thewreck’s developer musings 2
October 11th, 2012, Cobalt, Musings, thewreckHi! In this post I will be musing on the following topics:
- Metalface hull types and equipment
- Map competition
- Adventure art
Hit the jump for the full read!
Metalface hull types and equipment
For the purpose of the adventure, we have been working on character development and customization. From left to right, the bare metalface, the “Explorer” hull and the “Scouter” hull. Each hull has different stats and will affect how your metalface performs in all areas.
As you can see on the following image, these hulls are not all in one piece:
In the Adventure the different hulls will not be straight up balanced, but rather offer both variation and progress. For the versus modes, the plan it to allow maps to enable “profile hull customization” (on by default?), which will allow players to spawn as the hull-design of their choice. To make sure things are balanced, these “versus” hulls will use a different stats that should be balanced. Any thoughts on this?
Metalfaces are divided into head, torso, hands and feet. On top of that, you also have an equipment slot for each as well as a brain equipment slot. You can change your equipment and hull in special booths that will look like this:
But since the graphics are not implemented in the game yet, it just looks like a regular shop now, but you can see how the equipment booth gui looks like here:
The sloth grip is now an equipment item and you can also unequip your reaction enhancer. Without sloth grip hands you can still jump up against walls, but you will slide down as soon as you stop jumping. Without reaction enhancer, you will no longer generate bullet time around you when threatened. Jet Shoes should probably be renamed to Jet Boosters? Also, sloth grip still doesn’t have a sprite visible on the character, but that is coming.
We have also tidied up the upgrade bench as you can see in this image:
As you can imagine, this was a sorely needed aspect of the game especially for the purpose of the Adventure. Prior to this we were having great trouble cramming more and more “fun stuff” into the game. This gives us the framework for how to add character development and also gives us a great platform for how to vary other characters. With this system in place, it will be much easier to add variations and difficulty to enemies without going crazy with production time.
Thoughts & comments?
Map competition
There was a map competition held on the forums that came to a close just a week back, and now they are gradually releasing information on the winners! Read all about the 5th and 4th place winners here.
The first price will be to have the map included in the official alpha version of the game! I personally have no idea who will win or even what the contributions are, so I’m really excited every time they announce an new runner up!
Update: 3rd place winner!
Adventure art
I’ve been looking over kinten’s shoulder for the past couple of days, and wow! Things are happening on the art front. As some of you know, we had the lovely Erik help us out a while back with concept art, and Kinten has been working hard to implement, redraw, cut out, and produce some of the scenes and concepts. I’m not sure what he wants to show or how he wanted to show it, so I will let him decide that himself on a later date.
Until next time!
/thewreck
October 11th, 2012 at 5:18 pm
NICE
October 11th, 2012 at 5:34 pm
WOHOOO!
nice
October 11th, 2012 at 5:51 pm
Not sure how to feel about the hulls, will have to wait until I see them in action but they seem interesting. For versus maybe just have the hulls for looks and not giving any stats? But depending on what they do they can probably be a bunch of fun in versus too.
Also as a map maker, how much do I have to think about balance with the new hulls in my versus maps?
The new upgrade bench looking good, nice to see how many levels you can upgrade now.
Looking forward seeing how this will turn out
October 11th, 2012 at 5:54 pm
great idea guys! keep it up and ill keep my gun blasting away for a long time
October 11th, 2012 at 6:20 pm
Wow, this is so cool. Great job!!
It’ll probably be hard to balance hulls for versus. Allowing players to change hull set (predefined classes) while respawning might work.
Cool that you featured our contest, thanks
! Let’s have the third review in a few hours, shall we?
October 11th, 2012 at 7:07 pm
I love you <3
October 11th, 2012 at 7:30 pm
It’s great to see the variety of characters that will be possible. For versus modes however, I think all players should be equal in stats, have the hulls change the look only, all players keeping the same stats. However it would be great to have player stats customizable by the map creator (create a map where everyone runs quicker or jumps higher for example). But I feel this game should not try to give different roles to players, and should keep everyone equal to the others during versus modes.
Can’t wait for the next update and for adventure campaign! Keep up the good job!
October 13th, 2012 at 10:44 am
when is the new update?
October 17th, 2012 at 8:57 am
I would like to know about the update too, survival is unplayable due to the bugs for the “wheelchair” plated bots.
Hope to get playing soon
October 21st, 2012 at 1:23 pm
Always exciting to see whats happening behind the developer curtain!
October 21st, 2012 at 6:41 pm
I like this. I LOVE this. I LOVE EVERYTHING.
@sceptics: Rather than perceiving differences as unfair in multiplayer, think of it as adding a new layer of gameplay. In theory they will be balanced and allow for people to nitpick between various different options and build up their metalface to be how they personally feel the most fun.
I am currently just buzzed imagining the possible alternatives to some of the more core elements that will apparently be modifiable.
Ahh, just an idea for a possible alternative!
Rather than having every variable singularly balanced, wouldn’t a “point system” be interesting?
That is to say, imagine each modification is allocated a number of points to reflect quality and that a metalface only has a set number of points free. This would allow players to streamline their metalfaces. For example a player may choose to invest in superior feet at the expense of having to use worse torso gear.
Just to clarify I am NOT suggesting that these “points” could be earned.
October 24th, 2012 at 5:25 am
Wow oh wow, I am so exited for the next update!!! XD
November 4th, 2012 at 10:06 pm
Pretty sexy stuff, mate!
I’m not sure that I like the hulls bit, that should probably stay cosmetic, upgrades separate, but it’s pretty cool.
About the upgrades bench thing: The new streamlined layout is FUCKING SEXY!
November 4th, 2012 at 10:22 pm
Fuck what I just said about the hull being separate from upgrades, but is it possible to make it say wtf the upgrade IS when highlighting the piece?
November 4th, 2012 at 10:26 pm
Btw what is Developer mode?