Working on Fort Defense, Movement, Infinite Terrain

With the highs and lows of running a funding campaign, customer service emails (2000+ received since campaign launched), developing the game, and all 3 of us coming down with the flu (which we blame on the Canadian winter, and the fact that our igloos need better setup). It has been a busy past 3 weeks here at Code}{atch!

We thought we'd share on what we've been developing in the game.

Movement Upgrades - The movement is being re-written in some ways to allow for a much more streamlined and tighter experience. The basics are now done, the player doesn't wobble and he starts and stops very quickly. Now the jumping and parkour systems are being worked on.

Fort Defense Mode - The vat is now fully setup and working in a multiplayer environment. Both creatures and players can attack it and destroy it. Players properly respawn at the vat. When you start a game you have 5 minutes to prep a base. Then the waves come. The enemies become more numerous and harder to beat with each wave. There is a 2 minute breathing period between waves. The leech now properly attack and destroy parts of your forts. Chests also fall from the sky.

Multiplayer Inventory Work - All of the weapons and cubes now work fine in a multiplayer environment. The Procedural weapons create icons on the fly, so each icon accurately represents the procedural weapon that is stored. 3D tilesets are now managed in a separate 1-9 hotkey setup which the user swaps to by hitting "q". We are also building a display for the HUD that shows your hotkey slots. We have much work yet to do to streamline our systems, but the work is coming well.

Infinite Terrain Engine - it is being rebuilt to give more flexibility in designing how the terrain generates itself. Specifically it now uses temporary layers of voxel data which can be sampled from by higher layers to create more complex effects. This requires us to automatically allocate, generate and deallocate voxel data when it is requested, such as when a new peice of land becomes visible. The result will be much more natural-looking and interesting terrain with less memory and processing consumption.

Coming up in the next month - A multiplayer video by the end of next week. We want to release it with a week left on our IndieGoGo Campaign. Proper resource management integration. Pallets fall from the sky in Fort Defense, and it costs resources to build. Sounds for building and destroying. Effects for this as well. Some flying enemies that spawn in later waves. Further work on the infinite terrain and movement. Optimization and Memory fixes. The winch gun.

Cheers,

The CodeHatch Team

Comments

[ChromeWing]

So is multiplayer still up for grabs when the campaign ends? A lot of this stuff sounds cool and I wasn't expecting the winch gun this soon but I really hope to see the multiplayer in action in the near future. Thanks for the news update!

[Nol]

Keep up the awesome work! I can't wait for the next video! It blows me away that this is all being done by a team of three.

[Will]

The multiplayer game update with Fort Defense will be released in early December if everything goes well. :)

[Jonathan]

Awesome news and it seems your campaign is infact picking up speed as it comes closer to the end which is good news for everyone i think.

[nignity]

dude guys still like this game from the first release and from the beginning it was good tho mess out with but afterwards it got bored cuz when you have setted a fortres and launched your first wave and killed some mobs with the gun and artery, it gets limited on stuff to do in a world yu managed to make unlimited big and it made us quit the game not cuz it's terrible but lack on content
do not get e wrong the project was great and the first time i played it (first release 0.1.0) i was blown away and played good one day but like i said it lacks like some fountain which spit luscious water but very poorly
just after this campaign i hope you launch your multiplayer and other stuff and it get more interesting in the gameplay
i am sure this is all kinda very very very difficult but i really belive @ you so cheers hope yu du it and finish this project

[Will]

No worries nignity - our current build that is released really doens't have anything we'd consider long lasting gameplay. That's what we are working on now starting with Coop Fort Defense. :)

[Viggs]

This game looks great, played two different builds and I am defiantly buying it before the campaign ends. Hope you guys release optimize the game a little and release multi-player after the campaign ends! ^_^

[attackpanda]

Any estimate on when we might expect to see voxel digging again? It is after all one of the more... groundbreaking features and hands down my favorite part of the first release.
Keep up the good work you beautiful beautiful Canadian gents.

[Chica Chica]

I'm a bit concerned about Linux support ...

Unity 4 is out and I don't want Linux support to be an after thought, as it's easier to start using multiple platforms (and upgrading the engine version you're linking against) early on.

[Antonio]

I've just gotta say...
What you guys are doing is completely epic, good luck to all of you!
Also, I recommend that you do a weekly update sort of thing, like the people down at Wolfire games do. Just gives me something to look forward to.

[soco amaretto]

Loving the game so far... but I have to play it on my wife's PC because I only have a Mac. Please implement Mac support!! Thanks guys, keep rockin it.

[Will]

The reason voxel digging is late is due to us changing the entire terrain engine. And this takes a fair bit of time. Once we have procedural terrain working well, then we will implement the digging again.

[Stetsonshort13]

hey Will, just wanted to throw a suggestion at you guys. Since this game seems to be taking a beautiful approach towards realism, and liquids and lava are coming up, I think it would be fantastic if you added waterfalls (liquids), and volcanos (lava), to your terrain generator. Just an idea!! Cheers from Fort McMurray, Alberta!

[Threethumb]

Me cannots wait!

[Brandon]

0.1.5c has been the only release since I joined up awhile ago and it's nothing like what's in your video. When will you be releasing another version? Things don't work. You can't make vehicles. You can only get guns and some turrets for a vehicle that don't exist. Am I missing something?

[Will]

Vehicles, Proc Weapons, Multiplayer, Fort Defense, will be in our next release. It is currently scheduled for early December and it will be our biggest release ever.

[amateurasu]

As wonderful as all that sounds, what I don't see in the upcoming feature list is inverting the Y-axis on the mouse. This missing feature makes the whole thing unplayable for me and many others. Back in June, it was referred to as an easy fix ( http://www.forgeforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=905 ). I don't want to be a dick about it, but this is really kind of a major thing to not be able to do.

[Naithin]

I came hoping to ask about Y-Axis Inversion as well, but it looks like Amateurasu beat me to it.

I must admit that I am simply so acclimitised to inverting Y-Axis in everything I play now it was rather disconcerting to say the least to find I couldn't toggle it here.

I took a bit of a romp around regardless, but I think that I too would really need Y-Axis Inversion support to be in to be able to appreciate things more long term.

Perhaps something we can have bundled into the Fortress update? :)

[Alex]

any news of the newest update? I know it was said to be around "early December" but that is kinda going by now.

[HappyCamper]

Yeah, this is a lot of what I've been hearing: "We are scheduled to update around early December".
...
It's late January now. So is something up with the development? I mean, don't get me wrong: the game looks great. But there's nothing to do in it. I set it aside for a month or two hoping for an update and none came. I would recommend that you at least release some small update that makes the game semi-playable. Here's a small list of what I would think is missing:

1. Variety in terrain. I spawn in a desert with boring caves. I want to know what the entire world will look like eventually! Add in some forests, add in a river!
2. A start to combat training and mining. You've given us one enemy and two guns. Variety would be nice. As for mining, there is literally none of it. I bought the game under the impression that there would be mining and fighting, and there is precious little of both right now.
3. More manageable physics. It's a little hard to function with physics being all wonky.

These suggestions are just so that people can get the feel of the game before it is released. I know you guys WANT to change these things, but to be perfectly blunt you guys NEED to change them and soon.
Now, I respect all that you're doing realize that you're in beta or whatever, but some things need to be said. Sorry if it sounds harsh, but keep up the good work!

[Ubdpvnkxoi]

Ytusm [url=http://www.paulsmithlover.com/]ポールスミス バッグ[/url] Yutzh Pxitp [url=http://www.paulsmithlover.com/]ポールスミス 時計[/url] Jyfhn Vivhh [url=http://www.paulsmithlover.com/]ポールスミス 時計[/url] Vilfw Wflax http://www.paulsmithlover.com/ Fnalx Bcshg [url=http://www.paulsmithkisetu.com/]ポールスミス バッグ[/url] Qxaxw Tsaed [url=http://www.paulsmithkisetu.com/]ポールスミス バッグ[/url] Obufx Rxthq [url=http://www.paulsmithkisetu.com/]ポールスミス アウトレット[/url] Bofmd Idyzc http://www.paulsmithkisetu.com/ Qujww Kqvse [url=http://www.paulsmithnice.com/]ポールスミス 財布[/url] Eheoe Dmejx [url=http://www.paulsmithnice.com/]ポールスミス 財布 新作[/url] Ryius Znepi [url=http://www.paulsmithnice.com/]ポールスミス 財布 新作[/url] Msuss Qjhjw http://www.paulsmithnice.com/ Iqycw Vrnzg [url=http://www.paulsmithbuyjp.com/]ポールスミス 財布[/url] Rgujj Rouhn [url=http://www.paulsmithbuyjp.com/]ポールスミス 財布[/url] Gvzqs Jbclm [url=http://www.paulsmithbuyjp.com/]ポールスミス バッグ[/url] Kaczp Pcnhz http://www.paulsmithbuyjp.com/ Lwrnp

[jeockkecy]

Only dare once again to make it!