Jun 7, 2024

Heroes Suck - Kalradia

Summary

Optimizations and improvements! Physics should feel more smooth now, and the game should run faster.

Features

Fortitude: Heroes now have a fortitude value that must be depleted to knock them down. This value and fortitude damage each trap does will be displayed on the UI in a future update.
Ability tooltips! Hover over an ability to see more information.
Graphics options! A few options have been added to customize the visuals and get a bit more performance on lower end machines. More to come!

Changes

Doubled the physics framerate from 50 to 100. This provides more accurate physics simulations at the cost of a little bit more CPU usage.
Changed navmesh to allow enemies to get closer to the walls. This was initially put in place to have heroes avoid corners a bit more, but with more traps coming it will be less of an issue. This was also causing heroes to teleport around after they regained balance.
Adjusted selection colliders on flame jet and pendulum axe to be a bit smaller.

Balancing

The Pendulum Axe was previously (intentionally) ignoring some collisions if they weren't strong enough, and also ramping damage based on the impact. This logic has been removed, so the pendulum axe should now feel more consistent and powerful.
The settings menu UI/UX has been improved.

Optimizations

Exterior environment has been optimized. Grass shadows have been removed, and meshes have been combined, with the removal of geometry that is not visible.
LOD (Level of detail - essentially varying quality meshes of a particular asset) has been removed on foliage and instead been changed to use different LODs based on the graphical setting. Medium is now the default grass detail setting, since it is the heaviest on performance.

Bug fixes

Fixed a trap trigger bug that would reset the internal delay for activating the trap.
Fixed a soft lock when starting a stage after unlocking powers and having guides disabled.
Fixed a shader issue with certain traps fading out at the wrong angles.
Enemy health bars don't jump around as much when taking damage now.
Fixed a bug that was temporarily allowing two traps to be placed on a tile.
Some environment display issues have been resolved.
Resolved error spam when disabling a trap selection while it is changing position.

What's next?

I'm continuing to refine the core gameplay experience, optimizing and polishing. Content creation is also under way for beta. Spots will be limited, so be sure to sign up to the newsletter for your opportunity to join the upcoming test.

Thanks for playing!
Kalradia

Jun 7, 2024

UPDATE 0.1.7.1.3.a

Primal Dominion: Aftermath - PRIMALREX

Hello Survivors! It's been a while. If you're not up to date with our Discord, we're working our way into re-emerging with a much more robust version of the game, it's better than ever AND we're focused on keeping everyone updated consistently. Some of you have expressed a distaste for joining yet another Discord and I can totally get behind that, so to strike a balance we will be posting quickly accessible information such as recent development progress and upcoming features on the Discord and then Playtest announcements, updates, devlogs and change lists here!

//////// Introduction (to the new guys) /////////

It feels appropriate for some introductions, I am Primal, the Lead Developer.
Some of you may know me already but for those who don't, I got ownership of the project in late 2022 and have been working on it mostly solo since then.
Our team mostly remains the same, most have not worked on the project since I took hold of the project but I've been building the project from the ground up on a fresh codebase all the while squeezing time for animating, texturing, modelling and optimizing.
It's been a long year and a bit but I think the project is now in a suitable position for the lime light and I want to drop all the goodies about development & playtests in the Discord Server and over here on Steam Community.

A preface for those who have not been paying attention for the last couple years. The game is not the same as it was, as this is a debut devlog it is fitting to show the difference of the game in 2021 compared to current day.

Early 2021: We did not know what to do for our controller, it was incredibly basic, did not respond well to inputs and did not have any mouse aid for directing the dinosaur. Funnily we considered hiring a few Animation Programmers to get it up to par with where we wanted to go for.

Easter 2024: A lot of work has been put into making the dinosaurs feel incredibly bespoke, smooth and unique to every species. Across the board the game has been polished and refined. Don't take just my word, participate in a playtest so you can get a feel for it for yourself!

Onto the real meat of this devlog, the update that is launching today with it:

//////////////// Features & Changes ////////////////

We've made a lot of work since our last major update (Dec 2023), most changes are QOL and are outlined in the change lists but I'll be discussing some of the main feature changes/additions that arrive with this update.

//////////////////// New Abilities ////////////////////

If there's one thing that we're trying to strive for is a cinematic but epic feeling experience to the game, we want you to feel every punch, bite, swipe and crunch of every dinosaurs moves. We also want the players to have control over what your dinosaur can do, our 'build' based system therefore requires me to create many different abilities, animations and implement them with our cinematic camera. The turnaround on these have been extremely slow as I've been relegating myself to other areas of work like programming and more recently bug fixing. In any case this update drops a few new ones, here's a new head swipe one for the rex:

//////////////////// Nests ////////////////////

We now have an implementation of Nests which will hold some dino eggs, these are planned to be used in the S&D Game Mode (Nest Hunt) where it'll be a tug of war of humans raiding nets whilst dinos recuperate and brood more at other Nests.

//////////////////// Foliage Interaction ////////////////////

Back from the dead, foliage interaction has returned. This feature has been a bit taboo as to how to go about its implementation but I think I've arrived at a solution that is both performant and does not sacrifice its visuals. It is currently exclusive to some plants which will shuffle as well as play a rustling noise whenever interacted on. Additionally they are reactive to bullets, so shooting through them will make them rustle too! This should help the humans and dinos pinpoint each other much more easily!

//////////////////// Foliage Destruction ////////////////////

Those who were here from our initial prototyping in 2021 were keen and eager to see some sort of tree destruction from our tyrant classes. I'm pleased to say this update welcomes tree destruction! Tyrants can walk through specific trees and they will fall over and break apart dynamically. This feature is quite experimental, the destruction may misbehave but we're eager to see all the cinematic moments this will introduce!

//////////////////// Blood & More Blood ////////////////////

The most sorely missed feature is gore. Previous updates did not feature gore outside of blood splatter and ribboning trails. Earlier in development I had developed a shader based technique which allowed for blood to pool at gunshot wounds but moving forward and reevaluating performance budgets it was scraped. This update reintroduces blood splatter on skin, which dissolves and appears depending on health. This change affects humans too so you'll see blood marks on your hands and arms!

Soaked Spino :)

//////////////////// Other Stuff ////////////////////

Perk Codex

This is a smaller scale of the larger Ability Codex, here you will be able to switch out your dinosaur perks, these are attribute exclusive so they wont allow you to do special moves etc. The visual presentation is still a bit WIP but here's how it is accessed in-game.

Human Audio Manager

Another feature that has been re-implemented, humans will now have voice manager where different voice lines will be played depending on which dinosaur you're encountering as well as manage a dynamic music system which should play intense music during combat!

Crash Logs!

Finally our shipped builds will include verbose logs from start to close, so we should be able to get more information whenever anyone crashes!

This update is also shadow dropping a few experimental features namely interactable physics objects and explosive barrels, won't talk too much about it here but if this update has enticed you into giving a further look into the game I would highly suggest you join the Discord on the Steam Page (Shameless plug but trust me it's the best way to reach out). We talk about ideas and organize our Playtests there!

//////////////////// Final Words ////////////////////

This is all for the first official "Devlog" post. Development may seem slow, I know, I am trying to manage this as fast and as best as I can, there are no definitive release dates but I can reassure all that the codebase is almost fundamentally complete, the game is playable, the time spent now is just making it as fun and as engaging as possible! I will try to keep posting these every few months or so, usually there isn't enough substantial work being done on a per monthly basis that I feel like is worth talking about however if that is something you're interested in then you can join the discord for live updates.

Change lists will be communicated here from any onwards patches. I usually do communicate larger features in the Discord but it feels more unified to talk about changes over here.

//////////////////// Changelist ////////////////////

- Upgraded to UE5.4 for better performance and future features
- Per gun scope DOF on humans (Fixes egregious DOF on specific weapons)
- New Dino Audio
- Guns will randomly spawn with either ironsight or a scope
- Dino Dynamic Hit Reactions
- Saliva Test
- Improvements to dino locomotive
- Dino locomotive keeps focus around the head when sprinting
- Dino Nest + Eggs
- Hotel Map Environment Work
- RTT Buffer to experimentally test out better server/client timings
- Blood Splatter on Humans when low health
- Blood Splatter on dinos when low health
- Blood Splatter on dino teeth after continuous successful bites
- Improvements to blood hud effect
- Random Glove Color + Random Headgear on human spawn
- Human material tweaks
- Optimizations to lighting
- Random Human physical appearance (gloves + headgear)
- Fixed muzzle flash being almost invisible
- You can now interact with physics objects by shooting or walking into them as a dino/human
- Foliage makes rustling noises and shake if you walk through specific foliage
- Palm trees can be destroyed as a large dino
- Improved Dinosaur Footstep Sounds
- Perk codex is available instead of regular ability codex
- Fixed issues for hotel geometry
- Better Material on Spino & Rex
- Reworked default dino health regen perk
- Fix humans not spawning after team switch
- Camera focus resets to center if falling
- Jumping as a dino provides additional forward velocity
- Human Audio Manager for dynamic music
- Higher fidelity shadows on dinosaurs regardless of lighting conditions
- Faster loading times (Can cause some one-off stutters at the moment)
- Less shaders to load for new users
- Fixed humans not doing a ragdoll on death
- Fixed gun fire not working on offline
- Fixed Reload animation not working properly for third person
- Fixed bullet tracer slightly offsetted for FP
- Attempted fix for scopes having strange projection
- Reduced memory to be loaded instantaneously by 70%
- A various amount of coloration options for dinosaurs
- Reworked TSR to provide a more sharper, cleaner image (performance and visuals may differ in select scenes)
- Fixed an issue where sniff audio was not playing for others
- Ambient audio has a bit more depth by using binaural audio with interior culling.
- Potentially fixed an issue where impact sounds were playing twice
- Cleaner motion blur so that it's less distracting and reduces artefacts
- Reintroduced mostly fixed/balanced Shotgun (Experimental)
- Removed Affected/Independent option from human FOV due to TSR artefacting
- Reduced FOV range for Humans to reduce temporal bleeding and to better help shooting accuracy
- Made some netcode more secure and server authoritative
- Fixed an issue with some inputs not being blocked whilst using abilities
- Shaders will recompile every update instead of every fresh install (prevents hitches when trying new content)
- Spino health reduced from ~4300 -> 3800
- Spino & Rex health regen rate reduced significantly
- Fixed an issue where players would see their impact fx happen twice (Noticeable at high ping)
- More accurate gunfire at super close objects
- Respawn now is moved from 'K' to a pause menu option :D
- Misc Bug fixes

Jun 7, 2024

WDC World Ocean Day Charity Sale

The Great Ocean - mg

We are excited to announce that we are supporting WDC, Whale and Dolphin Conservation for World Ocean Day!

The WDC World Ocean Day Sale starts today and runs until 15th June, 10am PDT 2024, and you can save a fin-tastic 30% off our game The Great Ocean. We will also donate 30% of our net profits to WDC to support their conservation work.*

Who is WDC?
WDC, Whale and Dolphin conservation is the leading global charity dedicated to the protection and conservation of whales and dolphins.
Their expert-led teams in the UK, Europe, the Americas, and Australasia work across the whole spectrum of threats, from climate breakdown to accidental entanglements in fishing gear. They bring together, and work hand-in-hand with, businesses, philanthropists, scientists, NGOs, governments and grassroots communities to find solutions to the problems faced by whales and dolphins.
Their aim is to reverse the global decline in whale and dolphin populations by creating safe seas for these majestic creatures.

Entanglement in fishing gear, or ‘bycatch’ as it’s known, is the biggest threat whales and dolphins face. Many hundreds of thousands die in nets or get tangled up in fishing gear every year. As air-breathing mammals like us, when they get trapped in a net, panic can take over and they can sustain terrible injuries before either escaping, or suffocating. It is a massive problem and so WDC are working on some innovative solutions. 

In our game you can dive into the oceans and rescue whales from sea-prisons and sea turtles from entanglements.

What WDC has been doing so far
WDC have been working across the globe to protect whales, dolphins and porpoises from dying in fishing gear:
They’re collaborating with creel fishers in Scotland to trial new types of fishing gear to reduce entanglements of humpback and minke whales.
They’re working with colleagues and partner organisations in the Central Baltic Sea to develop a recovery plan for a critically endangered group of Baltic harbour porpoises.
On the west coast of the United States, critically endangered North Atlantic right whales are facing extinction. Entanglement is a massive threat to their survival, and WDC have been working with fishers to trial alternative gear types.
In Hong Kong WDC have been supporting local community efforts and working with fishers to save the remaining 200 Indo-Pacific finless porpoises from extinction due to bycatch.
These projects are saving lives, and they are powered by inspiring people working together for the ocean.

How your support will help this year
By purchasing games from this year’s World Ocean Day sale, you will help WDC continue these vital conservation projects across the globe, as well as enable WDC’s team to embark on new efforts to bring further protections for whales and dolphins, like the Sri Lankan gillnet fisheries project:
Sri Lanka is home to many species of whales, dolphins and porpoises as well as a myriad of other sensitive marine species like sea turtles that are vulnerable to entanglement in gillnets – these are nets that hang in the water like a wall. With funding, WDC hopes to collaborate with Sri Lankan artisanal tuna fisheries that use gillnets to trial new gear types and reduce the impact their fishing has on marine life, while still enabling them to earn their living.

Whales and dolphins are awe-inspiring. They are intelligent beings, vital for the health of the ocean and planet. Together we can still help them recover and flourish and they can help us reconnect with the wild, and repair the damage we have caused.

If you want to read more about WDC, you can do so here: https://whales.org/
Keep up to date with all the awesome gaming activities WDC does here: https://games.whales.org/

And you can find many other amazing games in the sale here: {LINK REMOVED}
Thank you for joining us and for supporting WDC!

*30% of our net revenue from this sale will support WDC, Whale and Dolphin Conservation. Whale and Dolphin Conservation is a UK registered charity (no. 1014705).

Jun 7, 2024

Ready or Not - Vol. 74 Development Briefing

Ready or Not - catindabox

Attention Officers,

Thank you for joining us for the 74th edition of our Ready or Not development briefing, June 7th, 2024!

This week we'll be covering our completed transition from Unreal Engine 4.27 to the new UE5 and the delay of DLC 1. Throughout this briefing, we’ll outline what specific benefits we expect from UE5.3 as well as how the DLC release and UE5.3 modding scene is affected. Furthermore, we’ll show off some slices of content that you can expect from DLC 1.

The UE5 transition was a longtime project that was in large part diligently handled by close external partners. This extensive preparation has resulted in a relatively seamless final transition, yet there were still some related issues and additional delays that we had to recently overcome. Other general issues including one or two high-priority issues are still not fixed. Aside from that there is some extra DLC 1 work and quality assurance to be completed.

One main high-priority remaining issue is that some of the open-source tools used for modding countless Unreal Engine games, including RoN, are not yet compatible with UE5.3. In the crucial interest of our great modding community we want to avoid launching without modding support. We have several solutions to pursue including a bounty on the tools.

With the UE5 transition complete an official modding Software Development Kit (SDK) is going to happen but it will take time to do right.

Therefore, Officers, we are posting open bounties to support Unreal Engine 5 modding as a whole. Payout will be based on contributions that fix the issues at hand for each tool:

- UE4SS (https://github.com/UE4SS-RE/RE-UE4SS) (Primarily affects map modding)
- UAssetAPI (https://github.com/atenfyr/UAssetAPI) (Primarily affects equipment modding)
- UAssetGUI (https://github.com/atenfyr/UAssetGUI) (Primarily affects equipment modding)

These development briefings serve to keep you in the loop about parts of our ongoing support for Ready or Not, however the briefings do not encompass everything that we’re working on at a given moment. Please keep in mind that everything in this development briefing is work in progress and subject to change.

Vol. 74 Development Briefing Summary Points:
(not a changelog)

DLC 1 will no longer release during the Spring timeframe, though it is close to completion. It will release as soon as properly viable
- We will be able to provide more info in the coming weeks with the next newsletter as progress on the situation is made

Vast majority of DLC 1 content is completed
- DLC 1 comes with 3 new weapons (plus effectively a 4th)
  - (available to all players regardless of DLC ownership)
- 3 new maps largely completed with glimpses shown
  - (available to all players in multiplayer with a lobby host who owns the DLC)

We have completed a transition for RoN from Unreal Engine 4.27 to Unreal Engine 5.3
- It was important for efficiency and engine benefits that we complete the engine transition before adding new content to the game
  - Not every new UE5 feature will be utilized by RoN, but there is a solid list of immediately noticeable benefits that we’re confident will be included:
    - Better PSO integration tools, PSO precaching, DLSS 3.7, FSR 3, and new anti-aliasing methods (TSR).

We are posting open bounties to update open-source modding tools and support Unreal Engine 5 modding as a whole (Affected tools: UE4SS, UAssetAPI, UAssetGUI)
- RoN will receive official Software Development Kit modding support now that the UE5 transition is complete, but it will take time for the official SDK to be done properly and polished

DLC 1 Delay

We’re sorry to say that DLC 1 and its broader Home Invasion launch will no longer fit into the Spring timeframe.

Unfortunately, our timetables shifted more than we anticipated during our UE5 transition and development process, along with the fresh uncertainty presented by the modding tool dilemma.

The delay also represents an adjustment of our focus towards developing some more core game features and actualizing the new benefits that UE5 can offer.

The vast majority of DLC 1 is already completed. With it will come 3 new weapons (not counting a novel twist that effectively creates a 4th new weapon option). Our three new maps are looking incredible, and we have a few glimpses to share with you all.

Fortunately for the rest of the roadmap, preliminary work is already being done on DLC 2 by our level design/art teams when available, and experimentation on features for the core-game is continuing to progress. UE5 brings hope in the new efficiencies and benefits it brings to our internal development processes. However, we’ll ultimately have to assess later how this DLC 1 delay affects timing on other roadmap goals.

(Image below: [DLC 1] A battered building hangs in a state of disrepair. Its decrepit hallways echo with the murmurs of those with nowhere else to go.)

(Image below: [DLC 1] A sun-drenched neighborhood crumbling close to its end.)

(Image below: [DLC 1] A grand estate sits atop the valley.)

A New Engine for Future-Proofed Content

Upgrading our game engine to Unreal Engine 5 prior to launching DLC ended up being imperative to most efficiently future-proof new content and reap benefits from the updated engine. Specifically, the current version we’re on is UE5.3.

As stated earlier, our external partners handled the majority of the transition, allowing us to focus on developing 1.0 and new content until the final stage of the UE5 transition was ready.

Although Ready or Not is not positioned to use every new or flashy feature UE5 has to offer, there is a solid list of easily noticeable benefits that we’re confident we should be able to take advantage of. A few of these potential benefits are better PSO integration tools, PSO precaching, DLSS 3.7, FSR 3, and new anti-aliasing methods (TSR). We're already seeing positive results in gameplay from many of these features.

Better PSO integration tools means that we should have an easier time implementing PSO caching for each map/level in the future, which would reduces loading times and in-game stutters.

PSO Precaching is an automatic approach to PSO caching that could help cut down on load times and stutters even further. This technique contrasts with traditional PSO caching which may require you to load a level first before you can benefit.

Nvidia’s DLSS 3.7 offers improvements over the DLSS 3.5 currently in the game to enhance performance and visual fidelity simultaneously for RTX cards.

Meanwhile AMD’s FSR 3 suite offers similar features for all graphics cards, able to replace the FSR 2.1 in-game now.

TSR (Temportan Super Resolution) is a new anti-aliasing method that comes with UE5 that which improve anti-aliasing graphical quality substantially, especially during movement.

Conclusion

Even though DLC 1 is nearing completion it is not expected within the Spring timeframe anymore; we aim to release it as soon as properly viable. More info should be offered during the coming weeks with the next newsletter as progress on the situation is made.

Our completed UE5 transition will future-proof development while providing you all some useful features, but we still have some things to address including the recently outdated Unreal Engine modding tools.

Once again we recognize that an official polished SDK, which we always wanted for RoN, would be an ideal modding solution. The SDK is going to happen as a next step since the UE5 transition is complete, but getting it right will take some time. Until then we hope this solution is beneficial for the entire Unreal Engine 5 modding community. Keep an eye on the respective Github pages for more info.

This concludes our 74th development briefing, thank you again for joining us. Be sure to fall in next time for more development news!

Follow Ready or Not on Steam here.
Our other links: Discord, X, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook.

Stack up and clear out.
VOID Interactive