Turkey is gone*, winter is here… and so is the last update of the year! *(the animal)
LET’S SEE WHAT WE’VE BEEN COOKIN' LATELY!
1) From Losses to Bosses
The first part of NetherWorld (60% of the final game aprox.) has 6 bosses, and sadly during The Accident the ones we already had blew away. To ensure they're ready by the end of this year, Xavi Farré joined the team as freelance programmer to help us with all the fights.
Say hi to Xavi!
Among many stuff, he’s been working on:
Testing new potion mechanics to simplify a bit the first fight…
…ensuring giant trees hit you properly...
Strike 3, BOSS OUT!
…or choosing the right beer color to be spurted on your face.
Smash the correct buttons to reach the climax performance and set the thermometer ON FIRE! Having fun with Miss Garple.
2.2) Drinking tournaments
Catch the drinks at the right time and get wasted before the opponent does!
First minigame test. Just one advice: avoid coffee!
For the “Wasted Bar” we came up with a system so an object can follow the fill amount of an image without using Sliders (in Unity):
2.3) Duels
Make sure you hit the poster with the moving sight, or you’ll be shot in the face instead!
Deciding sight design. Any favourites?
3) HD Inventory Objects & Map
3.1) Weird pixel art objects deserve weird HD portraits too
3 months ago we showed you how NPCs would look on dialog UI. Don’t remember? Here’s another one: Oh, Miss Garple... Our beloved nosy neighbor!
Now it’s time for Inventory objects!
As you can see below, we’ve divided the objects into 4 color categories: Left to right: Hats, Weapons, Masks and Mission Items.
3.2) Press M!
Medoo doesn’t give a shit about maps, but somebody else will (and ultimately it will be helpful for Medoo too). This valuable encyclopedic map will change during the story each time Medoo discovers new stuff, and he’ll write and draw on it like it was a kids menu.
WIP design.
4) Polish & Tweak Should Be Character Names
As always, we’ve continued:
Improving existing systems like the teleporting worms…
[Early tests footage] Now they work 100% great, just need final particle touches!
…fixing bugs of new systems like elevators...
[SPOILER-FREE VERSION] The system understood Medoo was falling into void rather than just going down in an elevator. Looking at his life, we would make the same assumptions.
…and creating new animations like these ones for Mayo, the Hook Lady:
…or for the not-annoying-at-all waspions:
$$ Oh, and we’re also implementing the money system!$$
5) In-game cinematics
We’re glad to say that 95% of the first part cinematics are built-in in the game. But that’s not enough, obviously. During this month they’ll be revised and polished in terms of both script and visuals to provide the best narrative experience possible.
6) Playing NetherWorld before 2022
We’re now totally focused on finishing a Kickstarter backer exclusive playable version of the first part of the game before 2022 (or at least first weeks of 2022).
If you're not a backer, don't worry! You'll be able to enjoy the final game with everything polished, so...
Add NetherWorld to your Wishlist and be a part of this crazy journey too!
This is a small patch, yet with a few quality of life additions that might be useful for some of you. No gameplay changes, most changes were under the hood improvements, like engine level, some memory bugs etc. Should not impact gameplay.
New things
2X zoom in-game options. If you are playing on higher resolutions/big screen you can now chose this for better comfort.
Alt+ Enter now toggles between full-screen/window mode, I wanted to add this for a while but there were several things preventing this to happen while playing, hopefully it's stable enough.
A gamecontrollerdb.txt is now present in the game (ROOT/GameResources) and can be used to update/tweak SDL controller configurations, most people won't need to touch this, but this might help future proofing controllers that don't exist yet, just by updating that file, for more info: https://github.com/gabomdq/SDL_GameControllerDB/
Maintenance
Updated SDL from version 2.0.3 to 2.0.18
Some memory optimizations
Some resources will load faster (speed difference neglectable in modern PCs)
Thank you for all the support and kind words I've received about the game. Until next time!
This update is for the boys, and by that, I mean the men. Safe cracking, guns, explosion effects, and other cool guy stuff is added in the latest 1.22 release of Broke Protocol. Normally I would say something about how this is the biggest update yet here. And by number of lines in the changelog, it is in fact pretty big. In a numerical sense. Let’s get cracking.
Functional Safe Cracking Minigame
Locked inventories up till now were perpetual enigmas. Impenetrable boxes of mystery polygons. What were in them what are the economic implications of old Halloween candy lost in time? In 1.22, now every chest, safe, and ‘junk drawer’ can be lockpicked with a small new minigame. Get a Lockpick from the Pawn Shop and you can now test your ingenuity against a bad programmer’s imitation of Skyrim lockpicking. You still get a Robbery crime on entry though, even cracking into a lowly Level 1 apartment chest. You’ve been warned.
New Inventory Handling
All the chests, cases, and safes in apartments and other interiors can be cracked. The standing safe from the bank vaults is now available in your IKEA catalogue too. Safe cracking difficulty is determined by the value of the safe contents – it’s still not that hard though so don’t cry about it. Unless you’re colorblind – then it’s Nightmare mode because I didn’t have the foresight to think about that.
New Weapon and More Modding Features
The P90 is finally here courtesy of Xweert123 winning the Modding Competition. It really does look cool and is the first bullpup design added to the stock arsenal. You’ll see some changes to effects like lighting and smoke puffs for silenced/flash hidden weapons. The whole effects system was rewritten for optimization and now supports custom effects for projectile weapons too.
Gun Handling Changes
Guns are more steady overall when firing and aiming down sights. They’re definitely more controllable on mobile too. Their bullets actually reach visibility range now, and they no longer shoot leisurely nerf balls. Gun are actually deadly now, even if you’re aiming with your thumbs on a Guatemalan phone, through 5G wireless Covid airwaves, while huffing chemtrails. I wish gaming kill montages on YouTube were popular again. Does anyone even read these things?
Other Changes
You’ll see a few more cool effects like skid marks in this update. Damage indicators are also new so you’ll at least know where the aimbotting AI is shooting from. Czech language translations are available now thanks to Jakub K. Also you can now invite friends on Steam with a direct server link you can copy from the server browser.
Here’s the full v1.22 changelog:
v1.22 Cracking Update Changelog
New Lockpicking Minigame for cracking safes and chests
Minor Hacking Minigame visual updates (UI masking)
New LineGraphic, QuadGraphic, CircleGraphic UI Classes
This update adds the World Map so that you can easily see where all islands, ports and other places of interest are on the map.
Pretty straight forward to use, but please note that the world map does NOT show you your current location. This is very much by design. You can use your MFD GPS to get an accurate position but when plotting longer routes (as the GPS only zooms out so far) I want you to, much like a real skipper, plan your route using buoys & landmarks.
I shall also be adding GPS reliability/accuracy simulation so relying on your GPS too much may land you in trouble should it fail. To counter this I will be adding the ability to call in coast guard help (helicopter or aircraft) who will find you and then point you in the right direction if you get totally lost out at sea - for a cost naturally!
VISUAL TWEAKS
I've now increased the visual range from 5km to a much more realistic 15km for both VR & Non-VR.
I was pleasantly surprised that in most cases there was little impact to frame rates although some areas where you can now see 2 or 3 islands at the same time FPS can suffer a little bit. However, I can almost certainly improve on that by adjusting the LOD levels for buildings, trees and rocks and I think the trade off for the visual improvement is well worth it.
I've also added a better distant fog effect to VR & Non-VR which smooths the transition as islands come into view. You should now be able to see things like Maupiti's volcano loom in from the distance much more pleasingly.
However, if you find your system is now really struggling please let me know in the forums so that I can plan some graphics options that might help.
OTHER UPDATES
1. Maupiti now has an airport!
NEXT UPDATE
Next week will see the addition of a passenger and vehicle ferry and hopefully that will also be the update that finally makes it into the live build. I think there are now plenty of islands and vessels to show new players how the game is developing.
BIG THANK YOU
This is also a great opportunity for me to thank all the early adopters who have stuck with the game, given the updates those awesome "thumbs up", found bugs, helped fix bugs and who I have chatted to on both the forums and Facebook.
Without your support I'm not sure Powerboat VR would have got very far but now, when I look at the original version, it is surprising to see how far it has come and how much has changed.
-fixed time counting -fixed sprint -fixed save for items (like prefabs on modern level) -new skill for formworks -new improvements for the crane (like labels for prefabs on hook) -new improvements for the crane (like target label localizations for prefabs) -fixed crane params (more stiffness) -fixed lack of amount tips to build -added stack drop for items -fixed problem with dropping items on hand stack -better optimization for Japanese level -removed part of probably offend words -fix for invisible walls while driving vehicles -and many other small fixes
Fixed: -Replaced the outline color for tasks -Changed the storm outside the window (improves performance)
Added: -At the beginning of the game, the role of the player is indicated -Displaying the player's role during voting -Displaying the role during the game (only for impostors)