It's been almost 3 months since the last update and today I'd like to take you through what I've been working on! Let's start off on a new map called Tropicana.
Tropicana
Around the end of January I started working on the first actual map that is designed around the ruleset that I came up with. The current screenshots which you can see on the store are partly of the Factory map, which was designed as a map to show off graphics and gameplay in the fastest way possible, so don't think of how and why things are placed but just have it look like it could be a map.
The ruleset (or design rules) I came up with are based on looking at various other shooters out there that have good maps (and also bad ones, it's good to know what to not do!). Some of the rules I came up with are as follows:
- Every map needs a unique aesthetic, look and feel. (The unique aesthetic could be a crashed plane or a big submarine in the center of the map)
- Every map needs a variety of sightlines. (ranging from short to long, to support all types of guns that you like to use)
- Every map needs to be at least 50% outdoors. (Meaning a view of the sky, this will be needed in the future)
- Every map needs to support at least 1 alternate weather condition.
Tropicana fits the unique aesthetic as an overgrown sub-tropical swimming pool, the dense foliage in various places combined with open center pool allows for various ranges of sight.
Here are some screenshots of Tropicana!
The start of Tropicana. A rough block-out.
About a quarter into development of Tropicana, starting to grasp what it should look like
Tropicana finished! Showing off sunset & midnight fog variants.
Weather Conditions
For the replayability of the game I looked at how to add/influence this from a map perspective. I have played plenty of FPS games in the past and often the maps became "stale" as these maps are played in the same weather. So you'd always play that one map in night time, or broad daylight for example. Now the big studios usually have quite a few maps at the launch of the game, and pump out more after that to keep it fresh by having a large rotation of maps. It takes me about a month to make 1 map, and was thinking on how I could get "more" out of said map for a little bit of extra effort. The solution to me was doing different "versions" of the map with various weather conditions. Playing a map in broad daylight is very different from a foggy midnight variant.
I wrote down various ideas of what could work and what not. Snow for example doesn't work well as models would need to be updated, so I'll leave snow-covered maps for later. Some of the ideas that do work on a lot of maps are rain / thunder and fog.
For Tropicana there's the following:
- Sunset weather condition
- Midnight fog
- Midnight thunderstorm (slight epilepsy warning)
For Factory:
- Midday clear sky
- Midnight fog (midnight fog makes the game go spooky real fast)
- Rainy cloudy midday
Other Improvements
Now this is a long long list if I name everything, I've done 2 internal playtests so far and I am now at a point where it feels like a stable game, we've had connection issues, input breaking, players spawning in the ground and various UI not showing the correct values as an example. All of these are solved!
Last time I mentioned a list of things to do for the first playtest. (With the first playtest I mean a public one, not just with friends.)
All but one item made it in! I didn't get the time for a 3rd map unfortunately.
Since the last time:
- Vastly improved movement.
- Hunters can now throw grenades.
- You can now make a loadout, picking from 9 weapons in total.
- You can now adjust various settings regarding video quality / audio.
- You can rebind keys!
- You can now score points and level up!
- The UI has been updated.
- Zombie and Hunter sounds have been added and all sounds are networked, so keep quiet when near the enemy!
Audio settings
Key rebinding
Improved UI
What's next
Here's the roadmap! Currently wrapping up Phase 1 this week and then on to Phase 2.
Before I'd do a public playtest I'd like to add some more things, these are noted down under Phase 2.
If you came this far reading all of it, thank you for your support!
If you are interested in more in-depth info regarding the game or just want to hang out feel free to join the discord: https://discord.gg/jbx92tbMSG
And if you want to join in on the future playtest, don't forget to wishlist and sign up!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2179490/Ravenous_Horde/
