I’m presenting you the final major update to Farlanders before the release. We have 1 more major update planned which will introduce Daily Challenge & Sandbox game modes but that’s after the release.
Campaign & Narration
My main focus in this update was the campaign. This means implementing the story and working on actual missions. That’s a huge challenge to make missions not only interesting and diverse but also with the right difficulty and learning curve.
We will have 7 missions in the campaign, currently, 3 are available (I’ll be adding the rest soon). It would be the good old “desktoppunk” (my invention 😛) that you had a chance to experience in Farlanders: Prologue but this time with:
Various media (chat messengers, emails, video blogs, video calls, and even actual offline meetings between characters)
Mars colonization, mystery, secrets, and a little bit of drama 😏
Not sure why I decided to present info in this section as it is some kind of an ad, but I believe that’s a huge step forward to what was done in Prologue, and you will enjoy the story. And btw, some of the media would have a voiceover.
Sound design & Music
A lot of work was done on the game sound. So now we have a complete soundtrack and sound design, by which I mean:
Visiting sounds for most of the buildings which is played when you select or construct the building
Sound loops synced with building animations
New SFXs and updates to old sounds so that everything sounds good together
That’s the first time I’m putting so much effort into game sound, but it seems it was worth it and I’m proud of the result. All credits to Danil Dunets and Ivan Turmenko! Ah, and you can check the game sound yourself in the video below.
Building upgrade mechanic
I decided to go back to the old building upgrade mechanic. This means that instead of gradual growth (wait for a few turns for the building to develop) buildings will be developed immediately if conditions are met. It just feels better and fits the nature of the game which is about direct dependencies between terrains and buildings.
But it’s not a simple revert to the old mechanic. First, we have a new animation for buildings upgrades.
And second, we took the good part from the old-new mechanic. Buildings might have more different bonuses from various types of buildings. For example, Greenhouse gets bonuses from both Greenhouses and Food silos, although Food silos give fewer points. This creates more possible interactions between buildings which leads to more possible game scenarios. Imagine you need to build a Spices greenhouse for which you need to have Greenhouse level 3. You can achieve level 3 by constructing 3 greenhouses nearby, but that might be tricky, so instead, you can build 2 greenhouses + 2 food silos nearby.
Other changes
As the game gets closer to the release we get more and more tasks in the polishing area. I’ll try to mention the most important changes from what come to my mind:
Complete revisit of the game text; new names and flavor text for buildings and terrains
Robotics gallery, a new underground happiness building
Adjustments to the plants (and other life forms) logic according to the changed buildings upgrade system. Plants require time to grow to the highest level
Reworked technology tree; no more building level-ups in the tech tree, when you research a new building you get all the levels that are available
Updated main menu; campaign difficulty selection
Level generator improvement: rooms that are generated on the surface have softer edges, which means that there might be a passage between rooms that are not blocked by a canyon or mountain
Release date & final notes
I’ll be honest with you I feel burned out and tired of working on this game for so long. That’s mostly because the game scope become too big. Now I understand that it was too ambitious for the budget and experience that I had. When I started working on Farlanders I never thought that the game would grow so much. But my conscience is clear, I think currently every game mechanic is in its place. And we got the most out of the original concept.
As for the release date, it will be announced after:
Playtests are complete and we’re sure that the tutorial is properly implemented and there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the game
Trailer is complete
The localization process is started
Also, I made a feedback and bug report thread on our forums. They would especially make sense after we release a new demo. And as always, join our discord.
- Added `Lave River` stage. - Added enemy types: `Lava Blob`, `Shade`, `Firestarter`, `Fire Cyclop`, `Lava Snake`, `Ancient Grave`, `Cursed Ghost`, `Ancient Ghost`. - Added 4 Resistances powerups (Fire, Cold, Lightning, Poison). - Turned `Weapon Stats` into `Stats` that include resistances. - Redrawn the `Ghost` enemy. So pretty now! - Made first boss larger. - Slightly improved `Shotgun`. - Slightly improved `Shield Bash`. - Slightly improved `Zap`. - Added Lighting Resistance to `Electro Heart`. - Made `Homing Missile` a little weaker. - Added sound to `Aura of Purity`. - Added sound to `Blessed Hammer`. - Added distance limit and sorting to `Turn Undead`. - Made `Arachnes` larger. - Updated lore artifacts text. - Added artifact: `Giant Toe`. - Massively improved the `Magnet` powerup and made it cheaper. - Improved `Mace` and added stun on critical effect. - Fixed bug that you could get `None` artifact from a chest. - Fixed rendering bug of some artifacts. - Fixed super annoying bug that game would sometimes crash on random artifact spawn. - Made `Axe` spawn more often.
v0.5.56 -A bunch of camera logic tuning to make the player move through doors better and through indoor spaces better -Setup a delay before the camera moves all the way back out when it hits a collision close to the player. This helps in indoor areas navigation -Updated rendering system to have improved perf and produce smoother rendering when interacting with objects -Updated pirate spawn to use more deterministic, based on world seed and other variables unique to the world, for choosing which random pirate to spawn in pirate towers -Changed grass over to using the faster rendering system to improve performance and allow people to render more grass in their world -Smoothed out mouse scroll logic so it doesnt "pop" to the next value -Fixed flag placement and rock base placement of towers at Black Rock Tower -Improved sprint fov transition to be less noticable on the exit transition -Adjusted weapon damage values -Improved build logic for wood walls so that they will ignore obstruction from wood floors and stairs -Setup camera collision on wood windows to keep the camera from moving in and out of them as much -Improved cannon aim logic to better show when a nearby object is in the way of the cannon ball trajectory -Changed tide min/max range -Setup torches at Black Rock Tower to auto relight after a while if they are put out with water -Improved melee weapon damage logic -Update to the cannon camera position while mounted on it -Improved automatic on-ground visuals for wood doors as it could sometimes block easy movement in and out of the door if it was placed on dirt or sand -Adjusted save/load/spawning perf allocation to increase spawning speed and maintain a better min impact
I hope you had a great summer! Since we last talked, I've been working on multiplayer for the game. Thee progress is actually going good, I've been able to join the game and interaction seems to be working. Currently, the multiplayer implementation is still in progress so its not really ready yet but you will see its about 75%-80% there. Once I have multiplayer working over Local Area Network (LAN), I will then implement Steam and other platforms so the multiplayer will work using those applications and it wont be restricted to just the local network.
Here is an official list of what is in the update:
Implementing Multiplayer/Replication (Still in progress)
Fixed return button from multiplayer on main menu.
Fixed left hand menu interaction component to work with main menu.
Made Steel Drums non-breakable.
Fixed various placement of items in Level 1.
Changed lighting for Level 1.
Created moveable candle light and using baked light for wall sconces.
Fixed issue with spawning into Level 1 causing items to break.
Refactored Player Character class with the Player Hand implementations.
Made various items non-breakable (Dice, kitchen utensils, logic toy)
Fixed doors crashing in multiplayer.
Fixed Cafe Table (Round wood table)
Fixed issue with wood boxes flickering in multiplayer.
We have a big patch for you all today, and some huge changes for the game. Update six is adding a ton of new weapons to the game, our first beta release of Episode 4, Holdout Mode version 3, some massive performance improvements, and moving the game from a dedicated server-based architecture to a peer-to-peer setup.
Let's talk about the big change up front--we're moving from a dedicated server back end to peer-to-peer hosted games. We've been testing this extensively over the last few months, and we think it's a pretty significant win for all of our players, especially folks in regions that were far from our dedicated servers. If you're in Asia, Australia, South America, or Africa, playing multiplayer games with friends in your region will feel much better. Even if you were just a few thousand miles from a dedicated server playing with friends in your city, your experience should be noticeably better.
The bad news is that the shift to peer-to-peer requires that we temporarily disable a couple of key features--multiplayer on the Microsoft platforms (Xbox and Microsoft Store) and progression on the Infinity Pass.
For the Infinity Pass, you won't be able to progress until we update the game. You'll still be able to equip and use anything you've previously unlocked while you wait for the patch, but new unlocks will be paused until the next update. Once that happens, you'll be able to pick up your progress on the Infinity Pass where you left off.
Unfortunately, multiplayer on the Microsoft platforms (Xbox and Microsoft Store) isn't working properly while we sort out some back end issues. We're really sorry for the downtime and resolving it is our number one priority and we'll keep this post updated with progress as we work through the issue next week.
With the big changes aside, it's time for the patch notes.
The Patch Notes
There’s a ton of other good stuff in this update, so here are the high points.
Weapon Modifications
We got the message. You all want guns. LOTS of guns! To dramatically increase the number of available weapons, we’ve added a modular weapon system to The Anacrusis. We broke each of the base weapons, Plasma Rifle, SMB, and Blaster, into 5 pieces and built multiple versions of each piece. Those pieces, the receiver, grip, sights, magazine, and barrel, each have unique characteristics and can be combined in different ways to add a massive amount of variation in the available weapons.
To see what components are on each weapon, we’ve added a new user interface widget that highlights the components that make up the weapons you find. Players can press Tab for a more detailed look at their weapon breakdown.
The weapons modification system is our first pass on this system, and we’re excited about how it turned out. That said, it is a first pass and we expect to experiment with everything about it in the coming months--including but not limited to how we distribute the modifications, whether we distribute individual mods or only bundle them in weapons, whether you can remove or share mods, and more.
Episode 4 Beta
We’ve released what we’re dubbing the Super Beta version of Episode 4 with this update. In Episode 4, our heroes learn that the aliens don’t have faster-than-light technology. They realize that destroying the Isolode’s FTL drive will prevent it from falling into the aliens' hands and help protect the rest of humanity from the threat.
Performance
We’ve made significant updates to the game’s performance on all platforms. We’ve optimized the alien horde, which dramatically reduced microstutter on all systems. Everyone should see a much smoother feeling experience, whether you’re playing on a launch Xbox One or a top-of-the-line PC.
We’ve also made some significant progress on load times, optimizing them for both spinning platter machines and SSDs. If your load times were more than 90 seconds before, expect to see them drop into the 10-20 second range on most hardware, including the Xbox One.
Holdout Mode 3.0
We’re shipping our third major revision to Holdout mode since it launched earlier this year. Instead of an infinite challenge, this iteration is a quicker game with 5 rounds. The first four rounds each end with a capture point and crescendo, after which you have a moment of peace to heal, rearm, and collect perks and other rewards. The fifth round is a boss fight at the end, with a bigger, badder, much more dangerous super Brute.
The Smaller Changes
Horde Material update - Dramatically improves the variation found in the alien hordes
AI Backend Rewrite - Specials are able to interact with each other better, which will allow us to add new enemies and behaviors more easily in the future
Alpha support for recording in-game demos. - This is very early and operated with console commands only. There’s a stickied post in the Steam forums with the full instructions.
Sound design changes - We did a pass on all sounds to ensure that the volume levels were appropriate and that the in-game effects, weapon effects, music cues, and more were aligned with our goals.
Mod support (Steam Only)- We’ve added preliminary mod support to the Steam version of The Anacrusis, including support for custom gun charms, custom hats, custom player skins, and custom maps
Minigun - A new special weapon has been added to the game. The minigun is a slow spin-up, high rate-of-fire weapon that’s perfect for clearing a hallway filled with common or going toe-to-toe with the new brute boss in Holdout.
Update 5 special weapons (Stasis SMB, Router, and Sunshot Blaster) have been added to the general special weapon spawn pool.
There are a variety of new visual effects added to the game, including visible options for the health scanner as well as signage in the opening airlocks, capture point indicators in the holdout mode, and a lot more more.
Added new reload animations for Plasma Rifle and SMB
Added animations that give weapons motion when players look around
Game Instructor - Significantly restricted conditions for the "Don't rush ahead" hint to enforce a large minimum distance from other players
Game Instructor - Bumped up the cooldowns on "ping <X> for your team" and "use matter compiler" hints
Game Instructor - Made the "open this airlock" end-of-level hint less "sticky", i.e. we don't keep showing it when you've lost sight of the airlock door for a while
New title screen and main menu shows The Anacrusis barge and illustrates how the survivors actually get to the Isolode from The Anacrusis
Fixed a family of bugs where the HUD would incorrectly reflect the state of the survivors after a wipe or reset
- can now access mods menu when store is open - increased time between rounds in infinite mode - fixed purchasing a hack mod from the store sometimes causing a crash (thanks jcnest10) - fixed chainheal rare crash by adding extra instance checks for the robots that are being healed (thanks kantal)
this weekly update is going to be quick, since we're almost completely focused on finishing the core features for the next update and are not creating art concepts for new stuff. The details:
Our artists Andreas and Lasse are working with the new procedural generation tools to make the generated world look like their art concept
Our programmer Ben figured out the issue with terrain painting and has also finished the grass system for pre-made terrain building blocks (there is some other grass in the crater and highland biomes that is generated instead of artist-placed, but that's easier)
Our programmer Sepehr has taken over the laser task. Marking rocks and destroying them already works, but need to hook up the visuals.
While the core team is finishing the main update features, our concept artist Adriana has time to work on additional materials to be used in the game and in marketing. Without giving away too much information check out this piece:
I realize you're all waiting for the big update to drop and wanted to thank you for the patience. Happy playing!
-NEW MAP: To celebrate Halloween we're releasing a whole new map with new monsters! -Matches will get way harder after wave 50 (My personal record is wave 65) -Ultimates are now unlocked faster! -We remade the way you level up to avoid too many pauses. -At the 30 minute mark Death will appear. He's fast and unbeatable and will surely mark the end of the run. -Ultimate Ki Barrage has been reworked
Applied a fix for Steam stats and achievements that was causing issues with awarding achievements. It was a timing issue in game and shouldn't affect game progress. For those affected by the issue, the next game startup should award the missing achievements.
