Another 2 years have passed and there’s been a lot of hurdles impacting progress. Fortunately, things are starting to move forward again and I’ve got Arteaga back on board. This post goes into some of the more recent changes.
Project Updates
The contents of the previous post still stand as overall goals and ambitions for what V3 will be.
Recent work has involved adjustments to menus, under the hood mechanic tweaks and rebalance for a squad size of six. There’s still a lot to do on my end but I’ve been busy with other stuff generally.
The main work currently involves remaking the game areas in consideration for the larger sprites. It’s proven a challenge from the get go but we’re hoping to pre draw most the areas this time around. I’m trying to keep map images small in size but larger in scale, hoping there’s no dumb engine issues down the line.
I post smaller updates here and there along with occasional images or video on the discord.
Roadmap
I’m not overly fond of the term Roadmap and I think devs often throw these up hastily and often don’t fully commit to them. However, I do think there is merit to sharing the goals and ideals for a project with the public.
For the V3 one thing is very clear to me and that is that it will need testing and refining. It’s basically a complete overhaul of the game so it needs that feedback process.
Currently there’s nothing solid to test and I don’t have a clear time frame of when I will roll out test builds. I do want to roll them out through discord as certain development milestones are hit and I’ll be using the game modes as release points. Basically as I complete each game mode I will roll out a build on the discord and work off that.
I’ll cover more about the game modes further down in this post but the initial idea for the roadmap is something like this:
- Natalie’s Story Halfway – Test Build 1
- Natalie’s Story Complete & Survival Mode – Test Build 2
- Blake’s Story Halfway & Tutorial Mode – Test Build 3
- Blake’s Story Complete – Test Build 4
- Hawkes’ Story Halfway – Test Build 5
- Hawkes’ Story Complete – Test Build 6
- ?’s Story Complete – Test Build 7
- Voice Acting and Touch Ups – Test Build 8
Game modes
My original ambition was to cut everything and just focus on the 3 main stories previously known as Prequel Mode, Original Mode and Story Mode. Slight changes and extra ideas now leave me with 6 ideas for game modes which I’ll list below in detail. The 3 main stories are all getting rewrites and changes which will be especially significant in Hawkes’ Story (Story Mode).
Natalie’s Story
The story set aboard a ship where you play as a Researcher was probably my best written story. I’ll be making some changes to pacing and the crew which means I have to scrap the existing voice acting.
The general structure of the story remains the same and should serve well to begin testing the game.
Survival Mode ‘The Descent’
I wasn’t going to do the survival mode again but I’ve been playing a lot of slay the spire on mobile and it’s given me some ideas. My current vision is a rogue lite mode entirely contained in an elevator.
The premise is that there will be so many floors left to descend until the next boss fight and the player chooses how to spend each floor. You may choose a random battle, chance a recruitment or spend supplies. I’ve got a few ideas on how to realize this mode. I’ve generally been unhappy with previous iterations of it.
Blake’s Story
The mode based on the 2002 game probably sees the least changes to it’s structure though I’ve got bigger plans for the last areas. The main changes here are integrated content from Pierce’s and Avery’s cut stories aswell as making Pierce and Bashford more prominent.
The second half sees more changes than the first half overall but I think it’ll be improved overall. I’ve also planned an additional boss fight for this mode.
Tutorial Mode ‘Outpost #31’
I wasn’t going to do a tutorial this time around; I was just going to do pop ups. I later changed my mind and decided to redo the conflict desert storm inspired Alaska Tutorial. This ended up being too stiff again so I started working on ideas for a ‘live’ tutorial where you play a Gen Inc Soldier named Rookie on his first mission but I couldn’t get it where I wanted.
There had been a few requests to bring back the Movie characters, not just as Survival Mode Cameos but as their own story. I’ve wanted to do something with them for ages but I never wanted to touch the film as I couldn’t justify replaying out the movie events.
Finally, it came together. Why not use the film as the tutorial? Some creative liberties may need to be taken here and there but I’m generally quite optimistic about the idea of it. It also helps that MacReady has been given a more essential role in the main story mode now so I think it fits. I just hope I can do it justice.
Hawkes’ Story
The games main story mode that serves as a sequel to the 2002 game sees the most changes. A lot of the extra content I made before is being integrated into the main story. There are heavy rewrites to the narrative structure along with new focus on a group of main characters like in Natalie’s story.
Macready, Lloyd, Quintel and Bashford see bigger and more prominent story roles here alongside rewritten endings and narrative threads.
I’m planning for character specific endings too though these may get scrapped due to budget.
The main custom character will also get more dialogue choices and interactive choices. I’ll be cutting the voice acting for them down to one option for male and female only and I’ll be looking at more sprite outfits but less model types.
This mode benefits from the ‘free roam’ nature of its curated sandbox so expect new side content and reused optional areas going forward. This mode is probably the hardest to develop and will take the longest.
?’s Story
I have a lot of scrapped ideas for stories and IF budget permits, I’ll be bringing one of them to life.
This story would be set around 10 years after Hawkes’ story and see the player control a Gen Inc Response team heading into a small Alaskan community under quarantine to get access to a facility and recover assets during an ‘outbreak’.
Multiple outcomes and impactful decisions are being kept in mind for this story. The facility essentially serves as a Dungeon and the mode would try to pay homage to redwood falls.
I’m looking into ideas for it still but I’d like to have the player able to select and load out their squad. I also want to do a vehicle section or combat. Ultimately this hangs on budget as it requires all new assets.
That’s pretty much it for now. Probably won’t be a major post for a while so join the discord to keep up with smaller updates and behind the scenes stuff.
Thanks for reading.
-Richard
Mac Wants The What? 
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