-<Overview
In Project Wingman, gameplay is king. It is the entire why and reason behind most of our decisions: it is our attempt at a greater realization of another step forward in this genre. So what better in the leadup to the game’s release than to talk about gameplay, as broad a topic as it is.
Chances are if you backed this game and or are following it, you know the gist of the gameplay loop: You’re a once in a lifetime pilot, carving through the enemies with back breaking strikes and skillful maneuvers in a myriad of different aircraft (the aircraft of which will receive their own preliminary report prior to launch). You destroy the enemy, you get paid for it, and by getting paid you buy new aircraft. The better you fly the better the results of the mission, and if you’re flying instead for the thrill of it, all that is just pretext, isn’t it? But I digress.
-<How the planes fly, how the guns feel, how enemies pop and how they fight back, all of it has been tuned to bring out the best casual combat flight experience that, not only we would love, but we think you will as well.
In fact to assure that, final play testing is underway amongst players randomly chosen from our earlier queries: a brave group of 20 something pilots going to war both in VR and out against software daemons and the unpolished mass that is version .9 of Project Wingman. It is with their sacrifice and diligence that we will see 1.0 be better for you, the end user, so we salute them.
We could go into each part of the gameplay loop, but release is about ten days away and we’re not gonna mince words. We’ll hit a few things that might be worth knowing to prepare you for release:
CQ
Perhaps of all of Project Wingman’s features, Conquest is the most unspoken of, and perhaps that is a disservice to it as a mode. In truth Conquest could’ve been an entire game unto itself, however as the dust falls it fits in just well with Project Wingman’s package as a whole, and we wouldn’t think of it any other way.
So as a recap: Conquest is a roguelike mode, where players proceed on “runs” in order to clear an overworld map of enemies. They do so by sortieing and fulfilling an objective in each area, facing down a boss in each area before extracting and moving onto the next.
Simple? It is. However there’s some chaos in the mix of course:
The enemy won’t take this attack from you laying down, so they’ll continually send reinforcements during your sorties meant to stop your run. The voracity and skill of these reinforcements are defined by the Alert Level. The higher the Alert Level, the more dangerous the enemy’s reinforcements. The Alert Level rises over time ingame, regardless of anything you do, so, depending on how much of a rational pilot you are, it is generally in your interest to complete objectives as soon as you can.
However, doing that you forgo a lot of options to gain credits by taking out non-HVT units…
-<The name of the game in Conquest is balancing your time and your ability to gain credits to buy allies in order to help you during your run. Farm too long in an area, you might be facing impossible odds in the next sortie. Go too fast and neglect too much cash on the table, and you might be unprepared for a boss.
When you get shot down, the run is ended, and you reset this sick game from scratch save for one thing: Prestige Points.
These are the only things kept from previous runs (plus any ill-wishes against the SOB that downed you).Using Prestige Points you can buy aircraft to use on each subsequent run. The aircraft list in Conquest is different from the list in the Campaign, as Conquest mode leans into the more “gamey” part of this genre, so we think you might enjoy the power fantasy that comes when you gain enough points to buy that late-grade aircraft variant…
-<As with the Campaign, modifiers can be toggled for runs as well, adding further gameplay variation to this action packed mode.
Rest assured you don’t have to do an entire run at once, you can pause and return to the game if you need to, but you’re not a save scummer, are you?
Conquest will release alongside 1.0, and as stated in previous reports, it is the game mode most likely to be expanded post-launch, (and to be honest we’d be amazed if it is 100% hitch free on launch given the nature of it) so any feedback is appreciated across our social media and community groups.
VR
Virtual reality integration and peripheral support into Project Wingman has been planned from day one, and on the verge of another day one, we have this to say:
It’s in.
There’s not really much to say without descending into the flowery PR speak of “FULL IMMERSION” and “FEEL LIKE YOU’RE REALLY IN THE COCKPIT”.
VR support in Project Wingman is a 1:1 experience with traditional players, asides from the fact that, for obvious reasons, you’re limited to a cockpit point of view at all times ingame as you are seeing the game through your very eyes.
This might be underselling it, but it is what it is: You can play Project Wingman fully in VR through the Steam VR and Oculus.
All the content, sights and sounds and gameplay, it’s there for ya’, so go nuts.
HOTAS support as well, that’s pretty simple. As long as Windows 10 reads it from DirectInput, you can bind it. Racing wheel enthusiasts and guitar controllers, go right at it if you want.
VR Footage A
VR Footage B
Fun fact, we did test motion controls, as in virtual joysticks, a while back, but it never went past the testing phase. If there’s enough demand we can try reinvestigating it, of course, as it was an interesting novelty, and an option for those of us without controllers.
Now of course there are real life considerations that we have to approach: VR gameplay is going to require a beefier computer to handle compared to just running it traditionally, and you should expect that sort of performance gap. I will tell you what I use personally for my VR experience, and you can make a judgement call from there:
Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 2600
Memory: 16GB DDR4 at 2133MHz
GPU: GTX 1070
These are the big things to my personal rig, running a WMR headset, and I was running at very playable frame rates cranked all the way up at 150% render scaling. This is by no means a recommended spec sheet, and your mileage will vary, but as I stated earlier VR specs should be expected to be beefier than that for a crystal clear, silky smooth experience, especially for headsets pushing more pixels. If you find success with specs that are surprising to you, it’ll be surprising to us, so feel free to shoot us a message. (As for specs in regards to traditional gameplay, i.e. non-VR, we have those available on the Steam page.)
Now HOTAS setups and VR headsets are so various in configuration that of course some will run into issues, however we’re standing by in regards to that and will try to help who we can if their setup doesn’t work for reasons we can handle. If any issues rise up, feel free to note on the Steam forums, or on our other social media sites, but preferably our Discord if you can manage.
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More information will be inbound soon, especially for those due keys for the game.
