Instruments of Destruction News

Version 0.500 is now live on Steam! This is the biggest update yet, and the last major one before version 1.0. Part of the reason it's such a significant update: For the last 4 weeks, and until the game is done, Alan Lawrance (lead developer of PolyBridge 3, lead designer of Red Faction, and overall amazing programmer) has joined the "team" at Radiangames. Alan is awesome, and we hope to keep working together far beyond Instruments of Destruction. On to version 0.500:

I have not been keeping a full list of the changes, but here are the major elements of this update:

• New Campaign missions and challenges and vehicles
  
• New Build & Destroy missions and challenges
  
• Sticky Bomb part, build mode tweaks/fixes, and other part improvements
  
• Destruction improvements and optimizations
  
• Improved mouse controls
  
• Visual changes (smoke particles, UI rendering)
  
• New environments (and new main menu music)
  
• Initial pass of story elements
  

There are now 11 near-final missions, challenges, and associated vehicles in the main campaign. Two of those missions are essentially the same as previous ones, with 9 new missions joining them to form the first 2 regions of the game. The other 6 missions are still available, but most of those will undergo some significant changes or get removed from version 1.0.

On the Build & Destroy campaign side of things, there are 5 new missions/tutorials and challenges. These new ones are less-directed tutorials for the most part. The almost 2-year missions from previous versions are mostly still available, but they are going to be significantly updated or removed for version 1.0.

Rather than go on more about the rest of the new features, I want to also want to go over what's to come, both in the short-term and the long-term.

THE SHORT-TERM

In this case, short-term means the next week or two. There will be some follow-up improvements that Alan and I will make, with a focus on more performance optimizations and a number of UI updates. A new options menu is the biggest new UI thing coming soon, though the campaign map and vehicle save/load stuff will also get some big changes. The new smoke particles will also receive some performance optimizations and other changes so they don't impact the framerate so much at higher resolutions.

After these smaller updates in the next couple weeks, the game will not receive any further updates prior to version 1.0. We'll still be looking for mission feedback and any bug reports as we approach 1.0, so please keep letting us know what you guys think.

THE LONG-TERM

Here's the plan for the rest of the game prior to version 1.0:

• A lot more (30+) Main Campaign missions, challenges, and vehicles
  
• A lot more (15+) Build & Destroy missions and challenges
  
• Localization for all the text (not voice)
  
• Removing/revising some old missions/islands
  
• More varied Sandbox-only islands
  
• More mission types and objectives (esp. combat-oriented missions)
  
• Real voice acting for Jenkins and Sharpe
  
• More optimization
  
• Simple intro and ending animations for both campaigns
  
• More special events/weather (meteor shower, for instance)
  
• More ways to customize vehicle appearance
  
• Lots of bug fixes
  
• Replacing or updating a lot of the bonus vehicles
  

NOTE: Campaign progress will be RESET with version 1.0.

Basically there's a lot of missions left to do, which is actually not that scary, and a wide variety of smaller tasks that are needed to finish up the game. Nothing is especially risky/difficult, and it's far more fun to work on the game now than it was 4 months ago (hello build mode UI redo).

The scary part is that this is the "real" first part of the game, essentially, and I hope people like it. There will be some nice complementary elements that get improved, like the UI, and the writing/voice acting, and maybe some other things. And I haven't really playtested anything recently, but in terms of gameplay/missions/tutorials/etc, the first part of the game is "ready". After 4 years of development, the game is almost done. There will be some updates after 1.0, but unlike Early Access, I know what I want the game to be, and this is it.

So when will version 1.0 be out? I'm not sure yet, but there will a release date trailer posted here when that's all figured out. That trailer should be out by the end of the month if all goes well, and for the release date, April feels like a safe bet, but you never know.

A new game update is still many weeks away, but I wanted to give a report on the status of the game. I've been jumping between a few different areas of work, with the biggest two being figuring out the campaign mission plan and adding new biomes. I've done other work, like a bit of optimization and improving the streak particle drawing, and I'll talk a little more about the main two tasks. But first a small caveat:

If you want to fully enjoy the game and aren't really into building vehicles, I'd wait to play the game until 1.0 is finished. You can still safely buy the game now since it's on sale, and the price won't this low again until next summer, but the campaign will be *way* better in a few months.

CAMPAIGN MISSION PLAN

Before figuring out the full campaign mission plan, I had to narrow down what Instruments of Destruction is really about, what makes it unique. And it comes down to 3 things: Vehicles, Destruction, and Physics. Those are quite obvious, but focusing on those 3 aspects as the pillars has really helped me figure out how to create a cohesive plan for the missions. This game has too many potential directions to go in, and I needed something to help me get past the decision paralysis that I had been feeling.

Then I used a spreadsheet and just wrote down every mission idea, vehicle, scenario, physics highlight, or other element that I might want to highlight in a mission. I started a second sheet and started copying and organizing these ideas into groups of missions. I'm trying to make each mission semi-unique and fun/satisfying, and trying to emphasize at least 2 of the 3 pillars, if not all 3. Some secondary ideas and previous missions/vehicles will be used as challenges instead of a primary mission.

A third sheet was added so I could make to focus on Build & Destroy campaign missions. Not everything is planned out precisely, but I have a plan for how everything fits together, and I'm nearly ready to start working on missions.



NEW BIOMES

Recently I've been really enjoying working on adding more atmosphere-enhancing elements to the game, such as the new ambient animals, improved skyboxes, rain/thunder. These things don't directly impact the 3 pillars, but they help make the game more immersive and satisfying (to me at least). When I was working on the mission plan, one thing that bothered me was not having enough biomes for all the different groups of missions (each 4-5 missions has a general theme/focus).

So I started adding some new particle settings, and new tree types, and new rocks, and friction for the ground, and a couple other things, and before I knew it I have a bunch of new biomes. I'm not going to reveal them all, and I have to think about if I want to hide a few of them in the map editor (until version 1.0's campaign is beaten).

The ice biome above shows off some of the new stuff, including low-friction ground, snow-pebbles instead of grass, falling snow, and some new trees/rocks. And because of the low friction in particular, it plays a bit different as well. [Friction isn't the only way the biomes affect gameplay.]

HOLIDAY BREAK

I'm taking a week or two off for the holiday break, but after that I'm looking forward to making lots of progress on the game and pushing towards 1.0 in the first half of 2024. If I had to guess on a date for 1.0 on Steam, I'd say March or April is the most likely. I'm not great at estimating times, so we'll see how accurate that is.

Added thunder storm system and added to a couple missions (Tentalces Incoming and A Sticky Box)
Added Option to disable mouse controls
Added Option to disable animals
Added Option to disable lightning/thunder
Added ambient sound loops to main campaign missions
Added 6 more horn sounds to the Speaker Basic part
Added "Startle Radius" option to Speaker Basic part (distance to scare animals when activated)
Changed grass rendering to make it appear a bit shinier, particularly when raining
Reduced BND mission 3 to two towers instead of four
Fixed tires receiving torque from vehicle after vehicle explodes
Fixed debris parts from destroyable entities sticking around
Fixed tutorials showing Space instead of Enter as the button to push to start game
Changed automobiles to have slightly staggered explosions (feels much better)
Removed Kraken from non-normal missions (in data)

This is a slightly smaller list of changes, but an important update. No changelist this time, but each change needs a few words, so here we go.

SKY IMPROVEMENTS

I messed with some volumetric clouds, and they looked pretty good, but not worth the performance hit (about 1ms on my PC). Just using nice high-res textures turned out to work the best, with no real performance hit and a nice visual improvement. I tried messing with different visual styles of clouds, but realistic ones seemed to fit the best. The sun/moon is also now visible as a very bright sphere. If you look towards it, the post-processing adjusts appropriately. Overall, this was a nice bang-for-the-buck improvement in making the world feel better (it's also the reason why this update is 100+mb in size). There are a few things left for the UI/etc that need touching up, but this is one of the last in-world tweaks before 1.0.

MOUSE CONTROLS

This was a not-too-complex task that required balancing a lot of different issues, so there's a little clunkiness in how you make a vehicle use mouse controls. But I think the result is a good compromise. Basically this dialog handles all the mouse controls.



The majority of that dialog controls how the X/Y axis function and which controls/inputs they override. The bottom part controls which controls/inputs the mouse buttons override. Except they don't override anything, they share/piggyback on existing controls. Originally I had mouse buttons mapping normally, but this made for some awkward issues, especially for those who use Orbit cam instead of Follow cam. Instead everything mouse-related is on this popup, and the mouse controls only function when you 1) use follow cam and 2) are not using a gamepad.

I switched some of the mission vehicles to use mouse controls (the ones that fire something), but aside from Hover Hornet I think using the keyboard remains identical to before. That vehicle I felt ok changing because it never controlled great with keyboard in the first place (it's always been far better with gamepad).

SPACEBAR CHANGE!

This is a side-effect of having mouse support. I decided it was time to switch the main shortcut for starting/ending the game to ENTER instead of SPACE. The mission vehicles will be changing soon to use SPACE as the main fire/action button, and LEFT SHIFT as the main turbo/boost button. This should make the game a bit easier to pick up and play for new players.

LOGIC CODE CHANGE

Some logic stuff, particularly with things that toggle, has always been a bit buggy. I decided it was time to bite the bullet and change anything with part controls/logic that's not visual to use the same code path, and it seems to have worked. I have tested a lot of different vehicles and things seem to be working as expected (aka better than before), but please let me know if you see any logic-related glitches/etc. A link to the Steam Workshop vehicle always helps :)

[Logic also no longer runs in Build Mode. It was still doing so for a few parts.]

STEAM WORKSHOP FIX

I fixed the issue with Workshop Vehicles not having their creator names showing up (and maybe sometimes showing the wrong vehicle name). It was an easier fix than I expected, sorry that took so long.

PART COLORS

New part colors now make a little more sense. If you change the color of a part, that's the color any new part will have. It no longer cares about any parts you may have selected/highlighted, only if you changed colors. I think it also changes the default if you assign new colors in the Edit Palette menu, but that feels ok to leave as is.

NEXT UPDATE PLANS

The next update will be coming...I don't know when, sorry. I'll be working on more turrets/enemies/etc starting tomorrow, and more missions soon. It may be January before the next significant update. I'm looking forward to making lots of fun/varied missions, and development has gone pretty well the last month or so. But estimating/predicting how that will go is difficult to do with any accuracy. A new release date trailer will be coming in January/February when I have a better idea of how long it'll take to finish the game.

Instruments of Destruction takes place on small islands, mostly for technical reasons. I've been thinking about adding something to the islands since 2020, but didn't find the time to do it until now. That something is the animal you see/hear on basically any island or near most large bodies of water: Seagulls. Islands without birds seem lifeless, which they literally are (sorry plants).



Seagulls aren't the only new lifeform, as sea turtles are also now chilling on beaches. Both new ambient creatures are generated/placed procedurally when you start playing, so you won't see them in build mode. I may still tweak how they behave/react, but they are pretty interactive right now. There's a set number per island, and that can be adjusted in the map editor (along with a couple beach parameters relating to turtle locations). There can be up to 400 total creatures, though nothing comes close to that currently.

[At first the turtles were going to be crabs, and they were kinda working, but they were just too creepy. Turtles seem to fit much better.]

Though these creatures have no real impact on gameplay currently, that may change with some bonus missions in the future. And even without a true gameplay impact, the game/world feels a bit empty when I load up an island that doesn't have any spawning (especially seagulls).

In terms of things that will definitely make a gameplay impact, lets take a quick look at the full changelist:

Changed how the Kraken works in a few ways
- Damage to tentacles no longer matters, only hits to head
- 1 hit = enraged, 2 hits = game over
- Change a bunch of details and UI elements to fit new design
Added new turret entity and better support for destroyable objects
- Not currently used, but can be placed in Sandbox/Editor
Added new ambient animals (seagulls and turtles) with automatic placement
- Turtles spawn on the shore in groups
- Seagulls spawn on (mostly) edges of structures
- Control spawning count and beach limits in editor
Added a damage flash to parts and objects
Added Bonus Vehicles to the Vehicle select menu (old vehicles from previous missions)
Made a potential fix to logic part issues, particularly with toggle parts
- Also fixed issues with toggle parts and dropship, as seen in Mission 8
Fixed a few other minor issues

The big things to note:

The Kraken works a bit differently, with it now being a two-hits-to-die system. It moves a bit slower, the tentacles no longer matter for damage, and when it hits a structure with it's head, the structure falls down. The rage meter is replaced with a "danger level" that shows how close the Kraken is to something it can take damage from (either an explosive or large structure).

There's a new enemy turret and improvements to the entity destruction system to support it. This isn't used on any campaign missions yet, but it will be (you can place them in Sandbox mode to try them out). More turrets and other enemies will be coming soon. Now that I've got one working, the rest should be a bit easier/faster.

Bonus Vehicles resurrects a bunch of the older vehicles that were available previously. Note that this list will change in the future, so if you want any of the vehicles in particular, you may want to load-and-save them locally.

I also fixed an issue with Mission 8's vehicle (Dragonfly) that was caused by the helicopter drop. It may have also fixed the issue with toggle logic sometimes breaking, but that's a more difficult one for me to test/confirm.

UPCOMING WORK: ANOTHER SLIGHT DETOUR

Many people have asked for mouse controls over the past 1.5 years, and until recently I didn't see a good enough reason to worry about it. Controlling physics-based vehicles with a mouse is tricky, as vehicles have rotational inertia, and mouse controls are a weird kind of analog control (compared to a joystick/trigger). Plus other vehicle building games (like Besiege) don't have mouse controls.

But with the recent new campaign, the difference in controls between a gamepad and keyboard-only is more noticeable. Quite a few vehicles in the campaign, particularly those where you need to use/aim a weapon, control much better with a gamepad than keyboard. So I need to do something about that. I don't know exactly how things will work, but I'll add some kind of mouse support for controlling parts.

My initial thought is to let you assign the mouse to override four buttons (such as the arrow keys), and use an analog value for each axis that can go well past 1, but also centers itself over time. You'd have control over a couple speed values for each axis, and it'd be easy to invert the axis/speed. These values would be saved with the vehicles, and it'd be easy/quick to change. Perhaps there would be something for marking the Y-axis as auto-invert (so it could be inverted by player's options if desired).

But I'll have to try it out and see. Along with the mouse-control thing, the other major task for the next update is adding more turrets/enemies. I'll probably look more closely at adding more objective types as well. I'm anxious to get back to making/improving a bunch of missions/vehicles. There will likely be one more (significant) update before the end of the year with the enemies/mouse controls, but new missions are unlikely to arrive before early January.