Colt Canyon came to my mind and how it became what it is today. As I already told you in the last update in my first semester at the Cologne Game Lab, in game design class everyone got two random keywords to develop a game concept from. For me it was ‘Help’ and ‘Cowboy’. I didn’t actually had to develop a prototype but write a design document. However making games is my passion, not writing documents, so I focused on making a prototype instead.

I started by creating a folder called ‘cowboy’ (which is still the name of the main development folder for Colt Canyon lol). My next thought was: What do cowboys do? They shoot revolvers and stuff, so obviously I had to make some kind of shooter. Since I had to keep it simple and didn’t had much time I started designing the game rightaway and it became clear what the game will play and look like within hours.

At that time I didn’t envision it as roguelike but just a small game experience not longer than a couple minutes and without any bigger plans. Because of my time constraints, it was also clear that I had to stick to my already somewhat developed skills of making minimalistic pixel art for the prototype. I made a concept for what I envision the game to look like. This is the actual concept I drew. It's not a screenshot, but something that I drew pixel by pixel as a mockup:

Style-wise I was inspired by my previous project Just Get Through, but also by some other games that I saw in my twitter feed. With a style and basic game concept in mind it was time to open up old trusty GameMaker Studio 1.4 and hack together the prototype. Most time was spent on the movement, enemy AI and the quite different HUD I had back then. The first prototype, known as ‘Help’, was made in just one weekend, before uploading it to itch.io I only made some basic bugfixes and small changes.

There was just a single level, no menus, no other weapons, no procedural generation or anything. Only 2 different enemy types that both looked the same and only a couple of destructible objects with no fancy particle effects. Visually the prototype also looks way more flat and far less interesting with a very basic and static environment. Despite this there are still a lot of similarities between 'Help' and Colt Canyon as it is today.

Sadly I never got graded for my small game 'Help' or received any other detailed feedback, so I decided that possibly the internet might give me some feedback instead. I published the prototype on itch.io and to my surprise with little promotion effort it was picked up by a couple smaller content creators and even got a couple articles on some websites. The feedback was great, which motivated me to make a couple more small patches to the game before calling it a day.

At the Cologne Game Lab we have to develop a small but full game experience every second half of the semester in small groups, so I didn’t have any time to work on the prototype anymore as I had to focus my game development effort on that instead. In the project phase following 'Help' I was the programmer in a group that made a game called ‘Shell Shift’, that used quite similar input and movement to my prototype. I reused parts of the code of 'Help' in 'Shell Shift' and it was quite a success as well.

After the semester was over I wanted to return to Help because after weeks of not doing anything for the game there was still traffic on the page even without getting featured on the front page of itch.io. This interest in the prototype and the fact that I had so many more ideas for the game caused me to start thinking about how I could make a full game from this prototype. In my semester break I started to brainstorm ideas on how to increase the scope of the prototype and make it a full, polished game experience.

I had two main ideas. One was more narrative, quest-based. The other one is basically the concept that is now Colt Canyon with randomly generated level, more similar to what the prototype was, but with a bigger scope, more variety and higher replayability value. Because the first idea seemed more complicated, more work and more exhausting to develop I went with the second idea. My love for roguelikes and hate for narrative focused games probably influenced this decision as well. In the end the first idea would’ve probably become more roguelike-y anyway.

At that point the hard part started, because I was still studying game programming I couldn’t focus 100% of my energy on developing the game. I had to keep it simple or else I would never be able to finish it. I wanted to finish it in a couple semesters, but I was only able to work on the game in semester breaks or sometimes in the afternoon or weekend for the first half of the semester.

The game grew and grew and so did my plans for it. I was a slave to the feature creep.
I had to redo parts of the game over and over again because I always got new ideas that didn’t work with the old implementation. Stuff that I originally didn’t plan on doing: Console versions, boss fights, coop mode, different stages, high res interface, character artworks, unlockable different characters or weapons, most of the visual effects I have now, animals, secrets and much more. Some things like the console versions or high res interface only became possible when the following happened.

One year after starting working on Colt Canyon I got the opportunity to show my game at the German Dev Days in Frankfurt. I didn’t expect it to become such an important event, but this was where I first met someone from Headup, the guys who are now helping me with publishing the game. At first I didn’t even plan on getting a publisher, I released all of my games on my own before, but I do know that nowadays it is getting more and more difficult to stand out and reach the players. And as a solo developer and student I would never have enough time to do enough promotion next to developing the game.

After a couple chats and meeting with the Headup team I was confident that working with them was the right decision! But this also meant the scope of the game grew even more. The partnership unlocked the opportunity to bring Colt Canyon to consoles, but my current engine didn’t even support console development. I had to port the game to a newer version of GameMaker which was quite some work that I ignored up to this point. Fortunately I had a practical semester that I was able to use to port the game to the new engine version.

And that’s where we are today. The scope for Colt Canyon grew bigger and bigger, but together with a couple great freelancers and my publisher I managed to get it done. Well not quite yet as there is still a couple of things left to do but I am confident that we will manage it just fine. I can’t be happier with what Colt Canyon became over the last years! And I am sure it will become even better in the future.

Stay tuned for more detailed news and more reveals about Colt Canyon in upcoming Dead Man's News!

All the best and stay healthy!
Jonathan

Wishlist:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/940710

Join the Colt Canyon discord community: