(Note: this post is about development progress; this version is not yet available nor playable!)

In the previous post,  I've said that I would post devlogs regarding the game's development. Since writing this, I've spent two weeks working on the project, and I think I have added some content that is worth sharing!

Don't get too excited though, because there have arisen a few problems in real life, that will unfortunately affect the development speed.  I'll talk about them at the end of this post tho.

For now, here's what has been made in those two weeks since the update 1.3.37:

New first-person animations

One of the main changes I want to make in the upcoming update, are those of visual and auditory aspects. There are many such aspects that need reworking, so I've decided to start with the one that is closest to my heart. Arm models and animations (Get it? Closest to... nevermind). In all seriousness, I didn't really had a reason to work on it first, though this was a thing that I thought might be a bit more cumbersome to implement.

In the previous and the current version of the game, there are no really proper FPP animations. Each held item model, was basically just that item's model and one to two arm models, placed in a fixed position. Because of that, aside from slightly turning the whole, there were no animated parts whatsoever; the entirety was just stiff.

So I've decided to not only remodel the arm and a fair share of item models, but also to make ~197 animations, for stuff like switching items, idle animations, different kinds of the same animations (like weapon swinging), different reloading animations, and many more. This was quite time and energy consuming, but the effects are in my opinion pretty decent (well at least compared to the previous solid-model animations).

Though most items got the animations they've needed, there's still a few miscellaneous ones to make, but they should be fairly quick to make. I also thought of implementing stuff like eating and healing animations for consumable items, but due to the current circumstances I'm facing, they're of least priority now.

Updated guns

Since the FPS tag has given this game a huge boost of popularity (welp, 2 views per day is much bigger than 1 view per month), I though that polishing the gun play should be taken with with much care. While reading the comments, majority of people were complaining that the guns had too much recoil. Now, taking into consideration these comments, as well as other gun mechanics, and my experience from trying to play this as if I haven't played this game before, I think I came into an interesting conclusion.

\/   Warning, I accidentally wrote an essay, scroll down a bit to skip it if you don't bother reading it   \/

Obviously, guns in games are different than in reality. They barely have any recoil, gun spread is pretty low, having automatic mode means it has to be fired rapidly, and damage is based on firing speed and maximum distance, rather than where/what/how did it hit the target. It is expected that guns mechanics won't be always recreated in 1:1 scale regarding the realism, because that might make some games unfun to play. The keyword being "some". Games that are focusing the fun factor on killing as many foes in as little time as possible, should have easier to handle guns. However, other games might focus the fun factor not on the killing itself, but rather on either challange, realism, or maybe the option to solve the issue without wasting bullets.

Swift Survivors, is a survival game first and foremost, and while a hefty part of it is focused on shooting and killing, it is not de facto what makes the game.  That's why I decided for it to be more on the realistic spectrum of gun handling, by making the recoil and gun spread high, especially when running and rapid firing. When initially making the game, I didn't really know why I've decided for it to be this way, but with the time, expirience, and some inspiration from other games, I think I came up with a solid theory as to why it is that way:

Making the gun mechanics harder to master, prevents the run'n'gun type of gameplay, and forces the player to: be more careful when planning attacks, think thoroughly the consequences of both attacking and choosing a different route, and sometimes perhaps to figuring out a different solution sparing the bloodshed. This way, it forces the player to act more like they probably would have, if they've been put in a survival/combat situation! Furthermore, having challenging yet fair combat system, makes getting kills way more satisfying, and getting killed gives a nice feeling of frustration combined with the knowledge that it's player's own fault.

/\   The essay ends here   /\

Alright, I've noticed that I've written way too deep thoughts about something that could have been watered down to "Hard to handle mechanics are fun in this type of games imo" (sorry, I've written way too many essays recently, for the reasons you probably can guess). Though despite that, I do agree that the current gun mechanics are not yet finely tuned to fit the purpose I've mentioned above, and that they're also a bit too hard to master. Gameplay balancing is not something I'm too good at, but I did try to make the guns a bit easier to handle (by reducing the recoil), while also trying to maintain/adjust the difficulty I want it to be. I can't tell if the results I'm getting are the one's I should be getting, I would have to get feedback from other people (which unfortunately I can't get right now), but personally, I think they do the job.

But I keep talking about the balancing stuff, while there are also a few additions for guns that are worth mentioning:

• Bullets are now projectile based, and are also affected by gravity. This won't make that big of a difference, but when firing at targets that are far placed, or are moving fast, slight aim adjustments like aiming up or in front of moving target should be taken into consideration. This is how more or less they look like from the first person perspective:
• Depending on gun type and on surface thickness, bullets might go through the surfaces, and still damage someone or something. Obviously, the damage will be lower if that happens, and it will only be able to penetrate the thinnest of objects
• Gun fire effects have been reworked. Now each gun type: rifles/pistols/shotguns/black powder, will have their own special gun fire effect, as well as different bullet colors (see the picture below)
• Gunshots will have different sound effects, if they'd be heard from greater distance
• Gun will not be reloaded instantly when pressing the reload button, but instead when reloading animation ends. In exchange, the player may now switch to other items if they need to while reloading
• When reloading shotguns and/or bolt action rifles, an amount of ammo needed to achieve the full mag will be inserted, instead of loading all ammo at once without regards for the current ammo of the gun
• Guns with grip attachments will have slightly different animations
• Recoil is now half-manual: when shooting, the view will still be moved up by a specific angle, however, half of that angle will be moved down in half a second, without any mouse movement

And also worth noting, guns will behave slightly different on casual mode. Wait, what...

Casual mode (WIP)

Like I mentioned in that short essay of mine, I'd prefer this game to be rather challenging and difficult. I do however understand, that most of people that consider playing this game, probably don't expect it to be as difficult as for example Stalker, Tarkov, or other games of those sorts.

I haven't hit the phase of adding more game modes yet, but I have a few plans in my mind already. One of those plans, which partly has been implemented, is casual mode! In theory, casual mode should feel more like a generic singleplayer FPS game, with gun mechanics being more simple, mobs and NPCs being more predictable and easier to kill, and survival mechanics being simplified (by mainly removing or watering down serious debuffs like bleeding/broken bones/tiredness).

I'll try not to make it as simple as to make it too easy and boring though. Personally, I am not fan of making such game mode, but I think adding this type of mode will make it easier for new players with getting used to the premise and mechanics of this game.

I haven't done a lot for this mode yet; I only changed the gun mechanics for it since I was mainly working on them for the past time. Unlike those for other game modes, bullets are hitscan and not projectile based. Gun spreads and recoils are also halved for every gun, with the recoil management being automatic instead of manual (meaning you don't need to move your mouse down after shooting; it'll move down by itself).

Crafting system

A one important feature of every survival game, should be some form of crafting system! Okay, that depends on a game, but generally these aren't that hard to program, and they make a good addition to the gameplay. I know this, because I've been working on it (back in the 2020), and it works just fine! There are no craftable items there yet, but the system I've made allows me to easily add new recipes (I just need to create items to craft beforehand of course).

The crafting menu can be opened similarly to how information tab is opened, but instead of Tab the player must hold B. If the player shall posses an item that is needed in certain recipe, the option to craft that recipe will be shown, even if the player doesn't have all the needed resources or other requirements.

If the player will obtain all needed resources, and will fulfill other requirements, they'll just need to hold the craft button for a certain time, after which the craftable item will appear in their inventory (or on ground if there will be no room for it). In case not all resources have been obtained, or certain requirements have not been fulfilled, an error message will appear explaining what the player lacks.

New time and weather system (and some visual changes too)

In the previous versions, the time and weather system was pretty simple, when it came to visuals. I've changed it, by making that system more dynamic, and the visual effects more varied.

Previous day/night cycle was divided into two rounds of day, one at dusk, and one at night, with each phase being separated from each other by 6 hours. The sky was also pretty simple, with sky color getting slightly darker depending on the weather.

The new day/night cycle, similarly to previous one, is divided into two rounds of day, one at dusk, and one at night, however, the action of each phase might happen at different times:

• Morning: 8:00 - 12:00
• Afternoon: 12:00 - 17:00
• Evening: 17:00 - 21:00
• Night: 0:00 -  6:00

That doesn't change much gameplay-wise, although because of the new dynamic weather system, some parts of these phases might be more similar to the previous/next ones. For example: a day at 8:00 will still have a bit of that pinkish sky tint typical for an evening at 17:00. This gives the atmosphere a nicer touch, and makes the game feel more alive.

Of course, simply changing the time system won't make the difference. I've also changed the entire visual system for weather. To make that, I've basically:

• Turned sky from bland color into a gradient, of which colors smoothly fade depending on the time of the day
• Added moving clouds, amount and transparency of which depends on the current weather
• Added moon and sun, which change their position/color/visibility depending on time and cloudiness

It still needs some work, I mainly just have to add a few different sky tints for a few biomes, I need to make stars for the night sky, and that should do it. I also might add some other weather types in the future, like blizzards for snowy areas, but that, much like eating animations, is of least priority for now.

Here are some pics of different weathers at different times:

So, two weeks, and these are the all new additions.

Like I promised, I have posted a devlog from the current development progress! Though probably you might be wondering why I said that in past perfect, and not present continuous. Welp, that is because of the issues that I've talked at the beginning...

Bye bye for the next two months!

I know, this suck. But, like I've mentioned in my post from march, at this point in time, I should focus more on the school.

Now, when I was writing the previous post (regarding 1.3.37 update), I've mentioned that I'd keep  working on Swift Survivors, while also mentioning that I'd have to focus on studying for my exams. I am sort of prepared for the exams, so I could spent some of my free time developing this game. That however, was my mindset back then. Recently, while searching for collage offers from curiosity, I've found a way better offer, then the one I previously had in mind. The previous one, was regarding IT studies, which only required me to have decent results on the exit exams. The other, better offer I found recently, is regarding Game design studies with specialization in digital graphics! Not only do I need it more, but it also has some other advantages over the previous one: like still being fairly close to my home, and it being a part of University, and not Academy.

The issue is, this new field of study, doesn't really care that much about exam results. Instead, in order to get there, one has to showcase his portfolio for the commission. That wouldn't be so bad, if the requirements for the portfolio weren't the same as for the academy of fine arts. I dunno; when designing a game I usually don't have a tendency to paint a picture of it with acrylic paints on a B2 paper, but maybe that's just me.

In short, I've gotta create 10 manual paintings/drawing on B2 format (and some other additional works), in order to be accepted on Game design and digital graphics collage. And I've got less than two months to make it. Great...

I know how to paint and draw, though I haven't done it for a long time, and I haven't done it on this big of a scale. Unfortunately, that  means I'll have to focus for the next two months on making and assembling my portfolio for that collage. Well, at least they allows us to add stuff like digital graphics, 3D models, animations, games, photos, etc. to our portfolio, but only as additional work.

I am so, so sorry guys, and I'm especially sorry to those who are/have been waiting for the update. Once I'm done with making the project for the collage, I'll get back to working on this and keeping updating you guys on the development!

Best regards, and stay healthy!