Getting this version out early because of a lighting issue in Infected areas which made it impossible to see for a lot of players. Here's all the things done in this version, in preparation for 0.2:

Bugfixes:

• Fixed Hunter monster neck stretching out strangely during some animations,
• Fixed lighting on doors,
• Fixed bug in infection shaders that made infected environments pure black making it very hard to see anything,

Polishes:

• Infection spread rate is more balanced for harder missions,
• Source monster now shows up properly in Afterlife,
• Adjustments to volumetric lighting to improve visuals and atmosphere,
• Performance adjustments for main menu background scene,
• General visual improvements and performance improvements,
• Adjustments to materials to improve reflections and visual quality,
• When power is lost lights now turn off instead of turning red,
• Infection growths now only show up on fully infected areas,
• Infection growths will now vanish when the Infection is destroyed,
• Changed how the Infection spreads which diversifies the spread behavior between Infection types,
• Adjustments in ambient ship sounds,
• Ambient ship sounds now fade out when the Reactor Core breaks,
• Hunter footstep sound are now audible over a larger distance,
• Hunter breathing now becomes muffled the farther away it is,
• Made player flashlight a little brighter,

[ 2024-11-25 19:45:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

A little heads-up: Achievements will go live fully in patch 0.2, though they will be in the Testing Beta prior to that patch release. However since we need to add the Achievements themselves to Steam to be able to test them they will already appear on the Community Tab and profiles, despite not being unlockable yet on the main branch. We got quite the varied list of Achievements already, expect quite a few to be added to the game. Best to hold off on going on an Achievement hunt after the game has been updated to 0.2 though :)

[ 2024-11-22 18:00:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

Loads of things have been fixed and updated in this version, especially concerning the monsters and infection. We got quite a few more smaller things and some big things that we want to fix or update so expect more patches like this in the near future.

Bugfixes:

• Fixed a bug in the Source monster which causes it to constantly loop in losing line-of-sight of its target and then re-targeting the same target,
• Fixed Hunter breathing sounds not playing,
• Fixed Hunter footstep sounds not playing,
• Fixed Hunter banging on door sounds sometimes not playing,
• Fix for some evidences (Geiger especially) not being obvious at all for some infection types, range-based Tools have been tweaked to be more intuitive which pickup up evidence sources,
• Fixed temperature evidence being too high for some infection types causing the Temperature Gun to overflow and display a very cold value,
• Fixed Mission Control saying the Infection was destroyed even though it isnt on Amateur missions,
• Fixed clamped vertical mouse movement which for example caused having to move the mouse back the same distance to be able to look down again,

Polishes:

• General code and asset optimization and cleanup,
• Made the infection effect transition to black smooth instead of instant,
• Adjusted light flickers to be more unsettling,
• Changed the visuals for the Source monster,
• Updated the hunting sounds for the Source monster,
• The Source monster now has different sounds for chasing and roaming,
• Updated the hunting sounds for the Hunter,
• The Hunter will now turn its head to stare at whomever it is chasing,
• Hard missions will now be available for ranks 10 and up, instead of 30 and up, to make the game less grind-y,
• Hard missions have an higher chance of spawning 2-3 Crew or Items instead of 1,
• Harder missions have an higher chance of having the Rescue and Recover objectives,
• Slightly raised evidence strength increase for harder missions,
• Infection start location is now more infected on easier missions,
• Areas infected by the Infection Source now show half the temperature evidence than the Source itself, to make it easier/less confusing to locate the Source using the Temperature Gun,
• Infected areas are slightly less dark now to improve visibility,

[ 2024-11-21 15:44:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

The last big feature has been fully implemented and with that... we are now in Beta version 0.1! Now we can really focus on improving everything that's currently in the game and add the missing bits and bobs. Let's take a look at this update.

The Shop:

The infections have gained in power, but so can you. Use the funds you gathered from your many missions and invest in new suits, tools and weapons or upgrade your current ones. The new shop in your spaceship will provide you with all your needs.
The Store is now fully functional, you can buy all the base items now and we will start adding a bunch of extra items and upgrades in future updates. The interface has been updated from the previous version to make it more intuitive. It also has had some bugfixes. Weapon prices have been lowered to make the game less grind-y. More advanced future items, tools and weapons will be more expensive however as those are meant to aid higher ranking players when harder missions are available to them. Your Store inventory is saved along with the rest of your stats and synced with Steam Cloud.

Bugfixes:

• The Infection hurt sounds no longer cut each other off,
• Fixed navigation in Airlock type 4, Crew should no longer get stuck on the corner there,
• Fixed missing infection textures on some of the stair assets,

Polishes:

• The Hunter screams now get muffled in low-oxygen environments,
• The Infection effect is now much stronger on heavily infected areas to create a more tense atmosphere,
• Missions have a much lower chance to have the repair Secondary Objective if the player/team rank is low to make things much more fair for newer players. This is also to give a feel of progression as more Objectives become available as players go up in rank,
• Amateur missions are more common for new/low rank players,
• Amateur missions no longer have the requirement of having to destroy the infection to prevent penalizing new players that cannot afford Weapons just yet,
• Mission info and Mission debriefing menus have been updated according to the new Amateur mission requirements,
• Updated Mission Control voice lines to better reflect Mission success and failure on different difficulties and (un)completed objectives,
• The difficulty of Missions has been further adjusted depending on Team rank, to give a greater sense of progression as higher difficulty tiers unlock as players rank up,
• Added more spawn points for Special Items,
• Added a new style of infected area effect to make the infected areas feel more alien and creepy.

Now that we've had a look at the present, let's take a look at...

The Future:

There's a couple of important things we need to tackle:

• Missing assets: some of the level assets are still unfinished and there's still a few (functional) rooms we want to add such as a cockpit and an oxygen farm.
• Finish the Infection's monsters: most of them are already in the game but require a bit more polishing and gameplay depth, the Item monsters especially are still rather bare-bones.
• Polishing of existing features: everything is in the game and functional but some things still require further work to be at the level we want them to be.
• Fixing bugs: is something we have been doing along the way, but now we don't need to implement major new features anymore we can focus much better on fixing bugs without introducing new ones right after.
• Proximity voice chat, properly: we've had an implementation of voice chat before in the game, but it didn't work as well as we'd hoped. We're going to try a new approach using Steam Voice which should work a lot better, but will require some time and experimentation to get right.
• Localization: we want to translate the game into multiple languages, though this will take some doing and assistance as there's quite a bit of text in the game and we do not currently have a translator in our midst. If you're willing to help us out with for example (SImplified) Chinese, Russian or Polish let us know!

[ 2024-11-12 09:05:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

Some essential fixes, changes and additions to Items, monsters and the Store. Keep in mind that the Store changes mean you will have to buy your Weapons and extra Tools now, they no longer spawn by default. This also means the Secondary Objectives are now much more important for teams that do not have the budget yet for buying (all the) Weapons.

Bugfixes:

• fixed host player getting a fade-out effect when a client player is killed by the Hunter for the first time,
• fixed the Source hunting monster sometimes hunting indefinitely,
• fixed that in some sessions the Hunter would never spawn, instead the Source monster would spawn every time,
• fixed issue in the Camera Item monster which could cause a crash or script execution failure if it finishes attacking a player,
• fixed issue in the Black Box Item model that would still be visible even after it had changed into a monster,

Polishes:

• Added gas explosion sound to Black Box monster,
• Added idle sounds to the Item monsters,
• Player store inventory is now saved locally and is now Steam Cloud synced,
• Weapons can now be bought from the Store,
• Weapons and extra Tools now do not spawn by default, players will have to buy them first,
• Added a new mission failed voice line to make it more clear players get penalized for not destroying the infection.

[ 2024-10-30 16:18:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes:

• Fixed an issue with the host player getting the fade-out death effect when a nearby client player is killed by the Hunter for the first time,

Currently working on implementing the remaining features for the Store, expect several updates for this on the Testing Beta (you can freely opt into this via Steam) the coming weeks. We're also starting work on the new items, the first one available in the Store will be the Fire Extinguisher since that one is already in the game. More items to deal with the Infection and Suit upgrades are coming.

[ 2024-10-12 11:47:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone, it has been a while. Draggie/Jeroen got a new part-time job besides gamedev and due to the changes had little time/energy to work on the game. Things are stabilizing now though and we're picking things back up. We want to get the Store done next and that will get the game into Beta (version 0.1), which means we can then fully focus on polishing/fixing existing features and adding all the extra features/content. So lets start with this patch, which is the last one before the Beta release. Lets take a look.

Bugfixes:

• Fixed navmes in large Cryo room,
• Fixed missing lights in one of the spiral staircases,
• Fixed missing light tags in the new staircases,
• Fixed audio settings not working in pause menu,
• Fixed ambient Lobby sounds using the wrong audio bus, making volume settings not work for those,
• Fixed bugged fire sprite in Tutorial,
• Fixed lights being on in infected area in Tutorial,
• Fixed some missing reverb area settings in Tutorial,
• Fixed missing reverb area settings in some level generator sections,
• Added missing area triggers in Tutorial,
• Added and adjusted missing area tags in Tutorial for infection and Tools,
• Fixed Skeleton monster spawn scream sound not playing,
• Fixed issues with Skeleton monster spawn animation causing it to get stuck in an idle loop,
• Fixed inventory and item dropping not working when player died previously with the PDA open,

Polishes:

• Added more spawn locations for Special Items,
• Added more spawn locations for Crew,

Item Monsters:

The Special Items that you need to retrieve can now be corrupted by the Infection, turning them into various passive and active creatures. Some will make it harder to see, others will mess with head and give you hallucinations and there's even one that can place you right in the midst of the source of horrors!

[ 2024-10-03 17:48:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

It's been a little quiet, so time for an heads-up on what we are working on and what you can expect.

Working towards the Beta:

The game is currently at version 0.08e and next update will be version 0.09. Now this update focuses mostly on the Special Items, the new monsters of these Items and the extra tasks during missions such as retrieving Items and Crew. Here's some previews of the new creatures that the Infection spawns:

However we've been already working on the Store too, to get some basic systems in place. With the Store you'll be able to use your "space credits" accumulated from your missions to buy better and more equipment.
This also means that players/teams will now start out with only the bare basics, instead of having almost everything from the get-go. Additionally players will need to take into consideration that certain equipment such as the EMP bomb and Fire Extinguisher are single-use only and thus need to be bought again after use. Of course we will make sure this is nicely balanced out with the rewards you get from successful missions.

(these interfaces are still a work-in-progress, of course) Once 0.09 is out we can start improving and expanding on the Store, to works towards the beta 0.1 release. Amongst other things we'll need to design and make new Suits, Tools and Weapons. We're hoping to get 0.09 out sometime this month (July). As a TL;DR: here's a list of things that we are working on or still have to do for the Beta:

• Finish the 3 Item Monsters, each having unique abilities that will not kill you but will make your mission that much harder, These are almost done.
• Finish the Store functionality. You will be able to manage the equipment you use on missions as well as buy new equipment. The basics are there but we need to finish the management section of the Store.
• Add new Suits that are more specialized and/or more resilient, This is still TODO.
• Add new Tools to help you on your missions. These will be able to temporarily deter the monsters, will help with pinpointing the location of the Source, will help deal with fire and repairs, etc. These are TODO.
• New room: the Oxygen Farm. Here you will be able to recharge your oxygen to some degree. The rooms are finished, they now need to be implemented functionally into the game. [*[ Many bugfixes and polishes, which we always work on, naturally.

From Beta to Full Release:

Once the game is in Beta it will be feature-complete, though we will likely expand and improve on some features as we work towards the final version. Aside from that we will of course keep improving on the game so it is stable and smooth infection hunting for you all. Additionally we will start work on implementing VR for an extra dimension of immersion :) If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to comment, make a thread in the Steam Forums or hit us up on our Discord. We're happy to hear your thoughts.

[ 2024-07-08 17:48:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

FSR, resolutions and better aspect ratio support:

An FSR scaling option has been added to options menu, which allows scaling the currently set resolution anywhere between 50% to 100% (which turns it off). This allows for much better performance without too much image quality loss. The resolution setting in the options menu now actually changes rendering resolution in fullscreen mode too, which allows players to lower the resolution from native for better performance if FSR doesn't solve it. Fullscreen mode itself has been changed to exclusive fullscreen for better multi-monitor support. In windowed mode the window will now automatically center on the main screen. After feedback from some of you we did some testing and bugfixes in the UI/object picking and the game now properly supports different aspect ratios such as 4:3 and Ultrawide. Please let us know in Steam Discussions, or Discord, if you still have issues with aspect ratios and the UI or interacting with stuff ingame.

Player netcode refactor:

There were some issues with the player netcode and we had to come up with some workarounds for sync issues for teams with more than 2 players. These werent game-breaking issues, but definitely ruined immersion as animations and rotations for example wouldnt sync. There were also sync issues with the hiding mechanic which needed fixing. After some relentless testing and attempts at fixing things we decided to go for a code refactor to tidy up and get things sorted properly with a different approach to how the player code handles communication. It was quite a bit of work but the new player netcode should provide a much more stable and immersive experience! On top of that bandwidth usage has been reduced quite a bit, interactions with high ping should be snappier, interpolation for movement has been added for a more smooth experience with high ping and stuff like the hiding mechanic works much better now.

Bugfixes:

• Fixed issues with interactions and objects at non 16:9 resolutions,
• Fixed issue when changing the inventory whilst the PDA journal is open causes player to be unable to drop inventory items,
• Fixed similar issue with having the PDA stats open, which breaks the PDA animation when changing inventory,
• Fixed lights not going back on when Reactor is repaired,
• Fixed ship systems not going back on when Reactor is repaired,
• Fixed missing red color on some Growths in Afterlife,
• Rewrote hiding system which should fix some bugs related to hiding,
• Various fixes and refactors in player code, see details above.
• Fixed miscalculation in ship health causing the VO to state the ship health is less than 50% when it is not.

Polishes:

• Unpowered ship systems now show as yellow, infected/broken as red, in Afterlife,
• Added effect for when a Lymph Node is destroyed,
• Attacking Lymph Nodes gains you a little bit of time now,
• Destroying a Lymph Node now gains you extra time,
• Pulsing sound now stops when you die in Afterlife,
• Added visual effect for getting hurt by the Seekers in Afterlife,
• Adjustments to the Afterlife death effect, still a WIP but going to expand on this further in later updates,
• Crew can now be hurt & infected by hunting monsters,
• Crew suits have slight color variation now,
• Crew now show an on-fire effect when hurt by the Flamethrower,
• Crew now show an on-fire effect when hurt by fire in the ship,
• Crew will now flee from target player when hurt,
• Updated the fire sprite,
• Added movement interpolation to player sync,
• Changed fullscreen mode to exclusive fullscreen,
• Windowed mode now centers properly on the main monitor.

[ 2024-05-17 05:31:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

Steam Replayability Fest is starting tomorrow so.... Pushing this update earlier than planned :)

Shop:

Basic implementation of the Shop is there, though not accessible for players just yet. We're going to be testing the features on the Testing Beta (you can opt in freely on Steam) the coming week(s) along with the other new things. Along with the Shop there will be some new Tools slowly becoming available over time. There will be further additions to the monsters i.e. Special Item monsters as well as interactions between monsters and Crew. For now here's what's been fixed & changed in this patch:

Bugfixes:

• Fixed Crew monster not detecting line-of-sight for clientside players,
• Fixed ship oxygen levels being incorrect.

Polishes:

• Tweaked oxygen level simulation to be more consistent: oxygen will drop to 50% when the Life Support is broken, infected areas will drop their oxygen level further. Overall infection percentage also lowers the oxygen i.e. if a large portion of the ship is infected the overall level will be lower,
• Added some new Crew spawn locations,
• Flamethrower now affects Crew monster, charring it and slowing it down. It will also flee from its target for a few seconds when hit.
• Crew monsters will now move very slowly within the range of an active Chiller,

[ 2024-05-12 16:03:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes:

• Fixed missing option for PDA entry key.

Polish:

• Crew can now be pushes aside so they don't block player movement,
• Added new Crew voice lines and variation in voice pitch,
• Updates new door textures with grime.

[ 2024-03-19 14:46:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes:

• Fixed missing door texture

[ 2024-03-13 13:44:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

Several new things have been added to the game and there's been a bunch of work done to the networking and connectivity.

Bugfixes:

• several fixes for black screen bug when joining,
• client will now retry connecting once if initial connection fails when joining and will quit to the main menu if the retry also fails,
• several fixes for black screen bug when host exits the session,
• Possible fix for some issues with third player animations and rotation breaking,
• Fixed incorrect collision in Tutorial cabin,
• Fixed some infection creatures not showing as red in Afterlife,
• Fixed Life Support showing as red in Afterlife when not broken yet,
• Fixed repairing Ship Systems in Afterlife sometimes not working properly,
• Fixed Nano Pattern Detector not finding pattern when very close to Infection Source,
• Fixed infection effect level jumping around between values when an area is fully infected,
• Fixed wrong shader on door frames,

Polish:

• Changed the effect of the Source Monster,
• Increased timeout time for connecting players to 30 seconds,
• Added connection status and failure messages when joining a team,
• Flamethrower particles now inherit player movement,
• Debriefing now shows score for rescued crew members,
• Afterlife players do more damage when attacking the Infection,
• Crew can open uninfected and powered doors now,
• Added more texture variation to doors,

Special Tasks: Rescue:

There may be still surviving crew within the ship, escort them to safety lest they get consumed by the Infection and turned into monsters. Crew monsters will stalk nearby players, but will stop their movement when observed. Don't let them get too close and try to trap them, lest you have to constantly deal with them!

New Event:

New apparition/hallucination event, it's the Afterlife bleeding through into the real world... In your mind.

[ 2024-03-11 16:52:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

Our new game 'Keep It Running' is coming to Steam! You can already wishlist it for the release in April 2024. Check it out: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2863530/Keep_It_Running/

[ 2024-03-09 12:15:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes:

• Fixed transparency issue with the textures of the Source monster,
• Fixed large computer core interface and cursor not working,
• Fixed animations and rotation of client-side players being broken for other client-side players,
• Fixed Hunter (and Crew) jittering in place,
• Fixed some pathfinding issues in airlock type 4.

Polish:

• Polished Source monster effects to look more creepy and consistent,
• Changed confusing text on Reprogrammer to mention nodes instead of source
• The sounds the Source makes are now more muffled the farther away you are,
• Player footsteps are now more muffled the farther away they are,
• Oxygen level in the ship now drops quickly if the Life Support loses power,
• Life Support now turns off when power is lost in the ship,
• Added a bunch more spawn locations for Special Items and Crew,

Crew Implementation:

Crewmembers now spawn in the mission ships, depending on if that Special Task has been assigned to the mission. You'll have to escort these scared astronauts to safety. This is still only the initial implementation and doesn't contain the monsters yet that result from crewmembers getting infected.

Special Items:

Added two new Special Items, next up will the be monsters that result from the Items getting infected.

• Added Blackbox,
• Added Camera.

Voice Logs:

Cassette players now spawn in the mission ships, containing voice logs of the former crew of the ships, giving you some insight in how things started going wrong.

[ 2024-02-15 16:12:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes:

• Fixed missing shader on the Source monster effects,
• Fixed transparency issue with the Source monster effects.

Polish:

• Polished shader effect of the Source monster,
• Adjusted textures of the Source monster to be darker and creepier.

[ 2024-01-04 11:13:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

Happy 2024! Hope your year will be great :) We've been working hard on improving gameplay and adding new features/content to the game. The difficulty levels should be way more consistent when it comes to the Infection behavior such as hunting, making the game more accessible to new players. Mechanics such as hiding from monsters are much improved too. We also had another go at the Tutorial, adding missing things and improving texts. There's still a few improvements that can be done to the Tutorial, but these are for upcoming updates.

Bugfixes:

• Fixes for connection issues when joining a team,
• Fixed Afterlife repair or attack sound still playing for a while after respawn,
• Fixed Computer Core mouse cursor going invisible in Tutorial,
• Fixed Computer Core datadump screen not syncing between players when a client starts the datadump,
• Fixed Computer Core not stopping dump when power goes out,
• Fixed Life Support not shutting down when power goes out,
• Fixed airlock 4 fan sound not playing,
• Fixed missing collision on elevator decoration,
• Fixed explosion effect not showing,
• Fixed Hunter ignoring target when target is hiding and the Hunter is out of stamina,
• Fixed Hunter glitching through doors whilst roaming,
• Fixed monsters hunting a player again if they move whilst hiding,
• Fixed hunt not starting if a player uses a Weapon but has 100% suit integrity,
• Fixed Source ambient/event sounds player having wrong range after killing the infection,
• Fixed light flickering event not showing or showing in the wrong location,
• Fixed Source monster insta-killing target when spawning, now theres a 5 second timer before the monster can actually do anything,
• Fixed Infection Source becoming way too hot,
• Fixed Nano Pattern Detector not working when near the Infection Source,
• Fixed Tools sometimes not picking up the Infection Source depending on position of the Tool and Infection Source,
• Fixed PDA infection type identification not resetting internally when evidence is de-selected, causing the mission manager to think the player still has all evidence whilst they do not,
• Fixed death transition overlay not showing,

Polish:

• Repairing a Ship System from Afterlife doesnt cause hunts anymore to make things more fair,
• Repairing and attacking sounds are a little quieter now,
• Seekers eat away more time,
• Seekers are now stronger on higher difficulties, but slightly weaker on amateur difficulty,
• Amateur missions now have 5 minutes of prep time to allow new players more time to get to grips with things,
• Amateur missions now have a much lower hunting rate,
• Amateur missions will now only be on small and medium ship sizes,
• Oxygen Scrubber Infection Source no longer roams, instead it only uses its special teleport ability to move with a low chance,
• Infection Source now becomes more active when players are nearby,
• Infection Source light flickers event now also has a chance to cause a power surge through most of the ship,
• Dragging doors is easier now,
• Tools (except the Nano Pattern Detector) are now distance-based, meaning you get a stronger signal the closer you are to the Infection Source,
• Temperature Gun now scans the area in front of it, instead of the one the player is standing in,
• Glowsticks now always spawn & are thrown in the direction the player is facing,
• Fires now depends on environment temperature, so freezing an area with the Chiller also puts out fire,
• Fires now no longer make an entire section of the ship drain player oxygen, now its only the area near the fire itself,
• Updated the fire smoke effect and optimized GPU usage
• Added multiplayer sync for fires now they can be put out,
• Fixed up some missing bits on various textures in the Tutorial,
• Made some UI elements of the Computer Core bigger for easier access,
• The password entry now auto-focuses when accessing the Computer Core,
• Improved collision shape in small cabin decoration,
• Improved hiding areas to make more sense and take up more of a room,
• Changed small room/hallway reverb,
• Changed most the Infection Source noises to sound more close and creepy,
• Door sounds now are less loud and have much shorter audible range,
• Added shutdown sound to Reactor Core that plays when power is lost,
• Added alarm sound and light effect to Reactor Core that plays when it is broken,

Special Tasks: Recover Briefcase:

Recover special items from the ship, before the Infection gets to them and repurposes them for its own goals. Currently only one Special Item is in the game: the secret documents briefcase. In the future well add 2 more types. You will gain score and money for every retrieved item and lose some for every non-retrieved item.

New Item: Fire Extinguisher:

Having trouble with the ship being on fire? Find and grab a fire extinguisher and quench those flames. Two will spawn in the ship on amateur and easy missions, only one on medium and none on hard missions. The extinguisher has limited fuel, so be smart about which fires you put out. This item will be available in the Shop in the future.

Tutorial Improvements:

The Tutorial is getting some much needed improvements. In this patch we added and changed the first couple things. Well keep improving on it as we get more feedback.

• Added Afterlife info to Tutorial,
• Added fire to Tutorial,
• Added hiding to Tutorial,
• Changed some of the texts to be more concise,
• Added some environment sounds to the Tutorial,
• Added missing airlock door sound when starting Tutorial mission,

[ 2024-01-03 10:48:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Voice Chat should be working well now. We made it proximity/spatial too for more immersion. Currently push-to-talk only, but we will implement the option to switch between constantly on and push-to-talk in coming updates. We only have tested this through Steam between two people, so let us know how it works for you. The audio compressor used on the microphone input is a bit iffy still and loud noises will distort (albeit at a low volume due to compression). Bandwidth usage has been optimized quite a bit, but perhaps could still use some improvements :) Merry Christmas~

[ 2023-12-26 15:58:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

Death is not the end, but you may wish it was when finding your body consumed and repurposed by the infection. Yet... Your consciousness remains. Try your best to influence the infection, either making it stronger or weakening it and perhaps even destroying it from the inside out. But this realm is governed by the infection itself and the struggle is far from easy...
n the Afterlife you will still have to fight the Infection, whilst avoiding the Seekers. Make your way over to key infected areas of the ship, such as Ship Systems, and undo the damage caused by the Infection. Find the red Lymph Nodes and destroy them to have another chance at killing the Infection. Beware that the Seekers may respond to you hurting their master.
Youre on a time limit however, so no time to relax! Find and destroy those Nodes and fix the ship, its the only way to escape time and the finality of death.

Bugfixes:

• Fixed rare host game freezing bug on a specific RNG seed with a specific combination of level generator patterns,
• Fixed rare host game crash bug on Large ship sizes, if one of the Ship Systems was assigned to the first room but didnt get created due to a flaw in the rooms counter with specific RNG seeds during initial level generation,
• Fixed random freeze/crash caused by the room counter to resetting properly when starting a new mission,
• Fixed crash caused when dying of oxygen, whilst being hunted by the Hunter, whilst the infection is getting hurt by a weapon or Afterlife player,
• Fixed Flamethrower not turning off when switching inventory whilst it is on,
• Fixed players corpse moving whilst they are in Afterlife,
• Fixed breathing noises still playing in Afterlife,
• Fixed Afterlife players repairing a Ship System whilst simultaneously attacking a Lymph Node in that System,
• Fixed Afterlife Seekers having a much longer chase distance for client players,

Polish:

• Logging cleanup & better logging for level gen,
• Reduced font size on Leaderboard so the full list is visible,
• Leaderboard names and scores have different colors now,
• Increased Leaderboard screen resolution so smaller text is more readable,
• Increased font size on Store so the information message is more readable,
• Added experimental to Voice Chat options menu, since there are still issues,
• Updated ingame pause menu to include all the options of the main menu,
• Added missing PDA and PDA stats controls in options menu,
• Adjusted options menu size and re-arranged some things,
• Added fan sounds to Airlock 4.

Afterlife improvements:

We plan to make more improvements to Afterlife as we work on Special Tasks & Special Missions, here's the first batch:

• Ship Systems now change to red color when broken,
• Ship Systems now change back to green color when repaired,
• Added cyber hands to visually indicate player being able to attack a Lymph Node or repair a System,
• Added attack and repair visual effects to player,
• Added attack and repair sounds to player,
• Improved the particle effect of the Lymph Nodes,
• Afterlife Seekers now make creepy sounds,
• Made the Afterlife blue wireframe thicker for improved visibility.

Store page update:

The Steam Store page was rather horribly outdated, so we spend some time polishing and changing things. We changed direction on some features of the game and we've made a lot of progress since the Store was last updated, so the new changes should reflect the current direction and version of the game much better!

[ 2023-12-25 16:14:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

Come join us and ask us anything whilst we play the game. We may have some people from the community pop in too :) We'll show off some of the new features, talk about the game and other things that will no doubt pop up during the stream. The game's currently 45% off during Steam Winter Sale!

[ 2023-12-23 18:28:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

Come join us and ask us anything whilst we play the game. We may have some people from the community pop in too :) We'll show off some of the new features, talk about the game and other things that will no doubt pop up during the stream. The Steam Winter Sale starts today too with a 45% discount on the game!

[ 2023-12-21 18:18:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Jeroen (Draggie) has been hard at work tackling some major bugs that have plagued the game for a while now. These bugs were extremely hard to find, since they only happened in very specific situations and with all the RNG in the game's systems it was hard to find out which. Yet they happened frequently enough to be of (major) annoyance. However major progress has been made this week and the game should be a lot more stable now. Let us know if you encounter issues with starting missions though, as bug reports are invaluable in finding and fixing bugs. We are but two people after all :) Suggestions and bug reports can be posted on the Steam Discussions or our Discord server (check links on store page).

Bugfixes:

• Fixed rare host game freezing bug on a specific RNG seed with a specific combination of level generator patterns,
• Fixed rare host game crash bug on Large ship sizes, if one of the Ship Systems was assigned to the first room but didnt get created due to a flaw in the rooms counter with specific RNG seeds during initial level generation,
• Fixed random freeze/crash caused by the room counter to resetting properly when starting a new mission,
• Fixed and tweaked various small issues in the mission and level managers,
• Fixed Flamethrower not turning off when switching inventory whilst it is on.

Polish:

• Logging cleanup & better logging for level gen,

[ 2023-12-19 20:30:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

A lot of parts of the game have been given a good polishing, with some significant fixes and improvements to stability and gameplay. Some new things have been added too, so lets take a look.

Bugfixes:

• Possible fix for Voice Chat which should improve audio quality for some players,
• Fixed crash when a player dies of oxygen within the second before the Hunter kills them,
• Small fixes for possible rare crash caused by the level generator,
• Added and changed some of the debug logging for mission and level generator, to be able to fix things more easily,
• Fixed the Repair Special Tasks only completing when the Computer Core is repaired,
• Fixed the Reactor Core damage effect particles sometimes flying off into the rest of the ship,
• Fixed large Reactor Core damage effect not being visible,
• Fixed missing status screen on medium Reactor Core,
• Fixed missing status screen on large Reactor Core,
• Fixed Hunter death/despawn animation not showing clientside,
• Fixed Source monster environment effect not showing,
• Fixed red lights effect not showing on environment for host player,
• Fixed missing ceiling collision in L-shaped staircases,
• Fixed missing hiding spot in small Computer Core,
• Fixed constant panting sound when interacting with an interface whilst out of stamina,

Polish:

• Added support for ultrawide screen resolutions (2560x1080 and such),
• Optimized RNG of level generator,
• Optimized network usage of Tools & Weapons,
• Small optimizations in the code of Tools & Weapons,
• Chiller now takes longer to kill the Infection,
• Flamethrower now takes slightly longer to kill the Infection,
• EMP now takes twice as long to charge up,
• Infection Source now has an darkness effect at its location during hunts, so it is easier to target it with Weapons,
• Tweaked the Source monster darkness effect,
• Tweaked attenuation and filtering of various sounds,
• Optimized sound playback and CPU usage,
• Some sounds are slightly randomized in pitch for better variety,
• Adjusted light flicker proximity effect for both monsters,
• Added the mission timer so players can see how long they took,
• Added missing malfunction animations in medium and large Reactor Cores,
• Added missing breaking animations in medium and large Reactor Cores,
• Added stair and computer decorations to large Reactor Core,
• Adjusted lighting in large Reactor Core,

Leaderboards:

The first three score types are now being tracked by Steam. These are public scores and should appear on your Steam profile. A mission timer and time info in the mission debriefing have been added for this purpose too.
The leaderboard screen in the Lobby has been updated and now shows the highest scores for:

• Highest experience,
• Most cleanups,
• Shortest mission, this score only counts for successful missions.

Of course we're planning to add more scores to this, if you have suggestions let us know! :)

[ 2023-12-15 13:55:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

We got a bigger update for you all this time, with loads of adjustments to the gameplay and a couple new features to spice things up as well as to lay the ground work for the next couple updates.

Bugfixes:

• Fixed the Reactor Core still showing Geiger after having shut down,
• Fixed some clients not ending the mission on mission end if the team died, caused by their game thinking not all players are in the lobby,
• Fixed some clients in rare occasions not ending the mission if another client presses the end mission button, due to temporary desync or slow connection,
• Fixed mission not ending when all players are in Afterlife but the Infection is also dead,
• Fixed some pathfinding issues with certain level elements,
• Fixed light clipping in T level section,
• Fixed cleanups counting up with a random value,

Polish:

• Decreased overall hunt lengths and limited hunt lengths to 1:30 to prevent excessive long hunts,
• Removed ghostly figure from the Source monster,
• Decreased Source monster kill radius to be more fair,
• Lowered Source monster speed on Hard difficulty missions,
• Afterlife players can no longer repair Systems or destroy Nodes if the time runs out,
• Afterlife scanning effect is a little faster now, so its easier to see the environment,
• Put a limit on the amount of Seekers that can spawn,
• Greatly reduced Seeker chase distance to make things more fair,
• Seekers are faster now,
• Seekers will now be randomly selected to go to the location of where a Lymph Node got attacked, or where a Ship System got repaired,
• Adjusted some of the monster sounds,
• Updated some of the interior textures for the Lobby,
• Updated some of the interior textures for the mission ships,
• Some minor updates to the shaders, allowing for animated blinkenlights' and allowing for emissive parts of the environment to go red when the power goes out,
• Minor optimizations in the level generator,
• Minor optimizations in the infection update code.

The Afterlife Tasks:

In the Afterlife you will still have to fight the Infection, whilst avoiding the Seekers. Make your way over to key infected areas of the ship, such as Ship Systems, and undo the damage caused by the Infection. Find the red Lymph Nodes and destroy them to have another chance at killing the Infection. Beware that the Seekers may respond to you hurting their master. Youre on a time limit however, so no time to relax! Find and destroy those Nodes and fix the ship, its the only way to escape time and the finality of death.

Special Tasks:

The basic framework for Special Tasks is in place and the first category of Special Tasks is implemented:

• - Repairing Ship Systems. This is done in the Afterlife currently, but Tools for repairing whilst still alive will become available once the Store becomes functional.

In future updates two more categories will be implemented:

• Retrieve objects and bring them to the Lobby before the Infection gets to them,
• Rescue crew members before they get infected and turned into monsters.

New Random Events:

• Added pipe bursting event, with steam/smoke effects,
• Added explosion and fire events/effects, Standing in fire will rapidly reduce your oxygen supply.

Voice Chat (experimental):

Added the first implementation of Voice Chat. It took a bit longer than expected due to networking issues, but these have been resolved and the voice chat implementation was rewritten from scratch. It now has a much, much lower impact on bandwidth and is now actually realtime making communication easier. There are still some issues with it however, you may experience crackling or interrupted audio. Were working on a fix for this, but this requires more testing and feedback.

[ 2023-12-09 21:50:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

We play the game, answer your questions and try to find those pesky bugs/test new features. There's some new features and things in Afterlife, some texture updates and the game engine has been updated to the latest stable version (Godot 4.2). The two developers of the game will be playing, as well as some friends permitting timezones and schedules :) See you in space~

[ 2023-12-03 18:50:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes:

• Fixed clients getting stuck on a black screen if the host leaves the session,
• Fixed Seekers not chasing/attacking client-side player ghosts,
• Fixed wall monster having a constant ghostly appearance, instead of fading into view sporadically,
• Infection Eyeball now doesnt trigger a second death if a player is already dying,

Polish:

• Added mouse sensitivity to options menu,
• Added mouse X and Y invert to options menu,
• Added keyboard control settings to options menu,
• Gave more space to the Team Stats, so long names fit,
• Added player death counter to Stats,
• Added player cleanups counter to Stats,
• Player deaths and cleanups are now saved to file & cloud sync,
• Adjusted Seeker sight distance,
• Added Afterlife countdown timer,
• Mission now ends when all players are dead and when the Afterlife counter has reached zero
• Weakening the Infection now adds time,
• Getting hurt by Seekers now decreases time,
• Getting too close to the Infection Source now decreases time,
• Infection Eyeball now doesnt look around during cooldown.
• Added Lymph Nodes to the Afterlife, these will be the Nodes players will have to destroy.

[ 2023-10-30 16:07:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Source on the Hunt:

The ship itself deforms, grabs and bites at you as the first monster of Disinfection makes its return. The Infection Source itself may decide to try and make you a part of it once again, beware the claws, beware the gnashing teeth.

The Seekers:

In the Afterlife things are far from over. The Infection Source will send its mind-altering viruses after you. Keep evading them lest they weaken you until you wont be able to fight at all. You may even turn into on of the Infections dreaded abominations The mission will now automatically end when all players are dead and when all players in Afterlife are dead too.

New Random Events:

Vaguely humanoid creatures may grow out of the ships interior, formed from the former crew of the ship. These creatures will attempt to grab hold of anyone who ventures too close, draining you of your energy.

Bugfixes:

• Fixed dropping currently held item when leaving an interface,
• Fixed decoration collision for straight hallway,
• Fixed some inconsistencies in the AI code,
• Fixed the Hunter spawning on & hunting players that are already hiding,
• Fixed the Hunter multiplayer sync being done by both itself as the main Lobby sync, causing issues,
• Fixed other players being able to access an interface whilst a player is already using it, causing said player to get stuck,
• Fixed player getting stuck when reviving after having been killed whilst being crouched,
• Fixed Nano Pattern Detector sometimes not scanning.

Polish:

• Updated to new engine version, with slight performance and networking improvements,
• Multiplayer sync configurations and code has been updated to make better use of the networking improvements and to reduce bandwidth usage,
• Adjusted the check for all players present in Lobby when ending mission, so players cant get stuck in the airlock doors,
• Adjusted evidence increment vs. difficulty scaling to be a little better,
• Made the ER Detector a little more sensitive,
• Updated some textures in the ship decoration,
• Added new ship decoration,
• When not entering a Team name in the main menu the default MyTeam will be used,
• Afterlife scanning effect will now increase in rate as your health gets lower.

[ 2023-09-21 09:03:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

We are preparing to implement the second half of the gameplay loop in Disinfection: the Afterlife. Death is not yet the end for you, as you have been absorbed into the infection itself and your consciousness still persists. Soon you will be able to undo some of the damage the infection has done, but be careful... You may still lose your mind and become one of the infection's horrifying creations!

The Afterlife:

The Afterlife has been given unique ambient and Infection Source sounds, as well as some new visual effects when you get closer to the Infection Source. These are to let players know they are too close to the Infection Source or the "Seekers". Getting too close will slowly degrade your consciousness until you truly become one with the infection, perhaps even turning into one of its creations. The basics for this first Afterlife mechanic are implemented, for the gameplay implementation(s) for patch 0.07b. The Infection Source also has been made less easily visible and has been given new visual effects.

Hiding:

Players can now hide from the monsters by crouching in the back of most rooms. A visual vignette infection-like effect will be visible if you are hidden. The AI has been updated and the Hunter will now lose track of its target if said target is hiding, unless the Hunter has a line-of-sight to the target player or if the Hunter is very close by. This should make it easier to survive hunts, especially on higher difficulties.

Bugfixes:

• Fixed the player rotating 360 degrees when interacting with an interface,
• Fixed player flashlight staying off for too long when an Event happens and an hunt starts at the same time,
• Possible fix for dropping currently held Tool/Weapon when leaving an interface,
• Possible fix for client-side invisible Tool/Weapon when interacting with an interface,
• Fixed the Hunter not being able to reach into the medium Life Support,
• Fixed the Hunter AI breaking when current target hides,
• Fixed crash when spawning Medium Life Support,
• Fixed missing collision in some decorations,
• Fixed Infection Source only infecting one node sometimes, thus keeping the Reprogrammer disabled,
• Fixed Infection Source not increasing evidences if it cannot roam,
• Fixed too many hunts due to hiding areas having wrong coll. layer, aggro-ing the infection,
• Fixed the infection still spreading after having killed the infection source.

Polish:

• Made the Eye Event aggro a little faster,
• Made light flickers more aggressive and faster.

[ 2023-08-04 11:12:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

This will be the last 0.07 patch, we're going to be working towards 0.07a and eventually the 0.08 Afterlife release. The remaining few features of 0.07 will be implemented along the way.

Bugfixes:

• Fixed the Tutorial and Airlock spinning fans speeding up constantly,
• Fixed the spinning fans sometimes not spinning and instead slowly shrinking into nothingness,
• Fixed rare crash when starting a mission, due to an error in a level generator pattern,
• Minor fixes in some of the level generator patterns,
• Fixed Reprogrammer not displaying "signal lost" screen when infection is dead,
• Fixed Reprogrammer not displaying "hacking in progress" screen client side,
• Fixed red lights not appearing in the entire ship if the Reactor core is broken/infected,
• Fixed not all doors losing power if the Reactor core is broken/infected,
• Fixed Eye events no longer seeing a player that had died a previous mission,
• Fixed Hunter killing a player target that had already died of oxygen deprivation,
• Fixed crash when ending the mission when a player died whilst holding a door during that mission,
• Fixed dead player still moving a door when having died whilst holding a door,
• Fixed Tutorial pause menu buttons being hard to press,
• Fixed the Tutorial not loading if Steam has no internet connection.

Polish:

• The infection is now more obvious at the beginning of Amateur and Easy missions,
• Events (Eyeballs etc) will now disappear if the infection is killed,
• Added roaming hunts. The monster will spawn at the Infection Source location and roam to a random part of the ship. It may hunt a player if one is found nearby,
• Hunts and roaming is now much more frequent on Hard missions and less frequent on easier missions,
• Added a hunting delay at the start of the mission so hunts/roams cannot happen until this delay has passed. This delay is longer for easier missions, shorter for Hard missions,
• Ship systems now no longer give off false signals when fully broken/infected,
• ER signals from the ship environment will vanish if the Reactor core is broken/infected,
• Added more ship decorations,
• Tools now reset their last measured value so they don't display a wrong signal in the start of the next mission.

[ 2023-07-21 14:35:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes:

• Fixed VO for Tools/Weapons not playing in Tutorial,
• Fixed Hunter clipping through doors,
• Fixed issue with player face icons in the Team Stats screen,
• Fixed Chiller freeze effect decal appearing on screen when in Afterlife,
• Fixed Reprogrammer not going back to "no signal found" when having killed the infection,
• Fixed the infection tentacles that block the airlock during hunts sometimes floating halfway into the air, thus blocking the exit.

Polish:

• Updated to Godot engine 4.1 stable,
• Made the final score penalty for failing a Medium or Hard mission higher,
• Bigger penalty for not destroying the infection on Medium and Hard missions,
• The Hunter moves slightly slower and can barely sprint on Amateur missions now,
• The Hunter takes much longer to force open a door on Amateur missions now,
• Cleaned up the helmet glass and updated the glass shader for better visuals,
• Added new decoration to the hallways and stairs,
• Updated the infection growths model on the level 'T' section.

[ 2023-07-18 10:12:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes:

• Fixed friends-only teams not appearing in the Join Team list,
• Fixed Tools/Weapons disappearing when a player presses the right mouse button with the PDA open,
• Fixed dropped Tools/Weapons by a dead player blocking other player's movement,
• Fixed client-side PDA evidences not being synced and counted for mission results,
• Fixed breathing sound playing multiple times due to other nearby players,
• Fixed the infection tentacles, that block the airlock during hunts, getting stuck when multiple hunts happen in quick succession (usually due to a weapon & players getting killed),
• Possible fix for host players sometimes spinning 360 degrees when accessing an interface.

Polish:

• Players can now use the numbers keys (1 to 4) to select inventory slots,
• Added a short cooldown for the Reprogrammer after hacking a node so it cannot be spammed & insta-kill the infection,
• Updated PDA information on the Reprogrammer to reflect the recent changes,
• Updated PDA information on various Tools,
• Made the targeting reticle transparent,
• Mission can no longer be ended with players still outside of the Lobby,
• Added a popup to the main menu that notifies players of the Tutorial if it's the first time the game is started.

[ 2023-07-13 11:46:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes:

• Fixed some minor issues in the level generator patterns,
• Fixed bug in level generator that would in rare occasions cause double doors
• Fixed bug in level generator that would in rare occasions cause rooms to be placed wrongly, causing clipping,
• Fixed client-side players being able to access the Mission Control interface outside of missions,
• Fixed the Chiller not turning off its effects when it is picked up whilst the player already holds a tool,
• Fixed Chiller freezing effect not resetting when Chiller is picked up mid-charging,
• Fixed Chiller client-side jitters,
• Fixed Tools and Weapons blocking player movement, now Tools/Weapons are pushed aside by players,
• Fixed client-side footsteps not changing to the 'sticky' version in infected areas,
• Fixed player flashlight & lens-flare effect not hiding when player has died,
• Fixed Infection Eye Event getting angered by spectating/ghost players.

Polish:

• Adjusted graphics settings, Medium is now lighter on hardware and High setting is now more like the former Medium setting. The new settings should improve overall performance.
• Changed some wrong values in Low graphics setting, performance should be improved.
• Only hard missions will have an 'unknown' password now,
• Infection Source has new model for the Afterlife vision,
• Infection Eye Event now spawns and looks around for players,
• Infection Eye Event now triggers hunts when a player stands too long in its sight,
• Infection Eye Event now synchronizes fully between players,
• Added new player sounds for breathing, panting, choking and getting killed,
• Player now pants when out of stamina,
• Made crouch animation much faster and responsive,
• Adjusted infection death animation so the player's body doesn't stick out of the ground,
• When a player dies from oxygen deprivation their corpse now stays visible & keeps laying on the ground,
• Team Rank is now calculated from the average of all team member ranks,
• Added new mission ship names.

[ 2023-07-10 14:47:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes:

• Fixed Nano Pattern Detector not stopping scan when picked up whilst holding another tool,
• Fixed mouse inverting in Afterlife (spectator) mode,
• Fixed infection making 'hurt' noises when aggro'd by the wrong Weapon, instead it will only make hunting noises in such a scenario,
• Improved Hunter door detection, so it moves through closed doors less.

Polish and Content:

• Redesigned Afterlife visual effects for improved visibility. Environment shows up in blue wireframe with a less extreme scanning effect. Players, Tools/Weapons and Ship Systems will show up in green pixels, infection in red pixels. This change is in preparation for the Afterlife gameplay implementation.
• Polished infection glitchy screens to be more glitchy and creepy,
• Finished 4 new stair and hallway decorations.

[ 2023-07-07 16:14:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes:

• Fixed long Team names going out of bounds in the Team Join list,
• Removed debug keys from release build,
• Possible fix for client-side players getting stuck when leaving the Computer Core interface,
• Fixed red lights not appearing client-side when Reactor Core malfunctions.

Polish:

• Fixed collision shapes on some ship sections.

[ 2023-07-05 15:40:45 CET ] [ Original post ]

Tutorial:

• Added tutorial ending VO for when you kill the Infection Source,
• Added VO explanations for all Tools and Weapons,
• Updated the VO for the Reprogrammer,
• Updated the VO for training start,
• Polished the Infection Dummy textures, added missing infection pattern,
• Fixed Infection Dummy not screaming when hit by Weapons,
• Added missing doors in training area,
• Added missing screens in training area,
• Added missing collisions,
• Fixed missing infection level in cabin area,
• Added spinning fan decoration.

Bugfixes & Polish:

• Fix for not all inventory items dropping when a player dies,
• 'Public' is now selected by default for creating a new Team.

[ 2023-07-04 13:13:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Linux build available.

[ 2023-07-03 20:36:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

Fixes in Tutorial:

• Minor bugfixes,
• Fixed crash when accessing Computer Core,
• Added Mission Control interaction, VO and airlock door animations.

[ 2023-07-03 18:14:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

It has been a very busy 8 months but it is finally time to release the new version of Disinfection: 0.07 a.k.a. The Overhaul. Pretty much everything has been at least touched upon and updated. There's a lot of ground to cover here so lets take it bit-by-bit.

The Visuals:

We have switched from Leadwerks to Godot 4. With a new game engine also comes a new rendering engine and Godots has all the modern features we need such as:

• Global Illumination in full realtime,
• SSAO,
• Volumetric fog and lights,
• Realtime reflections,
• Improved bloom,
• Resolution AI upscaling, so it's easier to play in 4k without huge performance hit.
• Modern Anti-Aliasing such as FXAA and TAA.

Despite all this new graphical flair the game performs similar or better than the old version in most cases. We have a dedicated testing PC now, with somewhat older hardware (i3 dual core, GTX750ti and AMD equivalent) and the game ran perfectly fine on that on low setting. Weve been able to implement much more detail in the models and textures, this is especially obvious in the new Lobby and Tutorial. The Afterlife vision players have when they are dead has been replaced with an experimental new style, inspired by Tron and System Shock. Of course for version 0.08 (Afterlife) this will be further improved and expanded upon.

The Code:

Switching to a new game engine means rewriting all the code as well. Although this took tremendous effort and time it also allowed us to take a fresh look at how we approached features and implementations, upgrading and changing as we went. This has fixed a lot of core issues and bugs (especially in the networking code) and, of course, introduced some new bugs. Overall the core is much more stable now and we have a much better basis to further improve and build upon.

The Level Generator:

The level generator, which builds the mission ships, has been largely revamped and now allows for much more consistent ship designs. It also allows for new features such as looping hallways and more ship-like arrangements. We've added some new decorations and details to the mission ships too, though some are still unfinished and/or missing. These will be further added upon in the coming weeks.

The AI and Infection:

The AI for the infection and monsters has been rewritten from scratch as a lot of things changed in how the infection works at its core: The Infection Source not always morphs into a monster to hunt players, instead some of the monsters are separate entities. This makes the gameplay more dynamic and interesting as players can be both hunter as prey at the same time. It makes hunting down the infection and killing more challenging. Currently only the Hunter monster is implemented, the other monster will be implemented soon as well. Theres a new pathfinding system for the AI to use, which the Hunter especially benefits from as it needs to navigate the ships interior to reach its target. The Hunter will now try anything it can to reach its prey, having the new ability to force open doors. This will delay it for a couple seconds, depending on mission difficulty. It is also able to do short sprints when having a direct line-of-sight to its target, how long it can sprint again depends on mission difficulty. With the new engine we can much more easily implement the hiding mechanics that we wanted, which will offset the extra challenge to balance things out. This mechanic will be implemented for 0.08 (Afterlife).

The Tools and Weapons:

Most of the Tools and Weapons function similarly to the old version of the game, but have been polished somewhat. The Reprogrammer has been completely changed however as we felt it was too lacking and a pain to use. Instead it now works like so: The infection will grow so called 'Lymph Nodes' over time, which are detected and displayed by the Reprogrammer. You'll have to move close to each Lymph Node and use the Reprogrammer on it to hack and weaken the infection. Once enough Nodes are hacked the infection will be destroyed. This change makes for more tactical and dynamic gameplay, especially with the new AI. The hacking mini-game or animation itself is still a work-in-progress, the rest is fully working and you can already use it to kill the infection.

The Animations:

The player character and the monster(s) have been given new animations. These animations have all been made from scratch as the new game engine supports much more complex animation transitions and blending. At some point we want to implement inverse kinematics more properly for the player character (weve experimented with this already) to make the interactions with the world around you more immersive.

The Sounds:

Most of the sounds have been given some overhaul and were making good use of the new game engines audio system. It has allowed us to finally implement more proper dynamic audio that changes and adapts to the environment. This means things like your footsteps and other sounds reverberating differently depending on the area youre in, far away sounds becoming more and more muffled the farther away they are and sounds outside your space suit becoming very muffled when youre in a vacuum. Just like real life!

The Interfaces:

The Mission Control, Team Stats, Store and Ship System interfaces have been completely redone from scratch: you no longer have to press "buttons" on the models, instead your character will look at the screen and you will be able to use your mouse cursor to interact with the new interface. These interfaces are much more dynamic and are an actual UI rather than static textures. This should improve both easy-of-use as well as immersion. The Computer Core now requires you to enter a password, which is given by the Mission Control mission information or found within the mission ship, before you can access the data dump. In the future we may expand on Computer Core functionality, to allow you to turn on/off various parts of the ship or other things.

The Lobby:

The Lobby has been given an overhaul, making it slightly smaller but more detailed and immersive. A lot of detail models have been added and the existing models have been given an upgrade. The textures have all been given a grime pass, making things look more worn and well-used to increase immersion. The downstairs area has been completely removed, as most of you didnt like the long walk up to the main mission area every time. We also felt the downstairs area was too under utilized and didnt fit the narrative very well as the transport ship that takes you to the various missions is supposed to be more akin to a disposable rental than something the player owns themselves.

The Tutorial:

The Tutorial has been re-made from scratch, much like the Lobby, but is still a work-in-progress. The overall structure of the Tutorial hasn't changed much, aside from changes in the Weapons and Tools. You will be able to test out the Tools and Weapons freely, as well as practice in a basic mission where you have to find evidence and destroy the infection. Again, keep in mind that the Tutorial is still a work-in-progress for now, so some things are still missing. These will be added in the coming week(s).

The Main Menu and Loading Screens:

The main menu and loading screens have been remade from scratch as we felt these really needed an upgrade and we really wanted to get rid of the boring static loading screens. The main menu now has an in-game background to really pull players into the vibe of the game. It has been given some new elements too such as version/update information and buttons to our various social media, Steam and Discord. The loading screens have been replaced with in-game transitions and animations. Starting a mission, loading the mission ship etc. happens in the background whilst in-game (sound) effects and animations play as your transport ship is flying to and docking with the mission ship, without interrupting gameplay,

Linux Build:

With the new engine it is now possible for us to release a Linux version of the game. Keep in mind this build will be experimental for now. We have Debian on our testing PC so we have been able to test for Linux but feedback will be very welcome as testing on one machine doesn't catch all bugs and issues. These were the biggest changes so far, let us know what you think and happy disinfecting! Greetings from Rachel, Jeroen and friends.

[ 2023-07-03 13:15:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

With Steam integration functional we can now focus on the last bugs, bits and bobs that are needed for the version 0.07 release. This means we are still on track for the release during or just before Steam Summer Sale. Here's some of the things that have changed or are changing since my last blog post:

Steam Integration:

The integration with Steam is going very well, players can now find and join lobbies and the networking is neatly relayed through Steam servers, so you don't need to port-forward and such. Yet, Direct Connect (via IP) also still works giving both us as you more flexibility in how you connect to other players.
What remains now is finish implementing the last few things, such as the Team Status Screen in the Lobby, fix some minor bugs and polish things so it looks nice and runs smoothly.

The Tutorial:

The biggest thing that needs to be done still is the Tutorial as, much like the Lobby, it has to be remade from scratch. The Tutorial may not be entirely done and polished by the time of release, but we'll try to make sure it's at least functional so that new players can still learn the ropes of disinfecting. The overall design of the Tutorial is much like the one in version 0.06, but touched up where needed and with new/improved models, textures and code.

The Reprogrammer:

As said in my previous blog post the Reprogrammer is getting an overhaul. This is mostly done and has changed the way it works and how you use it quite a bit: The infection will grow so called 'Lymph Nodes' over time, which are detected and displayed by the Reprogrammer. You'll have to move close to each Lymph Node and use the Reprogrammer on it to hack and weaken the infection. Once enough Nodes are hacked the infection will be destroyed.
This change makes for more tactical and dynamic gameplay, especially with the new AI. The hacking mini-game or animation itself is still a work-in-progress, the rest is fully working and you can already use it to kill the infection.

Animations:

Most of the Tool and Weapon animations have been updated and they've been made much faster/shorter so switching inventory items is less of a drag. The player has basic facial animations now, such as blinking and eye movement, to make them look more alive.

Fixes & Polish:

From our own testing sessions and your feedback we gathered a lot of (small) bugs, so the gameplay is becoming smooth already. Of course, new bugs can always pop up so feel free to notify us if anything is awry. We'll be focusing a lot of fixing and polishing things the coming weeks to make everything as smooth as possible. Looking forward to playing with y'all. This may be my last Progress Report before the release, posts after release will be mostly updates much like before the engine change. And if you have questions, bugs to report or simply want to chat come join our Discord :)

[ 2023-06-09 12:54:08 CET ] [ Original post ]