Update 1.1
After two months of silence, I finally deliver the promised update. Unfortunately, it took a bit longer than expected due to few reasons. The main reason being, I actually started working on it a bit later, and not right after the new year. Other reasons were: lack of free time, power outages, and adding more stuff than mentioned in the previous update. I am sorry for that delay, but I'm sure that the end results are totally worth it!
Here are those changes:
Improved Gameplay
I had a lot of feedback, saying that the physics of the main player are a bit stiff and clunky. There also wasn't much to do, with maps being empty, mutants being sparse, and avoiding starvation being the main objective. I did some minor, yet very important changes, that in my opinion made this game much more fun to play. These changes being:
- Reworked player's movement physics - Now, it is way more fluid and responsive to control the main character, and you won't get stuck anywhere. Climbing the stairs and mountains is now way more easier, although you still may stick to walls if you'll be going straight at them.
- Changed item spawning system - Although it's still not completely random, it won't be limited to a few items. Most of the locations where items spawn, will have random items spawned, albeit some of the obvious locations will have limited variety of items spawned (for example; kitchens will only spawn food, and bathrooms will only spawn toiletries). The more rounds you beat, the bigger the variety of items spawned will be.
- Changed amount and types of mobs spawned - Now, there are more mutants, and less human beings. The reason why there weren't many mobs previously, is because their scripts weren't optimized well. I tried to optimize them to allow for bigger amounts of mobs on map, but I'm not sure how that will affect game's performance on low end computers, so leave a feedback if you're going to have a poor performance!
- Changed the way human NPCs are spawned - Now, bandits and survivors will be spawned in squads of 1-3 people. They'll move together, and alerting one of the squad members, will also alert others, no matter where they are.
- Improved the differences between difficulty levels - There are only 4 differences, yet they are very visible when playing. The higher the level, the more damage you'll take (on hardcore level, you still die from one hit from anything), the less time you'll have to explore maps, there will be more mutants spawned, there will be higher chances of encountering bandits rather than survivors, and mobs will have quicker reaction time. Still, the differences are mostly visible during combat, but now with the lesser time and higher amount of mutants, they should be more visible even without fighting anyone.
- Improved hunger system - You now can survive longer on full stomach, and most of the foods items now give you twice as much time as previously.
- Changed barrel's item dropping system - Much like the item spawning system, barrels (besides the rusty barrel), will have a more variety of dropped items.
Improved NPCs
Previously, mobs were overpowered, unstoppable, and Godlike creatures, that were really hard to fight against, and fleeing from them was also pretty hard. Now, they have been nerfed a bit, yet their behaviour is a bit more realistic. I achieved this by:
- Slowing down their rotation speeds - Instead of looking straight at their point's of interest, they will smoothly rotate towards them. That allows player to take advantage over them in two ways. Mobs have to be facing you in order to attack you, which gives you ~1 second to either hide from them, or to attack them first before they do. You can also avoid getting spotted, if you'll be crouching, and standing behind them. They will rotate slower when docile, but faster when engaged in combat.
- Making them more curious - If there is a gunshot, explosion, or other noise nearby, and the mobs are not doing anything, they will go to the position of origin of that noise in order to inspect it. Humans will run towards it, while mutants will move normally towards them. This can be utilized to your advantage, by throwing an item far away, to sneak past the hostile mobs.
- Giving them a few limitations - There were few things that limited the player in some ways, but not the mobs. I changed this, and now: water will slow down mobs, their detection range is decreased when coming from behind, and mobs with guns have limited ammo, thus will need to take few seconds to reload it once emptied.
- Making them panic - Now they know how to preserve their lives. NPCs such as bandits and survivors, when badly hurt, or when there is a grenade nearby, will begin to panic. When panicking, they will cease to fight, they'll run away from the threat, and will try to hide somewhere. Attacking a panicking NPC, will not stun them, but rather make them run even further. Mutants are not prone to panicking, and guards will not panic when badly hurt.
- Allowing them to parry - If someone holds a melee weapon, there's a chance, that an incoming melee attack might be blocked by them.
- Lowering their stats - Now, guards and bandits have 50hp instead of 100hp.
- Changing the items they drop - If an NPC holds some kind of weapon, it'll be dropped upon it's death. Also, mutants may now drop loot, albeit the chances for that are low.
Improved Combat Mechanics
I though that the weapons you can get, are simple, and boring to use. That's why I reworked some of their aspects, to make them more fun to use. The changes are mostly regarding the firearms, but there are also others.
- Iron sights - You can now aim down sights by holding the right mouse button. That will slow you down a bit, but it reduces the gun spread, and halves the recoil. Most of the gun models were reworked to include iron sights.
- Dynamic gun spread - The angle at which bullets might travel is no longer fixed. Stuff like moving and shooting will increase the gun spread, forcing you to maintain your gun spread by aiming, moving slower, and firing in bursts.
- Reworked gun recoil - Now, recoil will move you camera both up and horizontally. Things such as aiming, and attaching grips or bipods, will significantly decrease the recoil. Also, camera won't go automatically down after firing, forcing you to manually maintain the recoil.
- Added gun attachments - These are special items, that can be attached to guns, in order to change their stats, or the way they are used. Currently, there are only 7 attachments: Knife, Suppressor, Grip, Grenade Launcher, Sniper Scope, Holosight, and a Bipod.
- Different reloading animations - Pistols and submachine guns will have shorter reloading animations, machine guns will have much slower ones, and rifles and shotguns will have bullets loaded individually
- Guns now spawn with ammo
- Flashlight now can be used as a weapon
- Added explosives - Those tools, can be used to create an explosion, that can torn anything and anyone nearby to pieces. Items that can create an explosion are: Grenades, Panzerfausts, and Grenade Launchers. Grenades can be unpinned and then thrown, they explode 5 seconds after unpinning. Panzerfaust can fire a rocket, but only has a one use. Grenade launchers are gun attachments, which for half the gun's ammo, can fire grenades that explode upon impact.
- Parrying - Some of the melee weapons can be used to parry incoming melee attacks. You can parry by holding right mouse button. When parrying, any melee attacks will be blocked, but your weapons will get damaged significantly, and you'll move very slow.
Improved Visuals
Although this game has a low-poly minimalistic approach to it, it did look a bit bland. I did a few changes to the visual side of the game, to make it a bit prettier:
- Added different grass types - Previously, the only decorative models that were on ground, were grasses. I added a bit more models, that can replace grasses in many situations. Those models are: flowers, pebbles, rumbles, snow lumps, fallen leaves, roots, and mosses. The amounts, as well as types of those models, depend on the current biomes. The way they are placed on map, has also been reworked, to place them more evenly.
- Changed the ground colors - Some of the biomes, instead of having one shade of ground color, may now have two. For example, forests, instead of having just dark green ground colors, now can also have orange ground colors. Cities and villages, instead of having greenish ground colors, now can have brown ground colors.
- Changed tree colors - Instead of having colors same as the ground, they will have random colors ranging from dark greens to oranges. This does not apply to snowy areas, where trees will be white.
- Some of the biomes have different sky colors - A few biomes got their own unique daytime sky colors, to fit their atmospheres. Swamps now have greenish skies, wastelands and deserts have beige skies, seas have more blueish skies, and battlegrounds have gray-blue skies.
- Changed menu background screens - Improved the main menu background screen, to appear more dynamic. I've also added 8 new backgrounds, that will be displayed when entering the main menu not after the initial boot up (there also will be different music playing, a more calm one).
- Added gore - Upon getting hurt, blood puddles will be created beneath the victim. If someone gets killed by an explosion, nuke, or electricity, instead of falling over, their bodies will be torn apart.
- Added bullet trails with passing by sound effect
Added New Content
But fixes and improvements weren't the only thing I wanted to add. I've also added some new items, mob types, buildings, biomes, and game mechanics, that can extend the experience by a bit. This new content is:
- 14 new weapons
- 15 new food items
- 15 new utilities items
- 5 gun attachments
- 5 new mutant types
- 5 new monuments with new treasures
- 4 new biomes
- Doors - They may spawn in doorways in houses and apartments. They can be opened or closed, that is, if they aren't locked. When locked, you can either use a lockpick to try to unlock them, or you can break them using some kind of weapon or explosive.
- Vending machines - You can buy items from them for money. They have 6 items for purchase, and they can either contain: food, utilities, weaponry, or medicines. They're indestructible, so don't try to destroy them.
- Added weather effects - Now, besides clear skies and cloudy skies, there also are two new weather types, that change the gameplay in more radical way. These new weathers are raining, and thunderstorm. When it's raining, and you are not under roof or umbrella, you'll get wet, and you'll move slower. During thunderstorm, a lightning bolt with strike somewhere on the map, and will blow up anything that is too close to it. Given the thunder's radius, and the complete randomness of the impact place, the chances of you getting hit by it are low, but still, you should be careful and you should get out of the map as soon as you can.
- Added crouching - By holding C, you can crouch. You'll move much slower, and you won't be able to jump. But this will allow you to enter small cavities, and will halve your detection range (or completely remove it, if you're crouching behind someone).
- Added explosions
Minor changes
- Fixed few bugs and typos
- Changed descriptions and/or stats of a few items
- Added few error messages when doing something wrong, like trying to reload a gun without having appropriate ammo type
- Grasses will now stick to the ground's surface upon getting placed
- Acid spits won't be destroyed upon impact, but rather deactivated, so that the visual effect won't disappear immediately
- Improved some animations
That's all of the most important changes. There were some minor ones as well, but you'll probably see them once you play. I wanted to add some more content and mechanics, but I didn't want to delay the update any further. I don't really know, if I'm going to make a new update with those changes, or if I should make the new version already. Actually, I don't know if I should make a new improved version of this game, or if I should keep on improving this one. I'll have to think about it a bit more.
But for now, here is the update 1.1. Thank you for reading this post, and have fun exploring the new content!
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Swift Survivors
Fast-paced survival game
Status | Released |
Author | GMPguy |
Genre | Survival |
Tags | Arcade, Exploration, Fast-Paced, First-Person, FPS, High Score, Low-poly, Post-apocalyptic, Zombies |
Languages | English, Polish |
More posts
- GitHub repository updateApr 01, 2024
- Devlog no.3 - New menus and some newsOct 06, 2023
- Devlog no.2 - Hex HiatusMay 01, 2022
- Devlog no.1 - Gun showApr 16, 2021
- Update 1.3.37 - A very huge update!Apr 01, 2021
- Update 1.3 - ThalassophobiaAug 31, 2020
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