Aug 7, 2022

Organosphere - Twelv

[EDIT] V0.9.2.2c 2022/08/09
1. Added 10 new achievements
2. Fixed issue with robo-friend toys not saving [Thus achievement able to be exploited]
3. New robo-friend toy model, making it easier to spot and more clearer as to what it is
4. Doubled all score earned, to reset the odds on the leaderboard due to certain exploits
5. Fixed a bunch of missing colliders on doors leading into certain buildings
6. Made some small adjustments to the world/environment
7. Made nature reserve mission not force night-time after returning
8. New default color grading settings
9. Improved normal map tiling texture on highway signs
10. Improved/fixed animations for the recently added 9MM pistol
11. Added headlights to the ATV. [Will automatically turn on at night]
12. Fixed issue with ambient occlusion causing grass to go translucent
13. Deleted a bunch of unnecessary buildings from the map
14. Fixed all darkness issues caused by global illumination in office after generator mission
15. Fixed issue of main pause menu being able to be opened during a loading sequence causing an unsightly UI overlap
16. Fixed issue of rifle weapon being stuck mid-reload animation if weapon is switched before the reload animation finishes
17. Fixed issue with flamesaw fires never extinguishing and burning permanently
18. Made game score not start at -1000
19. Made more public telephones ring with phone calls
20. Fixed issue of E-Toll gantries suddenly disappearing after being shot once
21. Fixed issue of moon being yellow
22. Made sun shafts not show at night
23. Drastically decreased mesh popping/culling when on higher graphics settings such as Ultra
24. Improved terrain texture in many parts

[EDIT] V0.9.2.1b 2022/08/08
1. Fixed issue with mouse cursor sometimes not disabling
2. Removed some floating debris near broken bridge
3. Made enemies in office less loud and made slightly fewer troops
4. Added a melee weapon pickup to office
5. Fixed some missing colliders on some closed off building doors
6. Fixed issue with ATV getting stuck after crash and not being able to be reset
7. Added new 9mm pistol weapon [Can be found in lab/office armory]
8. Added cheat codes [Available on request ;)]
9. Made player fall off ATV if they flip the vehicle onto their head

Organosphere V0.9.2
1. Fixed scale of world's smallest shopping cart model
2. Fixed F.O.V. slider issues, denotation and min/max values
3. Made scope reticle much clearer
4. Increased scope magnification value for all weapons
5. Made game vignette optional from settings menu
6. Added some useful cover [in the form of a minibus taxi] for the first gunfight encounter
7. Made first gunfight encounter slightly delayed after turning on generators by a few seconds
8. Removed many fences and opened up a lot of useful areas
9. Fixed mouse wheel weapon selection issues
10. Made Score SFX sound[Cash Register] optional - off by default
11. Added 3 selectable scope types [Clear, Red Dot, Retro/Stylized]
12. Fixed missing colliders on a boundary outskirt broken highway as well as corresponding barriers
13. Removed some unnecessary invisible walls
14. Improved rubble colliders near outskirts
15. Fixed some floating debris and incomplete boundary rubble by map edge
16. Allowed selection of "Weapon 0" aka Un-Armed/Holster via mouse scroll wheel
17. Removed unnecessary "Image Sharpening" option from menu
18. Removed unnecessary bloom option, made automatic only when inside buildings with fluorescent lighting
19. Added a set of melee weapons that can be found around the map [Frying Pan, Pick-Axe, Metal Pipe]
20. Fixed some Nav-Mesh issues causing enemies to be able to walk through buildings in certain areas, also fixed some missing colliders on some buildings
21. Added resolution drop down menu to in-game graphics settings
22. Neatened font in graphics menu
23. Optimized game performance, memory and scripting even further
24. Fixed issue when making it easy to accidentally close "notes" after opening
25. Decreased camera bob movements ever so slightly
26. Changed music in Nature Reserve
27. Made Nature Reserve INFESTED with scorpion and insect enemies
28. Improved Nature Reserve biome details and terrain appearance
29. Integrated support for scorpions & prawns in Nature Reserve to rotate up slopes when using Nav-Mesh on hills. [Not yet integrated in city yet for optimization, as terrain is mostly flat]
30. Fixed some missing collider on some larger vehicles such as cement mixers
31. Improved score/leaderboard appearance - made show top 40 scores instead of just top 10
32. Improved lobby screen/mission briefing scene and improved text copy slightly
33. Replaced all "Soviet" style bus mesh/materials with regular brown bus types
34. Fixed issue with enemy weapons not properly utilizing 3D sound and thus being able to be heard from anywhere
35. Added a few game Easter eggs inside the office/secret lab hub.
36. Removed annoying delay time for being able to use "Exit" sign after finishing dialogue with Professor in office hub
37. Fixed bug causing inventory description text to go black/unreadable when hovered over
38. Made PDA Mission/Stats notepad [Weapon slot '3'] Easier to read and improved appearance
39. Fixed issue that could cause dynamic music to be stuck in "Action" phase if setting music volume slider from zero during a non-action sequence
40. Improved electricity/lightning effect animation for final Center Core boss fight
41. Made player automatically holster weapon the first time they approach the secret lab/head scientist
42. Added a continue button to dialogue system when speaking to head scientist to prevent missing any information. [Can still use space to skip though]
43. Included look/feel and appearance of interior lighting, global illumination and horizon based ambient occlusion when the generator lights have been turned on after Nature Reserve mission
44. Made graphics settings menu in starting/main menu match the one from the IN-Game menu exactly
45. New preview scene for graphics menu, to allow you to preview graphics quality before playing
46. Fixed issue where you could retrieve Haibonium sample [Final fetch mission] from the dump truck without actually having to get inside the truck.
47. Fixed issue where carnivorous plants can be shot before they have come up from under the ground
48. Optimized input keys and mouse input handling code for better performance
49. Fixed issue causing game notepad stats to not show 100% story completion stat after completing the game.
50. Slightly increased damage to player from enemies to make health kits have more of a purpose and increase the sense of danger.
51. Soldier enemies will now invade the office when you are trying to locate the samples from the lower floors after turning back on the power, to make the general mission for interesting and challenging as opposed to a mindless fetch quest.
52. Moved more soldier enemies to the highway during mission to nature reserve in case player chooses to take that route instead of the veld.
53. Globes in light tripods inside office level can have their lightbulbs shot out witch accompanying SFX/VFX
53. Soldier enemies now speak/shout Afrikaans and in a more aggressive manner
54. Added new ATV Quad bike to help with certain mission long travel times, can be located outside the nature reserve after completing the Soil/Water sample mission
+ Many other small tweaks and game quality of life improvements too numerous or small to mention
NOTE: Due to complexity of certain changes, default graphics/game settings have been reset on this
update - HOWEVER - save games will remain intact :)

Please feel free to post your feedback, or drop us a review[good or bad] on the store page - I would love to hear and implement your suggestions!

Aug 7, 2022

Weekly Update 98 - Sounds and Art

Path to Prosperity - Essence Games

Hi everyone,

In last week’s post, I hinted at the fact that I was now working on sounds and art, so I wanted to take this week to talk a little bit more about that.

I have finally gone through my list of new features I wanted to add before 0.8 experimental, so with the worst bugs fixed (aside from a crash on macOS I can’t figure out yet), I am now finalising the switch of audio systems I talked about in Weekly Update 79. While I mostly finished the new system then, I only ended up implementing a few sounds to make sure that it worked, leaving the majority of the actual implementation for me to be done now.

Additionally, I have decided that I will be contributing to the art by making at least some placeholders for the buildings. Considering John has been struggling for time for quite some time, and trying to bring in new artists has been a long and difficult process, I want to maximise the productivity of the time that John and other artists can bring to the game. This means not asking them to do placeholders and initial concepts, and instead asking them to focus on materials, animations, and finalised buildings.

Considering 0.9 will likely introduce many more buildings and production chains, that will mean that the art would continue lagging behind my coding, and I want to bring in a little more balance than the work toward 0.8 had. As a result, I will try my hand on putting together some of the new buildings for 0.8 already, and hopefully, they will get to a state where their appearance at least won’t break immersion!

As a result, however, I am expecting to be able to put updates for 0.9 out a lot more quickly - and I will be able to talk about the art process as I go.

Until next week!

Aug 7, 2022

0.83 will be live in a bit!

Atmocity - Dispersing Minds

Hello!

A new version will be live in a bit! Here's what's new:

0.82 -> 0.83
- Changed template selection in main menu, selecting a template no longer starts the game at normal difficulty. Instead you can adapt the settings freely and start the game using the specified template (which makes more sense :)).
- Economic crashes no longer occur on easy mode. Instead, economy fluctuates smoothly.
- Added text box to describe the differences between the difficulty modes. Localizations will be added in later.
- Easy modes now has an increase likelihood of conglomerates making offers.
- Updated one of the templates to avoid size issues when starting a template on a minimum sized world
- Changed texture mipmap settings to avoid buildings looking overly dark at a distance.
- Adjusted the camera startlocation depending on world size
- Added a display size of area placed when placing blocks and also road length.
- Added 1x1 tradition ideology decoration.

- Fixed so that starting a small world will "crop" a remaining templates.
- Fixed loading bug where cities would revert to normal difficulty if started in difficult or easy mode.
- Fixed collider size issue with path decoration.

The main menu's free roam world setup has gotten some changes. The world created, and primarily the difficulty setting used, is described. It is now also possible to properly select a block template and setup a world, rather than clicking a template starting a world on normal difficulty.

The tradition ideology 1x1 decoration is now done:

This means that all four ideology "groups" have 1x1 decorations now, more might follow later on, but for now I will settle with these and move on to 2x2.

I noticed there was a bug that reverted cities to normal mode after loading them, this has now been fixed. Easy mode has also gotten some additional adjustments.

Texture import settings have been changed a bit again, to avoid textures fading out at far distances and making the skyline look dark, rather than fade to the current fog color.

Aug 7, 2022

The Warhorn - Devlog #3

The Warhorn - Lubasz

Hi Everyone and welcome to our third devlog! Today we have a few topics to discuss.
But before we start, there’s someone who wants to tell you something:

„Imagine a world. Place which belong to the people. This piece of land was granted to them by the gods, so they could work hard and earn their place in the afterlife. Think about the desert, traveled by nomad clans. Picture the highest mountains, which could almost touch the sky. Fields so lush that they looked like rough seas. May the picture of children, women and man, working together, performing their duties by the divinity's will and with methods, shared from father to son, burn into your mind. It all perished. Monsters flooded our world. Beasts hide somewhere in our woods, and forgotten by the deities races, live in our villages. In one night, our past, present, and future ceased to exist. We angered our gods, and they, in return, began the End of Times!” — Aban, traveler and cartographer

Lore

Alright, last week we have been working really hard to create the whole world and main plot. Most important event was some kind of anomaly which changed everything. Only few people know what exactly happened. By progressing the main quests, you will learn more about that event. What’s essential, when that anomaly happened, magic found a way to this world. Plants and animals are not the same they used to be. Next was nasty beasts and monsters who came after magic, they brought chaos and anarchy with them. All states try to survive in this grim time and new races try to find their home in our globe. Planet has changed. You will wake up on an island after a shipwreck. There are three main groups with different purposes and goals. To save the world, they have to start to work together. Monster and beasts, they are just a part of something older and more evil. This world needs heroes like never before.

Unreal Engine 5

Migration stage continued… Moving the game to the new Unreal Engine 5 is our priority, and we focus all developer resources on it. Many features have been changed in the new engine that require a long analysis and looking for the problems in the existing code. The game is very complex and has many mechanics, so the entire migration process may take a little longer. Most of the game features work properly, and the game is playable on the new engine, but we still require more time. Despite everything, we hope that we will release the new update soon, which will be on the new version of the Unreal Engine.

New World

We are currently working on a new map that will introduce the player to the wonderful world of the game, show the first mechanics and take him to a world full of adventures and dangerous creatures. Although The Warhorn is a survival builder game, we want the world to harmonize with the story and provide the players with even more adventure.

Redesign UI

There will also be changes to the player's interface (UI/HUD). We want the game to feel even better so that the player quickly understands how to use it after entering the game. We received plenty of messages where players had trouble reading or understanding the UI correctly. Not only will we create the interface larger, make it more readable but also, add more interactive elements that will make the interface intuitive.

Perk tree and damage balance

We want to further refine the balance of the game, so the perk tree will be modified and divided into sections that will focus even more on combat, survival, and building. More and different bonuses will be added that will diversify the gameplay and reward the player. In addition, new types of damage will be created, depending on the type of weapon and attack.

We want to share more about each story fraction. That’s why we are going to publish a devlog specific for each of them. When? Stay tuned and join our discord server https://discord.gg/SbsRXMM. Please share with us your opinion about the story and changes! We cannot wait to hear from you!