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May Update: New Armor, Weapons, and Status of UE 5.1 Upgrade

Aloha Thrivers,

If you caught our last update you already know we’re upgrading to Unreal Engine 5.1. We’ve been working on this since the beginning of the year but only spilled the beans back in April.

We’ve got some more beauty shots included when you scroll down that are our ‘proof of UE5 life’ since we’re still barreling ahead, fixing bugs, and adjusting systems. The biggest thing holding us back from pushing the new build to our production server is performance.

With the upgrade, we took big leaps on the foliage since we feel like the jungle itself is a character in our game. It grows and provides cover for attacks, a safe place to rest and recover, and also is just gorgeous to look at while you’re exploring paradise.

Another issue we’re tackling is persistence since we know no one wants to lose their loot overnight for no reason. If it’s because your base wasn’t protected properly (i.e. windows without glass aka an open invitation) that’s one thing. But if it’s because the persistence system is not working properly – that’s a totally different story.

As an indie developer with a small team (relative to what we’ve set out to accomplish), we get one shot at introducing the game to new players with as smooth of an experience as possible. We know there will be some hiccups and people who have lower specs on their machines may struggle with higher settings but we’re striving to cut at least stutters and problems that really impact gameplay.

In a Sea of Survival games, We Made the List!

Hearing Asmongold talk about our game was a ‘pinch me’ moment.

A HUGE thanks to Guns, Nerds, and Steel for including us in their Top 10 Upcoming Survival Base Building Games video.

Also big thanks to ENFANT TERRIBLE for their New SURVIVAL BASE BUILDING Games in UNREAL ENGINE 5 mention.

We know there are hundreds of new survival games hitting Steam every day and we’re honored to have been included before we’ve even released our new trailer with footage from UE5!

New Armor, Weapons and More!

We’ve been hard at work on new items and features including fishing, more resources, and many new craftable items. Here’s a look at just a few of the biggest new items that will soon be available at a crafting bench near you!

Post Apocalyptic Armor Ready to Add Buffs

We’re really proud of our metal armor design with a helmet inspired by ancient Hawaiian dress. This suit will keep out all but the most determined mutant fangs and focuses on materials readily available to most survivors. Now players have a use for every part of the SSHAM can!

Guns

Whether you’re looking to reach out and say Aloha to a gang of mutants at a distance or just blast a hole in one that’s gotten a little too close, we have a new craftable gun for you built with coconut shells and palm leaves.

UE5.1 Eye Candy – Best shots

We couldn’t ship this update without sharing some eye candy to keep you hyped about how beautiful paradise will be in UE5.1.

Steam Playtest and Pledges?

We get a lot of questions about when the Steam playtests are happening and essentially, until we can push the update to our production server, Steam wants us to wait for a playtest. It’s going to happen but not by the end of May as we’d hoped. It comes down to bugs and performance stutters that would make your play experience frustrating. The last thing we want is players shouting to the game gods, “WHYYY?” So we thought we’d take more time to get it right.

We’ll be announcing the new playtest schedule soon, and we’ll be reloading keys on our pledge page at the same time, so you and your friends can keep playing after the playtest ends.

We know nobody likes delays, but being stuck trying to play a buggy game is even worse. We try to be as transparent as possible with our development and really appreciate the support and understanding of the community. We can’t thank you all enough!

See you in Maui soon, Thrivers!

DEV

Measuring Mountains and Securing Trade

The web team is working on a few tweaks and improvements to the notification system. We discussed ways to streamline and limit messages to avoid being bombarded with notifications, but still stay up-to-date with things like friends joining the game, and House members being online. Jesse is making a number of layout improvements including subtle hover animations to player cards, and various other areas that could use some sprucing up. We also looked at a complete list of craftable items, talked about recipes, and discussed what we’d like to add down the road.

While Terry was busy doing some minor server maintenance and fixing a few bugs, the art team was finishing up their work replacing the foliage across the map. We’ve stripped out much of the old forest, and are replacing it with a jungle that has more native Hawaiian plants, and is much less demanding on your GPU. With all the old forest gone, the team is working through the map, dropping in plants and animals across Lahaina.

Our attention then turned to player interactions and we discussed what we’d like to see in a player-to-player trading system. Very few things in life can feel as uncertain as waiting for “StealMaster6” to leave the crafting reagent you need on a rock, after he’s picked up the pile of money you threw on the ground for it. We want a simple, and secure trading system to avoid such scenarios. We then discussed various achievement awards. We came up with a few examples of obscure ones that would quickly identify the most hardcore players, and talked about the pros and cons of daily or login rewards.

We worked some more on expanding the attachments available for weapons, crossbows and compound bows in particular, and continued to work through a lengthy bug list to make sure your rifle add-ons work correctly. Armor has been working in the game for some time now, but your armor’s “health” isn’t displayed anywhere in the HUD. We decided to add an indicator there, so you don’t have to flip to your inventory screen to find out if your vest is in tatters before you start taking fire or fangs.

Jesse has been working on Paddle Creek Games animations, and trailer intros with great success. He demoed a few options, and we chose our favorite. He’s adding the finishing touches now, but it is looking terrific already. It wasn’t just the company logo however that got some animation attention. Our Trophy Hunter mutants got some new moves too. We’ve added a number of animations that make them look more realistic, and much more terrifying as they run around with their bags of heads and other trophies.

Our major map overhaul is just about complete. We’ve updated our height map of Maui, and have finished importing all the existing roads. The game map now has a solid backbone that is built on the actual topography, and infrastructure of Lahaina. We have a clear starting point now, so we can continue work building a game map for the website. The team is busy filling in the play area with our structures, special areas, and foliage, as well as adding years of overgrowth, and the effects of a global catastrophe to the two main highways that run through Lahaina. Below is a satellite view of the entire game area.
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As usual, we’ll be back next week with more news and updates.

DEV

Item Quality and Creating a Channel Lineup

The web team continued their work on the Veil News Network (VNN) this week. The service designed to provide players almost-real time updates of in-game announcements and events, is coming along nicely. We’ve made a VNN section on the home page to provide more in-depth coverage of the stories scrolling by on the newsticker, and host a number of videos. We’ve discussed a number of channel options for different video feeds, video length, and having a library of previously recorded material for use in promos, and when we’re experiencing “technical difficulty”.

Jesse is still working through some layout issues and a few bugs on the VNN page. The team is working on navigation controls on the video feeds, and improving animations on the bumper and stinger videos. We’ve created a weather bar to sit alongside the live videos as well. Now players will know the relative humidity while they’re being chased down the beach by one of the twisted horrors born from the fracture.

The web team worked on more than creating a news network this week too. Jared focused on getting a promo/coupon code system working for game packages and merchandise. The layout needs a little love yet, but the basic system is working well. We’re working on a way to incorporate the referral system with promos, as well as some CSS, 3D, and pagination work on the page too.

The team is also currently hard at work making game items a little bit worse with every use. The days of running ammunition through your Haikili rifle until the barrel turns a nice cherry red with no impact on its durability are over. We’re incorporating the item deterioration system in every usable item, including clothing and armor. We recommend using the delicate cycle if you plan on getting stabbed or shot a lot.

We looked at concept art of a few new areas of the map, and discussed incorporating the real-life geography and structures of Lahaina, as well as the story elements in the game. We talked about a number of interesting scenarios and places to explore, and how to best “spread the wealth” around to avoid bottlenecks and crowds.

Night and day work continues, along with a lot of environmental effects to add a bit more realism to the wildest of our wild places. With trueSky working well, and the lighting improvements, the forests and beaches of Lahaina are looking fantastic day and night. We’re continuing our performance work in our large buildings as well. The Thorcon Plant, the Veil Station, and the Communication Tower are all on the list. The Tower is up first and as you can see from the shots below, it’s getting a facelift along with the performance work. It’s never looked better and will be a joy to have a firefight in.
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We’ll be back with more updates next week.

DEV

Hold Music and the Cost of Money

As we near the end of the week, the web team is pushing to complete the last of their work on the Community Page. The push on House customization is done for now. There’s a new prominent callout for Houses with links to the FAQ explaining what they are, and how they work. House founders can: load images, design banners, create charters, manage member roles, and pick a color scheme. Players will also be able to see when their friends are online, and what House, if any, their friends belong to. Friend requests and House invitations are now more prominently displayed. Jesse updated Bootstrap and did some refactoring work to keep things neat and tidy as well.

Work on increasing performance by sectioning up the map, and replacing old buildings with structures created with the programmatic building system continues. It takes a while, but the positive impact on gameplay will make it worth it. The last thing we want is for your GPU fan to kick into overdrive everytime you explore the ruins of a subdivision. A few last touches were added to the Thorcon plant interior too. Here’s a look at how it looks inside.
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We talked some more about how the Veil News Network (VNN) would work in the game, and how best to display information on the website. We came up with a few new ideas regarding how we’re parsing the data coming in from the news API, and some additional templates for various types of stories. We discussed how we want to tie notifications into the VNN system to make sure it is fun and useful, without players feeling like our news drones are spamming them with weather reports.

We went over the last few items we need to finish up in regards to merchandise, namely challenge coins and Manimal cans. One of the requirements for our real-life Manimal distributor is that we have a business number on the can. So far, nobody has volunteered to use their personal number for the official Manimal info contact, but we did have quite a lengthy discussion about an appropriate hold message and music. Metal seems to be the consensus as far as music goes, but we didn’t decide on a specific genre: death metal, black metal, deathgrind, or other types of distorted screaming. If you have a suggestion we’d love to hear it in the Forums.

Our talk about merch led us to a discussion about rai, our in-game money. We discussed how other games handle money after you die, and how it affects your encumbrance. San brought up a couple interesting ideas about how players could manage money, especially very large sums, in the game. We talked about possible vault or banking systems, loss of money after you’ve been killed, and how those features could impact things like theft or extortion between players in the game.

Finally, with all the new weapons introduced recently, we’ve been pushing to include some body armor options for protection. Below you can see one of the latest iterations of a high-end armor to protect yourself from the slings, arrows, and bullets of outrageous fortune while running around Lahaina.
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DEV

Combat, Community, and Callouts

The web team focused on building out the Veil News Network (VNN) system over the weekend. Jared has the news API wired in, so we can sort through game data to eventually post real time updates about game events. We talked through some options for parsing the data efficiently with a number of tags and templates. Jared had a few rough examples of news alerts about player deaths with the player name, where they died, how they died, and their House affiliation. We discussed ways we could display the newsfeed on the front page, and ways we could personalize the service with alerts and notifications when something has happened to you, your friends, or your House.

Chris, as usual, tried to talk about sending out emails, like an old person. He was muted though and decided to push the discussion until next week. Do people Want emails about their house/friends/characters? Post in the forums if you have an opinion.

With the introduction of new weapons and body armor in the game, we’re running around shooting anything that moves, including each other, to work out any kinks. We found a few recently with the bow. We need to add some animations, because right now arrows just launch themselves like a semi-automatic gun with no string pulling when using the standard bow. We’re also disabling shooting a bow when a character is lying prone to keep things more realistic. We haven’t created a bow that can veil arrows into your enemies without pulling the string yet.

Work continues on the sewer respawn area. With new audio support and some texture and lighting work, the place is looking like the perfect spot for you to take a minute and reflect on what you did to put yourself in this situation, and come up with a better plan for staying alive in the future. Here’s a look at how it’s coming along.
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Jesse has finished a new callout for Houses, and is working on the Community section overall. He’s doing some style work to make sure House requests and invitations stand out more and are properly differentiated. We’re making search fields more prominent, adding more information to your friends list, and adding a few more callouts to help expose features to players. Jesse will be updating Bootstrap and Font Awesome later this week.

Lastly, the Thorcon power plant, one of our largest buildings, is ready for exploration. The interior is a great place to run around or hide from your enemies, although we don’t recommend a lot of discriminant fire inside.
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I’ll be back with more later this week.

DEV

Power Plants and Heads-Up Displays

The web team is wrapping up the week by chasing down a few remaining bugs, and adding the last touches to House customization. Jared is busy hunting down an issue that is hiding House info from non-logged in users, and Jesse is finishing some styling work. However, the House Settings page is ready. There are a number of color, image, and banner options available to make your House unique, and give it a cool look.

We’ve added some help text in a few areas that we thought could be a little more clear, and Jesse is improving some callouts. We plan on adding some new images to the front page, and changing some of the slides as well, to call attention to the work we’ve done on Houses. A front page facelift will be coming soon.

Refinements continue to the respawn area, and Thorcon power plant as well. We’re adding some new audio support to make sure that players can appreciate the soothingly sweet sounds of the sewer, and you can hear the vastness of the inside of the power plant. The Thorcon images below give you an idea of how nice the inside of the plant is looking.
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We’re introducing a few new weapons, and body armor into the game as well. We found a few issues with arrows floating in air when they get stuck in trees, and arrows disappearing after being shot out of the compound bow, but both are easy fixes.

We pressed on with building the Veil News Network (VNN) – an ingame streaming news service that would alert players to important events, daily activity around Lahaina, and even personalized info and data. We played around a little with the News API San wrote, and came up with a few templates for news stories and events. We discussed ways we could parse the data, and other templates to cover specific stories, announcements, and events in a real-time manner. There’s a lot of work to do yet, but we’re off to a good start.

Speaking of a lot of work, the latest iteration of the HUD is finished. We need to do a little work on the aiming reticle and map yet, but it is looking great as you can see.
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That’s all for now. I’ll be back next week with more screenshots and updates

DEV

Safe Rooms and Personalized Houses

With sprint 19 coming to an end, we’re all pushing to finish up last minute work, add some polish to a few systems, and hunt down lingering bugs. Work on the player compass continues, and we’re doing another art pass to make it pretty. The team is finishing up some final work on the player HUD to get it ready to use before the end of the week. Everyone is working down the bug list so we can start the new sprint without any lingering problems.

Jesse and Jared continued their House customization project, and are checking things off the todo list. Jesse has added a number of lighting effects and various improvements to House banners to make them look more realistic. We’ve added a system that automatically changes text color depending on how bright a player makes his House colors, for better readability. The web team is trying to work out a nasty autofilling bug in the shopping cart too.

The latest body armor is almost ready to go. Charging into the middle of combat against overwhelming odds isn’t the smartest thing to do, but if it’s your thing, then you’re going to want to have some armor. We’re finishing up the newest talents as well. Players will soon have 12 special abilities/bonuses to choose from, letting them create characters who specialize is crafting, medicine, sneaking, and a wide range of other play styles and roles.

We have a player map almost ready to go as well. You should be able to work out a rough estimate as to where you are, and how to get to the next quest, or place to loot soon. The team plans on having a version up and running in a few days. We’ve added a number of new animations as well, including swimming, so characters won’t zoom through the waves standing up anymore.

We’re finishing up a few improvements to the crafting system and we’re giving some love to the inventory as well. The attachment system for items is done. If you’re a fan of tactical lights, bayonets, scopes, suppressors, and built-in bipods you’re in luck. The last of the kinks are being worked out of our item spawning system too. We’re nabbing a few last minute bugs, but soon the loot will flow like lava across the ruins and dangerous places of Lahaina.

There was a lot of PVP playtesting this past week as well. We ran around and filled each other with arrows, ran mountains of ammo through guns, and swung machetes through limbs from dawn to dusk. As expected, we found a number of issues to straighten out in order to make going on a murderous rampage as fun as we think it should be.

With all that killing going on, we focused on finishing up our new respawn area. Designed to allow players a moment of respite after being killed and while loading, the new underground respawn area is coming along nicely. In the shots below, you can see that it has everything you could want in a sewer/storm drain safe room, namely brick walls and a soothing stream of questionable water.

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We’ll be back later this week with more updates.

DEV

Guns, Guns, and More Guns

As we near the end of the week the team is busy finishing up the final stages of our programmatic building system, and addressing some problems with older models. Many of the old placeholder buildings, and some of the very first large structures, are causing some significant performance issues. We plan on deleting them from the map, so we can repopulate the areas with less resource draining structures from our building system.

Interior work continues inside some of our marquee buildings, namely the Thorcon plant, and the Municipal Veil Station. We looked at some early mockups of the new sewer/storm drain respawn area, and it’s looking great. In the very near future, after you die, you’ll be able to gather your wits in the safety and comfort of a dimly lit, underground room, with a lovely runoff water stream.

After looking at the potential health/safety concerns of the new respawn area, we got into a larger discussion about dangers in a post fracture world, other than beast, mutants, and gamers with too many energy drinks and too little sleep. The team discussed possible story lines, and game hooks involving such things as: natural disasters, industrial accidents, poisons, and pandemics. Just because the world has suffered through one apocalypse, doesn’t mean it won’t have to struggle through another.

The web team continued to hammer away on the House customization system and track down lingering bugs. Jared has most of the system components hooked up and is waiting for Jesse to give it a styling pass. The automated color theme system is just waiting for a round of testing before it goes live. When it’s up and running, players will be able to effortlessly put together a good looking color scheme for their House, and House members. We went over some navigation options, and addressed some potential issues with text visibility as well.

We looked at some new body armor mockups, and discussed the possibility of adding House logos as a cool way to customize your character. Finally, the art team showed off their work on one of our first game-specific guns. With the attachment system working, there will be plenty of configurations, and options available to play dress up with your rifle. Below you can see a number of great looking possibilities.

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DEV

Maps, Mockups, and Armor

To finish out the week the web team is hard at work smoothing out any remaining kinks in the upcoming story timeline view. We’re addressing a handful of layout issues, and Jared is still working on overall performance and speeding up load times on the site. They’re reworking the “view more posts” button so stories load in a more intuitive way. In addition, the team added some much needed admin tools so we can quickly edit stories and announcements now, as well as change some layout options, directly from the website.

We dug into our current map, and talked about some different design options, and discussed exactly what we wanted out of it in terms of utility. Jesse continued work on the HUD, and integrating the many components: compass, map, alerts, quick bar, and chat window, without making the view feel overly crowded. We added a marker on the quick bar to make it easier to see what item/s you currently have equipped, and we’re adding some more specific audio assets to buildings.

We did some diving into body armor options and discussed an overall look. Guns, spears, and weapons in general get a lot of attention because it’s fun to blast or slash things, but armor can keep you alive. We looked at some military designs as well as equipment used in extreme sports, and talked about what things would have been readily available in Lahaina after the fracture. We looked at a number of different back and spine protectors available on the market, and talked about how much they looked like space armor from sci-fi movies in the 80’s.

With most of the work done on the timeline, the web team will be focusing on player and House customization next. Jesse shared some wireframes showing off different options for a house banner and player customization system. Before we got too far into the project, we discussed how detailed and how many options we want available to players. We talked about having automated color scheme tools that would pick complementary color palettes for characters vs. leaving everything up to players. Either way, we want players to be able to designate roles inside their Houses by color, add some uniqueness to their profiles, and set up a red-shirt brigade of expendables if they wish.

We continued working on our respawn experience and the areas that players will find themselves in after they die. Chris rolled up his sleeves and dug into the Unreal tools to make a mock-up of what he was thinking for a storm drain/sewer system respawn area. With a few caveats about being a newb, and being unfamiliar with all the tools, he pieced together an admirable respawn mock-up. We talked about specific design needs, and whether or not we’d want these areas to be connected to the larger sewer system at some point down the road. Whether or not Chris has been bitten by the design bug, and starts creating level mock-ups on the weekend for fun and profit remains to be seen.

The art team continues their work on sectioning up the map and adding detail to the remaining large buildings. While there is some lighting work left to do, you can see from the picture below just how huge the Thorcon power plant is.
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We’ll be back with more next week.