Selaco (tuxdb.com)

Selaco v0.88 Update + State of Development

Greetings captains, The Spring Sale is here, and we've put the game on our biggest discount yet (again!). If you purchased the game at full price about a week ago, don't worryyou can request a refund for the price difference by contacting Steam Support. Just point them to this blog post as confirmation that were fully on board with it. If you do not own the game yet, you can get it right below for 30% cheaper during the Spring Sale. And better yet... if you own Fallen Aces, Echo Point Nova, or Mullet Madjack, it'll be even cheaper for you! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1592280/Selaco/ Please consider reviewing the game if you haven't already. They help immensely and we do read all of them! Let's dive into the State of Development before we go through the patch notes, as there's quite a bit to talk about.

Chapter 2 is where most of our time is being spent these days, and the majority of the team is dedicating their full development time to it. We're happy to share that things are coming along very nicely, and the number of roadblocks we've encountered so far has been minimal at best! There's a lot to share and a lot we'd love to see reactions to, but we are going to hold off for now and save it for a trailer in the future. Instead, have a voxel chicken. One of the many new food items in Chapter 2.
And, fine, a Sniper. They will eventually replace the snipers we currently use in Chapter 1, as we're not quite satisfied with them and think they could be a bit more dynamic.

Selaco is a big game, and theres still plenty of work ahead before were ready to leave Early Access. To keep development moving at a steady pace, weve brought in some new talent to assist with programming! Were excited to welcome Nick London to the team! He has a lot of experience working on game engines, including building his own from scratch for The Last Exterminator; a game you may have heard of before, and one we can highly recommend based on the demo alone. If you're a fan of the game, rest assured that Nick's involvement with Selaco has no bearing on The Last Exterminator's development. In fact, it was one of the first things we talked about! I can also assure everyone that his game is coming along nicely. Let's get a bit more specific below.

On top of many smaller endeavors, two big projects have been set in motion that aim to improve Selaco's performance significantly across all systems.

Particle System Overhaul We want combat to feel punchy, intense, and dramatic, using a variety of effects to spice up the action. However, the way we currently calculate and render these effects leaves a lot of room for improvement, often causing noticeable frame drops when too many explosions or bullets fill the screen. Based on benchmarks and user feedback, this is easily our biggest performance bottleneck when it involves action. To address this, we're developing a brand-new Particle System built directly into the engine (which is why we brought Nick on board). This will reduce the computational load, ensuring smoother performance across the board.
Light Baking Every light source in Selaco is fully dynamic, allowing for interactive features like destructible and flickering lights, and functional light switches. However, most lights dont have these interactions but are still rendered dynamically. This is problematic because dynamic lighting is expensive to render and offers no visual advantage when interactivity isnt needed. We are exploring a way to implement static lights by baking lighting data directly into level geometry and textures. This would eliminate their performance cost entirely/mostly, leading to significantly improved frame rates, while interactive lights remain as dynamic as theyve always been. And who knows, maybe we can use this technique to make Selaco look even better by baking more accurate shadows into the game. VKDoom / GZDoom has been working on this for a while and hopefully we can get it ported into Selaco in the future. If you want to see an example of where this technology is used, take a look at Disdain (demo available!)

Moving forward, I (Nexxtic) will no longer be working from home! I've secured an office space nearby where I'll be dedicating all my time to Selaco development, with fewer distractions for my ADHD-fueled brain. Selaco has been a huge success (thanks to all of you!), and its time to take this job more seriously by setting up a dedicated workspace.

Every update moving forward will likely introduce a few new additions to the Special Campaign. It's a fun outlet for us, as it allows us to lean into a more 'video gamey' approach, rather than something highly immersive. Its a nice change of pace, development-wise. Were currently brainstorming a lot of potential ideas, including meta-progression systems to encourage repeated playthroughs in the Special Campaign, Challenge Runs, presets, improved randomization, and more. Progress on this will be a little slower, as we've got our hands full with Chapter 2 and the Story Update, but it'll be moving forward from time to time.

A new type of beta will be added very soon, called the 'Nightly,' which is a bit more experimental. The Nightly will be updated almost every day, provided theres progress on Chapter 1-related work. Essentially, once our workday ends, well upload progress directly to the Nightly. Once it has received enough updates and is considered 'stable,' those changes will be pushed to the Public Beta Build (hopefully automatically). Lets briefly go over the different versions:

Default (none): This is where most players are. Everything here is thoroughly tested, polished, and stable. If this is your first time playing Selaco, this is the version we highly recommend.
Beta Branch: A collection of multiple Nightly builds uploaded over the past 2-3 weeks. While not entirely stable, it will definitely be more stable than a Nightly.
Nightly: Untested changes that may not even work. Will the game boot up? Will VAC-Bots multiply? Who knows what happens in here! This is only recommended for those who want to stay deeply involved with the development process and report their thoughts early.

We will post a new Steam Blog once the Nightly is up. Please note, Chapter 2 content and system overhauls wont be included in these updates, as we want to save those for one big update! Anything related to Chapter 2 will be tested privately.

We've been Beta Testing the new Engine Version with our playerbase and we're happy to report that we got all the information we need! We've been able to fix numerous crash issues and ironed out strange bugs that were introduced in this new engine. Big thanks to everyone who helped us test! <3

Selaco's engine source code is now available on Github. This version will always be up-to-date with the current Steam Version of the game. Whenever we deploy a new update, github will also be updated. Feel free to take it, modify it, fix it, use it. It's up to you! GZSelaco Github Page

Unfortunately, we have to delay this one. Its a big project, and we need a little more time to get everything right, especially since we're also working hard on the second chapter. We've cast (the majority of) the actors and they're ready to go, but getting everything properly implemented and done right will take a bit more effort. Next major patch!

Summary This update isn't as massive as prior ones due to Chapter 2 and Story Update focus, but still plenty of good stuff here that improves the core experience in a significant way. TL;DR for some of the highlights:

Vastly upgraded engine version
Added 'Early Access Roadmap' to the Main Menu
Added 'Game Detail' setting
Added Unlock notifications after beating this game.
Added Visibility Welcome Screen that will be given to new players
Numerous Special Campaign improvements
Added 'No Health Regeneration' mutator
Added 'Bottomless Mags' mutator
Improved music quality
Hardcore Mode has been made more Hardcore
Lots of gameplay polish
Wires can now be shot to briefly electrocute nearby enemies
A whole bunch of new environmental reactions and effects
Improved visual clarity for players with a Low Smoke Density setting
Additional improvements to level design and scripting
Another massive sound pass
Weapon buffs and nerfs
Improved numerous art assets
Improved Error Handling
Added 'Strongbox' achievement
Audio pass for some robotic enemies
Minor Shotgun buff because why not
Performance optimizations
SPECIAL CAMPAIGN: Added Encounter Chests
SPECIAL CAMPAIGN: Added Grenadier Engineer

Optimization

Upgraded the engine to the newest GZDoom version. This will now function as our new base to expand upon. This will likely be more stable and perform slightly better
Added "Game Detail" setting. Adds additional environmental details that make the world more reactive. This includes additional bullet puff behavior, improved object collisions, bullet casing duration, and much more. New 'non-essential' world details will consider the Game Detail setting moving forward
Reworked numerous actors to be more memory-efficient
Added Background Model Loading to reduce traversal stutter
Numerous UI elements are now loaded on a different CPU thread
Upgraded numerous particle effects
Reduced the number of CVAR checks to lower CPU load
Particle effects are no longer stored in saved games, reducing file size and stutter duration when saving
WINDOWS: Fixed an error where mouse inputs would cease to function correctly when Selaco was running in the present or past

Special Campaign

Added Encounter Chests. These chests are spawned at random locations in Selaco. Interacting with an Encounter Chest spawns enemies around the room. Eliminate all enemies to get a reward
Added Engineer Grenadiers
Railgun Slugs can now spawn via the Randomizer
Storage Cabinets are no longer empty
Added numerous new Weapon Traits
Improved spawning algorithms to consider density. Maps like the Mall will no longer see extreme amounts of enemies
Reduced 'bias' to ensure Random Spawns are properly spread around the level rather than focused around certain spots

Mutators

Added "No Health Regeneration" mutator
Added "Bottomless Mags" mutator - This mutator removes the reloading mechanic
HARDCORE MODE: Removed spread and recoil limits. This makes weapons harder to control during sustained fire
HARDCORE MODE: Added option to disable spread and recoil limits

DEV NOTE: 
Remember, in a future update you will be able to change most Mutators via Safe Rooms. However, the end game screen will highlight which mutators have been adjusted during the run

Gameplay

Reduced recoil build-up when zooming
Shooting at wire textures will now create electricity hazards. This can be used to your advantage
Explosion Area of Effect damage is now done with a spherical shape instead of a square. This makes explosion behavior more accurate and similar to modern titles
Shock duration on enemies now depends on the amount of shock damage
Reduced Airdrone bullet damage
Alerted enemies will now enter Patrol Mode when the player exits the level
Added 'Strongbox' achievement
ENEMY SENTRY GUN: Gave them a much-needed sound pass
ENEMY SENTRY GUN: Added self-lighting to make them easier to see
ENEMY SENTRY GUN: Added a slight delay before they begin attacking
ENEMY SENTRY GUN: Unalerted turrets can now be deactivated by pressing USE behind them
NAILGUN: 'Twin Barrel' has been buffed. The second nail no longer deals reduced damage
LANDMINES: Now require the 'Extractor' upgrade in order to be removed after deployment. Sorry, they were overperforming!
ESG-24 SHOTGUN: Boosted damage per pellet (32 -> 34)

There were some instances where the shotgun doesn't end up killing a target when they really should have. This small buff should reduce the amount of instances where enemies survive with 1-5HP left from an almost perfect shot.

Added Unlock notifications after beating this game. This will now inform players about new features that become available
Added Visibility Welcome Screen that will be shown to all players on startup. This allows players to choose between two visual modes: 'Spectacle' and 'Visibility'
Added "Early Access Roadmap" button in the main menu
Added a brand-new error system. This will make it easier for us to solve reported issues moving forward
Added a warning prompt when loading a saved game that it's incompatible
Improved ammo counter display for weapons that do not require reloading
Save Game Menu descriptions now have a scroll bar
LookAt prompts now have a smaller font when they have a lot of text
Used mods are now shown in the Save Game Menu when selecting a save
Localization support improvements.

Art

Most of the music in Selaco has been re-exported from the source. The quality should be much higher now
Improved behavior of Stretcher voxels. Rotating them will now display a proper animation and their hitboxes have been corrected
Ice Grenades now have a unique voxel model
Most weapons now have a layered gun sound, making them sound different depending on the amount of ammo left
Added particle effects when mines drill themselves into the floor
Added a new set of doodles
Improved visuals for Grenade Launcher explosions
Added carpet puffs when walking on carpet materials
Carpet textures now spawn a unique effect when hit by bullets
Added 'Cloth' material behavior
Added new dust decals
Level 1-1 and Level 1-2 have some additional ambient sounds
Numerous new combat sound effects have been added
Added animated smoke puffs
Shocked enemies will now continue shocking when dead
Improved Roaring Cricket gun sound and trail visuals
Paper particles now seamlessly transition into paper decals when touching the floor
Repainted some older art assets

Modding

Fixed crashes when giving SelacoWeapon to enemies
Level Editor will now visually display Path Node Connections
Added more virtual functions that modders can override

Bug Fixes

Fixed unintended horizontal lines on some smoke sprites. Let us know if you see any more!
Reduced amount of trash that is spawned by the ENDLESS TRASH trait
Slugs no longer cost ammo in the Shooting Range
Players no longer take damage during the Intermission Screen
Fists no longer increments 'Shots Fired' stat
'Deaf' enemies will no longer be alerted by sound
FIxed bug where keycard icons would 'jitter' on the HUD
Food items now have correct calorie properties. Water was never meant to add 50 calories to your diet!
Cars and their hitboxes no longer go out of sync during earthquakes
Lockers in Level 1-1 no longer close after 9000 ticks. They now stay open indefinitely
Fixed broken Windows Shutters in level 1-1
Weapon Traits no longer display incorrect values during the Special Campaign
'Enable Bipod' upgrade has been renamed to 'Bipod'
Fixed error where 'Paintsplosion' trait would spawn Purple paint only.
Gravity Manipulator no longer behaves incorrectly when used without ammo
Fixed an error where Keyboards would sometimes be pushed by player collision
Knifes now correctly break apart when used against armored enemies
Knife kills against Siegers no longer turn them into Rifleman
Fixed a bug where Iron Fury did not ignite enemies correctly
Removed 'BEEP SPEED' debug in the console that was never meant to be there
Fixed rare crash caused by Ammo Warnings
World Items that cost 0 Selver Credits no longer displays your credit balance on the HUD
Fixed incorrect animation timing in Save Menu
Allied projectiles no longer spawn a smoke puff against killed enemies
Sentry Gun and Combat VAC-Bot kills no longer counts towards the UC-36 Kill stat
Plasma Area of Effect kills are now considered Plasma Rifle kills
Target Dummies no longer have rarities during the Special Campaign
Fixed 'Unknown Folder' crashes on Windows 11
Fixed potential crashes caused by Pathfinding
Fire Resistance for Juggernauts now works as intended

If you ran into any issues or simply prefer the old version, you can go back to an older version by rolling back using the Steam Beta features [olist]

Go to your Steam Library

Right Click on 'Selaco'

Click on 'Properties'

On the right side of the screen, press 'beta'

Click on the Dropdown Menu

Select 'version_v0.87'

Wait for the download the finish [/olist] You are now back to the old version of the game!

Once again I would like to thank everyone for their support towards this project of ours, and for all the word of mouth that helped Selaco grow. It has almost been a year since we've launched and Selaco continues to perform above our expectations. We're very grateful for the community we've built, and it makes creating updates like these all the more satisfying for us. Looking forward towards hearing your thoughts!

[ 2025-03-13 17:11:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

Selaco

Altered Orbit Studios Developer

Altered Orbit Studios Publisher

2255-08-25 Release

Adventure Singleplayer Tags

Game News Posts: 29

🎹🖱️Keyboard + Mouse
🕹️ Partial Controller Support

Very Positive (3661 reviews)

https://selacogame.com/

Steam Store

Public Linux Depots:

[0 B]

Selaco is a brand new original shooter running on GZDoom, featuring thrilling action set pieces, destructibility, smart AI and a fleshed out story taking place within an immersive game world. It draws inspiration heavily from F.E.A.R. in terms of action set pieces, while mixing traditional retro-FPS elements from QUAKE and DOOM, along with some more modern features. Together with professional artists who work in the industry, several having worked on successful throwback FPS games in the past, Selaco is a fully fleshed out world full of character, action, and mystery.

The story takes place during a violent invasion of Selaco, the underground facility that's home to the surviving refugees after the fall of Earth. You play as Dawn, an ACE Security Captain who, with her recent promotion and high level security clearances, is digging deep into the truth behind Selaco's murky history. Before she can finish her investigation, Selaco is rocked by explosions and armed invaders. While Selaco may take place in a large-scale conflict, much of it will be the personal story of Dawn, the center-piece of the game.

A lengthy story-driven campaign

Selaco is a story-driven experience, and we don't say that lightly. A dedicated writer has been brought on board to assist with creating an engaging and believable sci-fi story and world.

Intense Action set pieces

Turn the entire world into confetti with the destructive power of your weapons. Every single bullet will react properly with any materials or objects you hit. Our artists have created many different variations for each (voxel)object to ensure that the aftermath of each encounter is palpable. That once lavish office space now nothing but a pile of rubble with broken paintings, smashed tables, screen, chairs, smoke, and chunks of debris.

Custom AI

With our FEAR influence, writing proper AI was a goal from the get go. The enemy is fully aware of each other's presence and work together to take you down. They will keep their distance if you apply constant pressure on them, will rush you if you hide or run out of bullets, toss grenades if you use the same cover for too long, and much more. Hundreds of custom lines have been written and acted out, providing hints to the player about their current plans and tactics.

Full soundtrack

Selaco is accompanied by a full length original soundtrack composed by an experienced musician who has worked on many games in the past.

Professional voice-acting.

To help immerse players in the story and atmosphere of Selaco, professional voice actors have been brought on board. Dawn will be voiced by the incredibly talented Melissa Medina, with other casting choices revealed at a later date.

Extra Gamemodes

Completing levels allows you to replay that level in Incursion Mode, an expanded version of that map where your skills will be tested against a near endless onslaught of enemies. Win incursion maps to gain bonuses to aid you throughout the campaign. New exclusive Incursion Levels and new mutators will also be unlocked as the campaign progresses.

Full open-source modding support

Mod it till it breaks! Create new campaign experiences, modify or create your own content, port your favorite GZDoom mods. Anything goes!

MINIMAL SETUPOS: Linux 64-bit | Ubuntu 18.04 | Mint 19 | Debian 10
Processor: Intel i3 2100 or higherMemory: 2 GB RAM
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: Anything capable of running OpenGL 4.0 (eg. ATI Radeon HD 57xx or Nvidia GeForce 400 and higher)
Storage: 600 MB available space
RECOMMENDED SETUPOS: Linux 64-bit | Ubuntu 18.04 | Mint 19 | Debian 10
Processor: Intel i5-3570kMemory: 4 GB RAM
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: 1 GB of VRAM with OpenGL 3.3 (GeForce GTX 630 or higher)
Storage: 600 MB available space

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