It's been a busy week. Life's responsibilities have managed to get in the way of the majority of my developing time for Red Desert so I only have a few bug fixes and actual additions this week, however I have been working on making a new demo for you guys! (download link below). It has more polish than the last one by far, and is a good representation of the gameplay elements of the vision I have for Red Desert. I'm starting to feel like the engine is nearly there. I still have a big list of features to add, as well as tweaking the feel, but it's coming together.
Ver 0.3 Demo:
(29.9mb)(Controller only)
What's been added? Well the answer is not much. I've mostly fixed the enemies animation problems, which have been plaguing development since the beginning. I still spot bugs here and there but I'm slowly rectifying them.
Colour coded gun parts
The gun parts are colour coded now. White for a low to average part, red for a mid to good level part, and blue for the top tier. This makes it easier to quickly filter the good and bad parts, meaning you spend less time comparing stats in the menu, which I always find to be a bit tedious in any game. The colour will be changed later on but the idea is there.
Damage and range cap for gun parts
Each part now has a damage cap, and a range cap, meaning that equipping one part might have a negative effect, as well as a positive one. This is an important new feature as it removes the objectivity of a gun part. Rather than one part being objectively better than another it makes it dependant on the player, and their decision of what they're willing to sacrifice. This idea is still in it's bare bones phase right now, but hopefully it'll give the weapon system more depth. Currently there's no in game way to tell what the cap for each part is, so a total overhaul of the gun screen will be required.
So what's still to do?
A lot of course.
RPG elements
The next major step will be to add RPG elements. They're already somewhat there, they just need to be expanded upon. I'd like to commit a large chunk of time to this, maybe an entire weeks work, as it'll have huge implications for the game's system of progression, and right now I'm not even sure how much RPG to add. Whether I want level-ups with perks that the player can choose, or have them automatically assigned to the player, meaning the only input they have is the customisation of their gun.
Shields
I'm really happy with the cover system. It's simple and intuitive and you actually feel kinda cool when there are raiders shooting at you, and you can blast back at them from round a corner. The only problem is if you need to cross an area and there are loads of enemies pinning you down. This problem can be addressed with the addition of shields. Disposable pieces of the environment that the player can pick up to defend against raider attacks while moving, for example an old car door, bits of metal, anything large and flat that could stop a bullet. They'll have their own hp and get destroyed, and their own weight, which will affect the player's movement speed while they're holding it. I was thinking bout having a dodge move, like Dark Souls or Enter The Gungeon, but this puts more of a focus on the environment, and its utilization for your own survival.
Player death
Still not sure how I want to implement this. It'll probably become apparent when the story and story-telling comes into play in the coming weeks.
Motorbike and motorbike customisation
I've been putting this off for a while, and will probably continue to put it off until I have the basics of the engine down. Mainly as it'll be a whole lot of every kind of work, programming, animation etc.
Throwables?
Grenades, molotov cocktails etc. I'm not sure about this yet but it might be cool in the future.
Speech bubbles and npcs
I don't plan on having complex dialogue systems so this should be straightforward enough.
Technical stuff
Screen size adjustment, saving and loading. WASD controls.
So if you read all of that then thank you so much! I know I don't have a lot to show this week in terms of exciting gameplay visuals and gifs so it means a lot to me that you've read this far, or maybe you're just skimming in which case thank you too. In either case I have a treat for you.
Below is some of the first music for the game. It's a 40 second loop made by a talented musician and producer, who has done a great job of capturing the atmosphere, reminds me of the Diablo II soundtrack. Definitely worth 40 seconds of your time.
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0KW0nDbDxeG
More on the music in coming weeks hopefully.
Wow, a long post for not much work this week. Thanks again, so much for taking the time to read this. We're all busy people and I do honestly appreciate it. Have a really good day, and check back every Monday for updates. Leave a comment if you like too!
All the best,
- James