Instruments of Destruction News

The changelist for version 0.225 is listed towards the end of this post. Instead of focusing on the changes, I'm going to skip right into how the campaign plans for Instruments of Destruction have shifted in the past week or two.

MIND-BLOWING PHYSICS?

Recently, Instruments of Destruction was listed as the #2 game with the most mind-blowing physics effects by GameRanx:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

It was a pleasant surprise to say the least, and wishlist numbers have seen a nice spike because of that video. But I have to admit I don't really want the attention on the game, at least not yet. As I've been working on adding the object destruction, improving explosions, and doing other related tasks, I've been watching a lot of videos about what made Red Faction Guerrilla fun, as well as playing some Blast Corps for the first time (thanks to Rare Replay on GamePass). Both of those games come up time and time again as destruction-centric games that people remember fondly, and I needed to better understand why.

[Note: I worked on RFG for 5 years, but I don't remember everything we did, nor which parts turned out to be fun vs. those that didn't.]

At the same time I've been thinking a lot about how to make Instruments more fun and enjoyable. The game has enormous potential because of the destruction and physics, as well as the vehicle building possibilities. But seeing the footage in the GameRanx video really reinforced one idea that I've been obsessing about: Instruments is not close to realizing its potential. The gameplay they showed looked boring, especially compared to the RFG highlights. And playing Blast Corps, despite there being so much jank in the game, I have to say the fun factor in that game is undeniable.

A CAMPAIGN SHIFT

All this comes to a couple core philosophies for the campaign:

1) Make it as easy as possible for the player to have fun (aka more like Blast Corps).
2) Make the most of what Instruments of Destruction can do (aka more like RFG).

#1 means less friction for the player being able to jump in and have fun. And getting rid of unnecessary elements that don't improve the experience in a meaningful way. #2 means having as much cool/fun stuff to do in the game as possible.

To achieve both of these goals, the campaign will be expanded significantly while streamlining the user experience, and vehicle building will become completely optional. It may sound crazy that vehicle building will become a bonus feature for the campaign, but the main reason is this:

It is *difficult* to design and build fun vehicles. And Instruments has something else that is *very easy* to enjoy: Destruction (and physics). Vehicle building is not just difficult to do because it's hard to teach, but coming up with fun vehicle ideas and executing them is hard even for people who know what they're doing.

There are *SO* many fun vehicles possible in Instruments of Destruction, and there are many that would be fun *in the right circumstances* that are simply not worth building now because the maps and objectives have to be fairly generic in the current campaign structure. By relying on the player to design and build vehicles, and having maps/missions where the problems/solutions can't be too interesting (because they require very specific designs/parts/etc), the game is reduced to a bland version of RFG/Blast Corps/etc. Maybe it could be a more satisfying version of Besiege, but Besiege has cool stuff that Instruments doesn't (sheep, archers, etc) and I'd rather focus on what makes Instruments special.

I think what makes the game special is the *combination* of insane vehicles, destruction, and physics. Every vehicle in the campaign will be designed to be as fun as possible, and every map/mission will be made with a *specific* vehicle in mind. Rather than having 3 missions, maps will have at most 2, with the second mission also designed with a different specific vehicle in mind. [I expect all maps will have 2 missions, but won't force it in cases where it doesn't make sense.]

Vehicle building will not be going away, it will just not be what the campaign focuses on. It will still be the default in Sandbox, and it will unlock in the campaign after you beat a mission (like Challenge mode currently, but with simpler UI). From this point on, any new vehicle-building features will be either part of the big build UI revision, or focused on letting me build/tune vehicles to be as fun as possible. Most of these will be advanced options, and I'll be adding tooltips to many of the advanced options, but there will also be new parts (like today's new rockets/missiles).

I'll go over all the mission types in a future post, because this is getting too long. Just know that the current missions will be streamlined/improved significantly (or removed), combat missions vs. robots/drones will still be coming (but no more roguelike stuff), and racing will be a smaller set of missions. I want to have at least 60 islands in the campaign by late summer.

For vehicles, I'm compiling a list of what kinds will be in the game and which parts need to be featured in multiple vehicles (such as the Hook Launcher, weapons, etc). I'll be looking through past vehicle competitions for inspiration in addition to all the games mentioned above. Fun, unique, and easy to control (in that order) are the primary characteristics I'm looking for. As I said before, I expect the majority of the mission ideas to start with "here's a bad-ass vehicle, how can we show it off in a fun/challenging way?"

Ok, I've rambled on too long, and I haven't even mentioned the camera changes below (follow cam and isometric are the ONLY choices, except Sandbox mode) or the new object destruction system (try shooting up a cargo container). In case you can't tell, I'm super-excited about the shift in focus. I've always said this game has so much potential, and this feels like the best way to make the most of it.

0.225 CHANGELIST:

• Added new part: Rocket Launcher - fires medium-sized rockets (intended to use Single Shot)
  
• Added new part: Missile Pod - fires small missiles (intended to use Automatic)
  
• Changed Play Mode to only allow Isometric and Follow Camera
  
• Added optional camera filter to Sandbox mode (makes it act like play mode)
  
• Improved follow camera behavior in multiple ways
  
• Added vehicle-specific follow camera tuning options (Cab - advanced mode)
  
• Added isometric tuning options as well
  
• Improved how explosions affect certain objects (plants and crystals)
  
• Added object destruction system (it's on many metal objects, particularly cargo containers, but not cars yet)
  
• Added "Attach To" option for filtering what the Attacher/Hook Launcher attach to
  
• Added "Hover Over" option for the Hover Drive
  
• Added some new AI behavior to help them get unstuck
  
• Reduced the high speed camera wobble
  
• Fixed changing part color not working correctly
  
• Fixed Floppy and Breakable not working
  
• Fixed Pisces not showing up in Sandbox mode
  

Game development can go in some unexpected directions at times. This past week saw a lot of progress towards the combat campaign, with new parts that make it easier to control vehicles from an overhead perspective, a few much-requested part additions, and some new racing AI that went more smoothly than expected. Here's the full highlight video:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Here's the full changelist for those who prefer reading:

• Added new logic part: Relative Controls (up/down/left/right output based on camera direction and input)
  
• Added new part: Repulsor Drive (apply force/torque based on camera direciton and input)
  
• Added new part: Hover Drive (apply a stabilized upward force when near the ground/water)
  
• Added AI for automobiles: Place target markers in sequence to make them drive in a loop (AI chooses the closest and keeps going)
  
• Replace 4 variant islands with tracks for racing fun, available in Sandbox mode
  
• Added relative control option for limited pivots and pistons
  
• Changed fixed bomb controls so you can drop them without a release connector
  
• Added engine sounds for automobiles
  
• Updated follow camera for entities
  
• Updated automobile handling (more wheel friction)
  
• EDITOR: Made it easier to expand/contract markers (shift+click changes by 5)
  
• Fixed not all vehicle unlocking at level 20
  
• Increased global volume falloff a bit
  

I didn't write everything down as I did it, so that might be missing a couple minor things, but the big things are the 3 new parts, the relative controls option for pivots/pistons, and the 4 new maps with AI-driven racers on them.

RACING IN A DESTRUCTION GAME?

Instruments will not be turning into a a racing game. But the AI for racing was relatively simple to add, because of the incremental features that I'd added for player controls and relative controls, and the experience I have from making a racing game semi-recently (Speed Demons on Apple Arcade). This AI is not complex or particularly good, but it is efficient at adding some interest to racing around small tracks.

There's no logic for doing actual races, but instead the AI just does laps infinitely. You can add as many cars as you want to the race, and I've done up to 200 in my testing, and the game still ran above 60 FPS. The only optimization I had to make was changing the colliders on cars from meshes to boxes (2 boxes for the truck) to get the framerate up. As before, just Shift + right-click to take over a vehicle. Or use your custom built vehicle.

I don't plan on doing real game logic for races anytime soon, as this was just a little detour on the way to the combat campaign. Up next is adding some real destructibility to entities. It's something I've avoided so far, but cars need it, and what comes after cars will need it. So you'll be able to destroy parts of a thing, and it will look damaged and smoke/spark/etc. I'll add more final explosion stuff as well, though that's the easiest part (it still takes time to do, but there's nothing technically difficult).

What comes after damage to objects is animated enemies, meaning things like a walking mech, a small spider tank, and turreted vehicles, among other things. I've put off learning IK/rigging/animation tools in any real way for a while, but I want to try doing more with Instruments and future games, so that's what I need to learn. After some destroyable enemies are in (along with a couple more combat-related parts), the game will go silent for a bit as I figure out how to fit all the new stuff together. I have a plan, but plans always change/evolve as you work on the actual thing.

[REMINDER: Excavator Featured Vehicle submission deadline is a week away.]

That's about it for now! -Luke

Instruments of Destruction released 1 year ago today, with the trailer below marking the release:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

I like that trailer, but it's only the 3rd-best trailer the game has had so far, with the Announce Trailer and Release Date Trailer easily topping it. There have been over 100 updates to the game in the past year, with many of those adding fairly significant new features or parts. The game still has a way to go before it's ready for 1.0. But instead of talking about the future or past of the game, let's talk about the present, because today also marks the release of version 0.215.

TAKE CONTROL

The most significant new feature in version 0.215 is the ability to take control over certain types of objects in the world. The objects you can control include the 3 automobiles, the 2 bounders, and the crash test dummy. First, here's how you do it:

Enter "Place Object" mode in Sandbox during gameplay (P is the shortcut). You'll likely place whatever object you want to control, but it can already be in the world. Then mouse over the object, and push Shift+RMB. The camera will switch to that object, and you'll see controls for the object on the left side of the screen.

There are 4 movement directions, and an action button. The movement controls are fairly obvious, but the action button depends on the object type. For vehicles, the action button is both accelerate and a boost button. Basically, when you first press the button, you'll get an extra push. The faster you're going the less push you'll get. If you want to accelerate without a boost, just use forward instead.



For boulders, the action button is a jump button, and while in the air, you can push and hold the action button to slam back to the ground. Boulders will often cause a shockwave on impact when slamming back down, though not always (depending on what they hit and how fast you're going, etc).

For dummies, the action button is context sensitive. If you're flat on the ground, it lifts you up so your body is floating/standing off the ground a bit. Push the button while floating and you'll jump, and you can also double jump. Once you jump or fall off a ledge, you'll return to "no float" mode. It sounds kinda weird when I describe it, but it feels (mostly) logical when you're in game.

To exit "object control" mode, just push Shift+RMB when not highlighting a controllable object. [You can still control your normal vehicle while controlling an object.]

ROUNDING IT OFF

The other significant addition/change to the game is making all the wheel colliders a lot more rounded (64-segment cylinders), and adding some new small wheel parts (with sphere colliders) to the game. The new small wheels and the Giant wheels also have flexible sizing, so you can make wheels of a lot more sizes. Finally, I added 2 new tire materials to the material override list (with a bit less friction than the original tire), and made all tires able to use the overrides.

Altogether these wheel changes let you do a lot more with vehicle handling than previously possible, without resorting to thrusters or other "hacks". Between the automobile control and the improved wheels, I want to mess around with driving a bit more, and will be adding some new test maps soon that are essentially tracks to race around.

Aside from adding maps, I don't expect to spend too much more time messing with vehicles for the player. But I will be trying out AI-controlled vehicles, as they will be necessary for the combat campaign. It's possible there will be driving-heavy maps in both the combat campaign and the main one, but I want to avoid going too far in that direction for the game. It's a good change of pace, but based on previous experience with Red Faction Guerrilla, it's better to not have raw racing in a destruction game. If destruction can't be tied into the gameplay, it won't be in the campaigns.

That's all for now, but here's the full changelist for version 0.215:

VERSION 0.215 CHANGELIST

• Added ability to take control over cars, dummies, and boulders
  
• Controls are shown on HUD, and you can change them in Remap Controls screen
  
• Added new parts: Small Wheels (Free and Powered) that use spherical colliders and variable sizing
  
• Changed all other wheel parts to use much smoother colliders (64-segmented cylinders)
  
• Changed all wheels to have selectable materials
  
• Changed Giant Wheels to have variable sizing
  
• Max part count increased to 2,000
  
• Limit number of times the "place another rope" message appears (6 times)
  
• Fixed alt input on release connector not working
  
• Update part count more frequently/generally, so it should be correct the majority of the time now
  
• Fixed Flex wheel mass/cost to be more reasonable (and not scale to 0)
  
• Adjusted some other wheel costs slightly
  
• Fixed Steering wheel angles not working
  
• Reduced ground effect for vehicles that are touching the ground, particularly when using powered wheels and treads
  
• Removed strength limit message
  
• Changed bombs so they can explode every consecutive physics frame
  

RHYTHM STORM

Before we get to the latest update to Instruments, I recently revealed my side project, and the demo is out now. The game is called Rhythm Storm. It's a vector-powered rhythmic roguelike horde survivor game. That's a lot of random-sounding words in one place, so here's a link to the gameplay trailer:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
It's a very different game, but has been a lot of fun to work on. You may notice the particle systems are derived from Instruments of Destruction's tech. Rhythm Storm also helped me learn me some good lessons about how to make a highly-replayable combat game. [See below for more on that.] Here's a link to the Steam page if you want to try it or wishlist it:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2135960/Rhythm_Storm/

VERSION 0.211 - FILL THE LEVEL WITH STUFF EDITION

Version 0.211 introduces a little feature that was requested a long time ago, but I didn't have a good reason to add it until recently. That features is the ability to add objects (entities as they're called internally) into the game while in Sandbox mode as you play the game.


So what you see above is easily achievable. Enable the Place button (last button on the top left), select the object type you want, adjust the placement settings (if desired), and use LMB to place as many of the objects as you want.

You may also notice there are some new entities in there. 3 new automobiles are available: a sports car, a mid-size SUV, and a pickup truck. These are currently not destroyable, but I'll be working on that aspect in the near future. Together with the Dummy, the sense of scale for Instruments feels more solid when these are in the world, and future objects will have better size references. Here's the full changelist, then I'll talk about some big picture stuff.

• Added new button and mode to place objects in sandbox mode
  
• - Use Shift + LMB to adjust the height, Ctrl + LMB to adjust the rotation
  
• - Select any entity from the list on the side, and you can drop them into the world
  
• Added 3 new object types (SUV, car, and truck) that can be added to levels or placed
  
• Added a fog option in the middle of the middle options column
  
• Added Options menu UI to build/pre-build menus
  
• Fixed bombs exploding at the start of gameplay if they never got a chance to explode in previous run
  
• Fixed changing the size of the power swivel resetting the torque to 1
  
• Fixed KB Cam Control option not disabling Numpad 2/4/6/8 when it was disabled
  

INSTRUMENTS COMBAT CAMPAIGN PLAN

As mentioned before, Rhythm Storm gives some hints for the overall direction of the combat campaign for Instruments. I'm going to give the details that I'm *fairly* sure of at this point. If you guys hate the ideas, I will likely change the path somewhat, but I think this is the best way to add something more exciting and replayable to Instruments, particularly for those not as into vehicle building (hopefully if you like vehicle building you'll still like it).

So the new campaign will be a separate roguelike campaign from the main vehicle building campaign, and I'm aiming for a run time of 40 minutes or more. That means you'll be able to play through the whole combat campaign in under an hour, but at the same time you'll be able to do so *many* times before you've exhausted all the fun and possibilities to be had. It will be fairly challenging and have at least 2 difficulty levels to choose from.

There will be a lot of upgrades (100+), many of them tied to parts, and you will collect resources to spend on upgrades, unlocks, and parts. You'll be fighting and destroying lots of automated foes (drones/robots/etc) on a series of semi-procedural islands. You'll shop for upgrades and parts and build your vehicle between each island, and you'll be able to test your vehicle before committing to it (on a "virtual" test island with no enemies). Once you commit to it, there's no going back until the next shop/build phase.

In terms of the meta progression for the campaign, it will mainly focus on vehicle frames and unlocking new upgrades and parts, but there will not be any stat buffs. You'll start with a basic vehicle frame that cannot be changed, and unlock more unique frames over time. Saving your vehicle will be a thing you can do, as well as refunding parts back to the shop for partial credit. But you won't be able to load vehicles.

I expect you'll play through at least 10 islands on each run, with that number more likely to go up than down. The "objective" is still a bit fuzzy at this point, but a timed survival objective is the most likely one. The 2nd most likely objective is having to destroy a certain percentage of buildings on each map. There may be a mix of others for variety, but we'll see.

I'll be figuring out something for vehicle damage so you *will* have to worry about getting destroyed (or certain parts getting destroyed), in addition to making sure you don't get knocked off the island or flipped over.

Ok, I think those are the important elements. If you have thoughts, now is the time to share them.

I'll be working on various aspects of this almost exclusively for the foreseeable future. While I could probably rush to finish Rhythm Storm within 3 months, I don't think there's any need to at this point, and I'm a bit tired of thinking about it. Getting to work on Instruments is a lot more appealing right now. I also want to get Instruments released as version 1.0 in 2023, or at least close enough that it can happen early in 2024.

Just a quick note on version 0.210, which just went live. The big new feature is crash test dummies. It took me a while to figure out the best way to add them to the game, but it turns out the simplest approach was the best. The dummies are found standing in two maps (Test Island and Structure Zoo 1), and I'll probably add some to a campaign at some point.

These are the first new entity types in a while, and there will be more added soon. How I'm going to use all these things is still not entirely clear, but I'll figure it out eventually. For now, the best way to see/use them is to add a Bomb Launcher, and set the "Dummy Launcher" flag. Anyway, here's the full changelist for version 0.210:

• Added Crash Test Dummy entity
  
• [Bomb Launcher with "Dummy Launcher" set is the best way to see them for now]
  
• Changed structures so they create dynamic ground links instead of always being at the 0-height plane
  
• Fixed hook launcher so it fires the same speed and reaches the same length more consistently
  
• Make flex panel/triangle resizing possible to do 0.1 increments (hold shift)
  
• Added option to increase friction of fast swivels
  
• Fixed center of mass usually being offset for parts with joints
  
• Fixed internal speed calculations and some other variables not being reset to 0 at start of gameplay
  
• Thrusters can now use 2 buttons (still works old way depending on buttons)
  
• Thrusters now have adjustable Time To Max setting
  
• Thruster (normal size only) can now go up to max strength of 4
  
• EDITOR: Fixed drag select picking objects behind the camera
  
• EDITOR: Fixed drag select (without Shift/Control) inverting the highlighted selected objects instead of always selecting them
  

Until next time.