We are moving in the right direction gameplay wise! Based on demo feedback, and also knowing that certain things needed work, I’ve been tinkering with the game in recent weeks and have been slowly making big changes and decisions to the whole map-view and progression system.
The game now takes a more traditional approach to the city-view, which honestly fixes a lot of situations and design problems that I was running into with the more fancy stuff I was trying to do! Also – I can’t keep wasting time on that mission screen because after all.. it’s just a mission screen! With the new mission structure in place, it also became easier and clearer to balance the whole difficulty regarding your opponents and the missions.
Early missions will pose an easier challenge, with less enemies, weaker enemies and it allows you to learn the game more and get into the groove of leading your team!
I also decided to put all dialogs on a “pause” mode, where originally the dialogs would just turn the game into a slow-motion mode.. which is cool and all, but for most players, it’s just going to be annoying! So lessons learned from previous games should not be discarded in future games!
A few new maps added to the game, and the game will also “flip/mirror” levels at random.. and even if you know a building very well, playing it in a mirrored version will surely keep you on your toes!
With so many changes to the game, I decided to also push out a new version of the demo to Steam, and have it up for a few weeks longer.. so if you want to try out all these changes, grab the latest version of the demo and have a play! I also made a fun video talking about these changes, while at the same time trying to see if it would run on an iiRcade cabinet.. Check it here:
Full changes list:
added: “Error – need codes” dialog to keypad task
added: bomb-throwing enemies
added: maps will now be randomly mirrored
added: player can now pickup+use dropped bombs+mtovcocktaisl
added: citymap structure and level progression system
added: enemy spawns are easier/less based on level progression
added:water-stream now also pushes enemies around
added: weapon-pickups show item-name
added: security-code post-it added to security panel (once found)
added: wall-switch to turn power-off/on on floor electricity areas
tweak: complete overhaul of city-map and it’s workings (more progres/mission based)
tweak: improved visuals on enemies
tweak: molotov throwing enemies now also in-doors
tweak: roof-entrance was barely used
tweak: Hostages now use proper pathfinding (not just player-shadow)
tweak: electronic door opening should be faster (or lock camera shorter – delay is too long to remain fun)
tweak: level-flipped state tied to citymap building
tweak: citymap visability improvements
tweak: weapon-pickups shouldn’t be automatic
tweak: chapter-name is gone (became useless)
tweak: all dialogs have a “user-prompt” to replace automatic-vanishing
tweak: improved safe-crack task gameplay
tweak: redesign maps for HQ – split up into different levels for different functionality
tweak: regroup command always goes first (including activated tasks/operations)
tweak: keycards are now more randomly spread (not top-left corner furniture)
fixed: player-shade sometimes stays in blood-shape
fixed: floor-bug in industrial level
fixed: items found in furniture don’t count as pick-up
fixed: vault-missions not happening
fixed: intel guy is waiting for all (AI) players to stop-moving – only check human players
fixed: floor-electricity should block AI more
fixed: flipped levels – lose their left-most wall
fixed: “take down” mission on empty buildings
fixed: floor-electricity should not be placed near doors
fixed: exitX and exitY sometimes set to 0 (causes issues – even tho there is an exit door)
fixed: mapview path, should keep track of previous mission (and only split up from MAIN missions, not sub missions)
fixed: cityview should start on sub-mission or HQ.. now starts on “thin air”
fixed: various annoyances with researching-items/furniture
fixed: “cracked safe 0/1” should be 1/1
fixed: wall-switch can be used from backside of the wall
fixed: hostage makes more logic choices, stays closer to player, and moves to exit when possible
