Hello everyone!!!
So I actually started working on writing this update for you guys a few weeks ago, but life's been a bit crazy, more important tasks distracted me, and ultimately the work on this dev update got sidelined in the name of getting actual work done.
But alas! I am here now! Here to update you on all the crazy shenanigans
we've been up to these last two months!!!
C1L3 - Fragmented Folly
Last time we talked C1L3 was getting ready to hit the big time and I'm happy to report that the dandy fellow is in fact playable and done!
While still retaining its original overall layout, the map has a great deal more going on now. In addition to the aesthetic facelift, a lot of areas have been substantially fleshed out. A great example of this being the route you take to get the green key, which now features some fun new obstacles, secrets, a lil bit of platforming, and a fair bit more verticality.
But yes, this was indeed a level I wanted to give a lot of love, and a lot of love it has indeed received.
Pacing Changes
The rate at which enemies and weapons are introduced is getting tweaked a bit.
There are a variety of reasons for this which range from difficulty related, to ammo economy adjacent, but to summarize this as quickly as possible...
The changes being made on the enemy side of things are primarily done to push enemies the player would want to shoot closer to the early game, as in the current public balance, the first 3 levels of Viscerafest are filled to the brim with enemies you can easily slaughter melee only, and the levels following that are slow to pick up the slack. We want to give the player both more things to shoot, and more reasons to shoot, and the changes to pacing on this front will help with that.
In addition to this, a great deal of the early-game fights tend to be over before they even get started. The changes to pacing in terms of enemy reveals will definitely help with this, but we are also increasing the scale of fights and encounters to make them feel more substantial and meaty.
On the front of weapons, the game's arsenal has received a fair few updates that have substantially changed the utility of various guns. The Shredders for example (Assault Rifles) aren't particularly useful against enemies with low health, but they're great against tankier/more dangerous foes, as they can knock enemies into a pain state even whilst said enemy is in the middle of attacking you. However, because of this, the Shredders are actually kind of useless until C1L3, as both the Skull-Piercer and the Bunker-Buster, are better equipped to deal with the enemies you're facing before that point.
This in combination with several other factors meant it felt necessary to moderately rearrange, where and how you get certain weapons.
Arsenal Tweaks
As stated above the Shredders have received various tweaks. The Shredders now have a momentary stunning effect upon impacting with enemies making them a lot more effective at stun-locking opponents, and because of that, they have a much more substantial role in the combat dance than they've had prior. They are still more ammo efficient than their Pistol counterpart as was mentioned in a prior update. However, they now have a slower time to kill, along with slower projectiles that see them being rather ineffective at medium to long range.
Speaking of the Skull-Piercer pistol, I realized quite recently that it had a much lower-resolution sprite than the game's other weapons, and thus, I thought I would update the lil guy.
The max capacities regarding the ammo pools of various weapons have been adjusted, and whilst we are still aiming to maintain Viscerafest's resource management, the increased scale of encounters, and therefore the greater likelihood of missed shots, wasted ammo, etc... means we've found it necessary to make the doling out of ammo
*slightly* more forgiving.
Projectile Impact Effects have received some more love and thus shooting things is a much more flashy affair!
Speaking of effects...
Gibs
You can never have enough gibs! We very recently updated our gibs system and in the time since then, I've been further touching up and refining the physics, quantity, but more importantly... the Variety of gibs!
Rib cages and wiggly intestines have joined the party!
One might even be inclined to say the game is now much
more of a Viscerafest than it ever was before!
Pickup Rings
A very small aesthetic change that we made, some pickups have little rings around them now. This was done for 2 reasons
- To help visually ground them a little bit more in the 3D space,
- To make them even easier to spot in the heat of combat.
Enemies
There have been yet more updates and changes made on the enemy front.
So we should talk about that!
[h3]Spawnlings[/h3]
First... I have some bad news for all you spawn lovers...
the lil guy is being cut from the game's enemy roster...
I know I know... I can hear you all sobbing over the fact
that you will longer be able to feel the warm embrace of a lil blue slime exploding in your face, but the reason why they're being cut is quite simple. C2L5 is being altered as has been mentioned in the past, and the segment spawnlings prominently featured in will no longer contain them. Outside of a cameo in C2l1 and C2L7, they don't appear anywhere else in the game. Truth be told for narrative reasons there are not a whole lot of places in the game where they can be used, and the few places where they could make an appearance wouldn't see them adding much to the game.
With that said, if you are indeed a lover of the bouncy boys, fear not!
Because whilst the spawnlings are indeed vacating the premises,
a close friend of theirs will be stepping up to the plate...
[h3]Lore accurate Grenadiers[/h3]
So in Viscerafest, there is an enemy known as the grenadiers, and as you may be aware they wield grenade launchers, riveting stuff. But what you may not know is that the grenadier is actually host to a parasite.
That's right! That green dome isn't just for looks, it's a completely separate creature from the rest of the grenadiers body! That lil glob is known as a Ratakthul, and despite being parasites they are quite a sophisticated race.
I've really wanted to include the Ratakthuls in game for quite some time but could never really figure out how I wanted to go about doing it. My original idea was that they would function similarly to Duke Nukem's protozoid slimes, but there are several problems related to how grenadiers work that would see that not being a viable option.
But with decommissioning of the spawnlings, I saw an opportunity to repurpose their A.I. and thus Viscerafest finally features lore-accurate grenadiers! Upon killing the Scylla host body the Ratakthul parasite will detach itself and attempt to kill you on its own. They are, however, quite weak without a host, featuring a health pool low enough to allow you to pop them out of the air with a single punch. They're more of a minor nuisance type, but certainly, a nuisance to be wary of.
C1L4 - Disposable Danger
The Remake of C1L4 is on hold as more important tasks take center stage. But a decent amount of work has been done in starting the rework, and I have a generally solid idea of what we'll be adding/changing, so I thought I might give you all an overview of what our plans are for the Lil guy.
The level's opening is pretty much being entirely redone. The original level opened with the player in a small closet that immediately leads into a massive arena, and whilst that's... fine... it has inevitably led to a lot of newer players door-fighting the level's opening arena.
With the new ending of C1l3, the player finds themselves jumping down a massive garbage shoot, and will now spit them out into C1L4's new opening which features a trash compactor section.
Early WIP of opening Trash Compactor
After escaping the compactor the player will be led out to a balcony that hangs over the levels opening arena. Starting the level's opening fight will now see the player jumping down into the arena from above, effectively preventing the player from using the entrance to the arena itself as abusable cover.
The route to the green key used to escape the levels opening fight is being changed up a bit, but from here on out the levels flow and progress will be pretty similar to the originals with some key differences.
The pink key routes platforming section in the original was absolutely pathetic. Featuring such heights as the only major obstacle not working properly! And being ever so slightly too claustrophobic, a feature it shares with the storage area, which wouldn't you know it... is also in the pink key section!
This entire pink key route flows awkwardly in general and if may be honest it's one of the reasons C1L4 is my least favorite map of Chapter 1. Whilst conceptually this area will be pretty similar to its current version, I very much plan to address all the above, making the entire section a lot less clunky and sloppy. But finally... we need to talk about the ending...
C1L4's ending has always felt grossly anti-climactic to me. If you think about the map like a song, the bulk of the level has always felt like its first 2 verses, with the lava escape section feeling like a bridge that's supposed to build up to its final epic chorus... a chorus that never comes... because that's where the map stops.
I won't spoil what specifically we've got in the works for the new C1L4 finale. But I will say there are some rather fun narrative additions to its ending, and I think you guys will really like what's being added.
The Finale
Viscerafest's Finale has pretty much taken up center stage when it comes to my priorities as of late. And as much as I'd love to talk about and show you guys some of what I've been working on that front, I honestly don't know if there's a corner of the map I could show you that doesn't contain spoilers for the game's ending.
But rest assured, it contains easily some of the screenshot-worthy sections in the whole game, and if all goes well it will be a suitably epic climax to Viscerafest's story...
OH YEAH, THE STORY!!!
I HAVE A BRAIN INJURY...
MY BRAIN IS INJURED... OW...
SO!!! On top of the finale, I have been combing through the game's script this last month. Doing things like checking for potentially contradictory information, stuff that may just be generally incoherent, proofreading... you know... all the stuff you do when you're writing a story. But truth be told, when it comes to writing for Viscerafest I have grown an antagonistic relationship with my own mind where I feel I can no longer trust my judgment. Viscerafest is just so filled with lore that the game's plot is just... stories within stories within stories...
Because of this, I felt it necessary to drag in some outside feedback from our community to help make sure that the game's plot is even remotely comprehensible. Thankfully it was, meaning I may not in fact be losing my mind. But some adjustments were made in response to some of the suggestions and feedback given by these fine folks, which I am eternally grateful for.
With all that said... I thought I might give you guys a... small peek into the madness. As you may know, we plan to add a lorebrary to Viscerafest. A place where you can pour through the lush world of the game in gruesome detail... So I thought I might give you guys a small excerpt from one of the unlockable bits of lore you guys will get to see in the full game. Keep in mind this is also WIP and will likely be tightened up and further refined, but without further ado!!!
The Tome of Ra-dal
The Tome of Ra-dal is a Lithelekian religious work penned in the early 500's. The book claims to have been authored by the Lithelek Ra-dal, an infamous heretic who led a weeks-long revolt against the priesthood of the Orellio Church of Nodens, in 538, before being decapitated on the step of the church
by an unseen assailant.
Preface
The book opens with an introductory preface that recounts a bizarre meeting Ra-dal had with a stranger late one evening during a personal ceremonial cleansing. The Stranger is described as "An obsidian quadrupedal invertebrate, with a fragmented and distorted torso, robed in tattered black rags, and bearing a face like that of marble or glass."
The figure confronts Ra-dal in his residence and asks if "He would like to know that which binds the cosmos and what it hides therein." Ra-dal obliges, and the Stranger demands that the Lithelek
write down everything he is told. -In Closing
Truth be told... there's probably a host of things that have slipped my mind or that I have intentionally left out for the sake of not wasting your time. But regardless! I hope you enjoyed the read! Lots of craziness going on as of late both in life and with development, but it's probably worth noting it will likely be a good few months before you hear from us in a dev log again, but don't worry! That's we'll be at Realms Deep 2023 next month with a brand-new trailer!!!
But until then! We thank you all for your support, praying all is going well for you wonderful folks, and as always... We hope you have a wonderful day! Adios!!!
