The Desert Outpost

It has been a busy few weeks here at CodeHatch. We've now got everything done up with our office expect for insurance, which is currently in the works. And we plan to fully move in the next couple of weeks. We are nearly done the cube optimization, it is now fully multi-threaded and he's down to just the final LOD stages. This will allow massive buildings in multiplayer with little slowdown. 

We also built a desert outpost for the Fort Defense mode. I took it for a test run today. You can see some big alien cacti in the background. I found it was fun building on and around them so I made them really big. 

I built a wall around the vat. But the Leech want in.

So I decided to run behind the wall and attack head on. 

 

But it seemed like he wanted none of that and hit me back into a lovely shower of alien water and sawdust.

 

So once again, I tried...

But that is where the story ends. I lost the battle, and the vat was destroyed.

The leech will attack through your fortress, and do anything they can to destroy your vat. Turrets are a really good contermeasure I am finding in my play tests. By setting them up on each corner of your base, you will stand a pretty good chance. 

And they give you the chance to find a cool gun like this one, which easily propels my character into the clouds. 

Overall, Fort Defense mode is coming along well. Many design decisions are made along the way. One of the biggest we think was the pallet system and how it introduces players to make strategic desicions on what they want to craft. As running out to get palletes can be quite risky.

We have made it so that the game scales based on the amount of players playing. This way a single player experience is also very fun. 

We now go on to fixing some slowdown issues regarding the eyeball monster seen previously, lowering the atmosphere by half as it's currently ridicously high, and trying to convey through some simple on screen context the control scheme for new players. As we find new players can be a bit confused with the dual inventory method we have been using. Basically when you hit "Q" it switches from 1-9 slots of weapons, to 1-9 slots of materials. Your open chests by hitting "E". Pick up weapons by hitting "E". Drop weapons by hitting "X". We also have to fix a bug in the fatigue system between walking and running.

Progress is being made. And we really hope everyone will be impressed with the polish of it all when we finally release it.

Comments

[HappyCamper]

Is ammo infinite? (That goes for this mode and any other).

[Drew]

Will you release a video of the new stuff? I also found the fact that the guns could propel you into the air hilarious.

[Mr.Insanity]

Could we get a update on the patch that was supposed to come out on January? I'm dieing to know how things are going.

[earth75]

lol, how ridiculously high was the sky? And how high did you make it?

[earth75]

Another question, have you found a way to reduce lag? Because currently having more than ~8 leeches causes noticeable lag, and it's unplayable for me with more than a dozen... If that is still the same, I will not survive many waves of enemies....

[BoonGage]

I think that maps like the ones on 'Giants Citizen Kabuto' would be good for fort defense. they're not infinite but the're still big, and an Archipelago or single island battle would be fun in my opinion.

[yademco]

Thumbs up for giant cacti!!

Keep up the great work guys. Eagerly anticipating the update!

[MAC's are all I have!]

I'm hoping that MAC compatibility will be coming soon.

[Jesper Ordrup]

+1 for Mac support. Of course :-)

[jacob]

is the update coming this month because it was supposed to come out last month so its really late I know you guys are working hard but you might want to release the update soon

[Razzle]

This game is looking amazing, and I'm really excited for it! I'm buying it now, and look forward to updates!

[Ben Sterling]

Lol at the people who are like 'UPDATE NAOW'
They're trying their hardest to make it DECENT before its release. Would you prefer a shit game on release, or a good one, which you have to wait for?
Thus; War-Z.
But War Z is still shit. So oh well.
Otherwise;
Keep going lads; Nice work so far.
(PS; Mac users. Get a PC. ;3 )

[Adam Wilczek]

Another thing have you ever played an alpha where multiplayer and server support don't function as intended? It is a horribly frustrating experience. These guys are working hard to get that working so we can enjoy ourselves and have some multiplayer fun!

[Aaron Galego]

Can't wait. I've been preoccupied with some other games because of the limits of the available build.

I'm seeing a lot of great ideas coming from both the larger companies that have had some staff changes, but mostly the indie development world. This game started my intrest in the indie development world, then a few days ago, I saw Project Awaken in my Greenlight queue, and that would have had some serious potential if they weren't going to land about 300k short of their goal.

People in the mainstream gaming world need to start backing indie development. They are the only ones that I've seen to have the best ideas for games.

[jackolivers]

holy crud this is going to be a good game
I cant wait!

[Michael]

Ahh, it's coming out this week, isn't it, the new update? Can't wait! Also, dying for Linux support, but I suppose that's a long way off.

[Michael]

It's here! Downloading it now. Please make a video!

[kamakacoke]

To be honest you guys need to get your priorities straight so you can complete this game before you run out of funding. The focus should be a core sandbox map with ability to resource gather and explore. Leave space out of the equation until you can produce a planet side platform. Get rid of pallets and use inventory already in use. Get the planet running with save features, then include vehicles. Then you will be half way to Minecraft's first sold version. You guys bit off a lot more than is doable in the next year or two with the four guys working on everything. Keep it simple, get it running, then expand. Best of luck to you.

[swastadlepsit]

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[Stratos]

Hello!
Fantastic work so far, but in its current stage, this game isn't really pleasure for a long time to play. When can we expect the next greater update?

[Sirthinksalot]

will this amazing looking game, be available for a console one day?

[Ethan Thorpe]

looks EPIC! but please add multiple planets not just 1

[Phil Green]

You guys should re add digging into the Alpha, there isn't much to do in it. (I understand its Alpha, but at least add some sort of exploration).

Keep updating guys! I really really want to see how this game turns out!

[Rob Halal]

my big complaint is the major content gap between the version shown in your videos, and the older versions, and the version that is out now. I understand this was done to test gameplay elements separately, but this is a strategy i dont agree with, as when you cobble them together two parts of the separate versions, which worked fine alone, might clash, causing errors and glitches in their wake. when can we expect all currently developed features in a single release?

[Charles George Kucharzak]

I just wish that there were more blog updates letting us know how things were going.. :/

WE CARE ON HOW YOU GUYS ARE DOING! ;~;