Atomic Picnic News

BitCake Studio is thrilled to announce that our latest game, ATOMIC PICNIC, is being showcased during the highly anticipated OTK Game Expo, streaming live on June 10th.

Gamers from around the world are invited to join the exciting event, which will be hosted by OTK Media, and feature renowned gaming personalities such as Asmongold, Emiru, and Esfand as expert game panelists.

ATOMIC PICNIC represents a new generation of games from BitCake Studio, delivering a co-op third-person shooter rogue-lite experience. This thrilling adventure allows players to team up with up to four friends, as they face hordes of menacing monsters. Your objective: survive and thrive. With every Picnic presenting a unique set of challenges, players must strategically upgrade their weapons and optimize their builds to ensure their survival.

The OTK Game Expo is a three-hour digital exposition that celebrates the games industry. Throughout the event, 30 captivating video game titles spanning various genres will be showcased in a live studio setting.

This update took a bit more time than usual but for good reason. We did a lot of code cleanup and game optimizations to improve framerate due to all the new Art assets we added in, the game should be running a bit more smoothly, and hopefully, some crashes were fixed along the way. We also added the new Meta Progression system called Mementos! You can now bring the Pebbles you find during your playthrough and use them to upgrade your stats forever!


[h2]Mementos![/h2]
This is the start of the new Meta Progression system! With Mementos, you're now able to spend the Pebbles you find during the match to upgrade your character for future runs!

[h2]Remodeled Ash![/h2]
We've taken our time to remodel the Main Character! She's now missing one arm 😢 We also added her Ponytail with Physics!

[h2]A New Currency: Core![/h2]
Little Mac is a bit more generous now! He drops a new special currency called Core that you can use in Mementos to purchase some high-level upgrades!

[h2]More Maney![/h2]
You'll now be able to find different amount of Pebbles when breaking Crystals! There's now a 10 and 50 Pebble drop! Although we're still working on their specific Visual Effects

[h2]Redone XP Curve![/h2]
The XP Curve was remade! You'll find it way easier to get some early levels, and you will be able to level up a bit more during regular runs!

[h2]Enemy VFX![/h2]
There's a ton of new VFX for enemies like Slash Attack for the Fodder, a Pre-Shooting VFX for Shooting enemies, and some Muzzles! This should improve the gameplay experience by a lot! :wink:

[h2]Music and SFX![/h2]
The game now has some Music, finally! We also added a lot of new Sound Effects, and they will keep coming! Oh, and we will work on some more music as well, so stay tuned!

[h2]Fixes and Improvements[/h2]
- Optimized the game BY A LOT!
- Fixed some bugs and crashes! Please report anything that you might find!

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Hey everyone! The Team worked very hard on this one! Many systems had to be either refactored or created from scratch for the new Mementos system! The good thing is that with this work done, adding more on top of it should be a breeze

The work we did on optimizations was no joke, we spent a lot of time making sure our systems were on top performance. We still have a lot of work to do, but this was also very important to continue working and expanding the game further!

Let us know what you think, and please report any bugs or errors you might find!

Cheers!

As you can see it took us a bit more time to get this update out for you all. This update is a major milestone for the Art team, we had to introduce and refactor a bunch of systems to get this out of the door finally! But I think you will all like it!

[h2]Features [/h2]
[h3]ART! Map has A TON of new art![/h3]
We've finally finalized the map layout so it's time for our first Art Pass! You will all notice how much better the game looks after this update! There are more 3d models, there are more trees there is even GRASS! Go see for yourself!

[h3]Remade Level up screen![/h3]
You'll now notice that all the upgrades now have unique icons and names and the entire screen has a new layout and animations! This is a bit of a lore taste, you can expect more lore in the future!

[h3]Sytems![/h3]
Welp, as always not all that we did you can see, but there are a bunch of new systems in place for the next updates! So stay tuned!

[h2]Fixes and Improvements[/h2]
Optimized the game BY A LOT! (There's more to come)
Fixed visual glitch where the player could shoot while leveling up
Fixed crash that could occur with the Minigun upgrade and the leveling up screen
Fixed ricochet upgrade!

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There you go, you can now see more or less what we're trying to achieve in regard to how the game will look in the future! The art team and the TechArt team have worked very hard on this and we're very proud of how the game is shaping up!

Right now we're cooking a lot of new mechanics, art, and stuff behind the scenes. Unfortunately, it's too early for me to tell you what it is, but stay tuned! Oh, I can give you one tip: if this map is "done" then our level designer should be doing other things, right?

Cheers!

HERE WE GO WITH ANOTHER UPDATE ROUND!



As always we're working hard on making the game better, so here's this week's update!


[h2]New Map Area - Central Plateau![/h2]
The Zone has once again changed! This time the Central Plateau is experiencing anomalies and reverting back to its original state, better check it out for loot! :Eyes: Other parts of the map have also been changed, too!

[h2]Reload Animations![/h2]
Reloading with the Active Reload Mechanic will now play custom reload animations! Each weapon has its own

[h2]VFXs![/h2]
Updated and improved a lot of VFX! We also realized that the explosion VFX for bombs weren't ACTUALLY showing the size of the explosions! (ooopsie)! Now all explosions correctly show the explosion area

• New Explosion VFX for Enemies!
  
• Improved Little Mac's Slow VFX!
  
• New Revive VFX!
  

[h2]Enemies Rebalance[/h2]

• Ground Launcher has increased a bit in size!
  
• Enemies will now never spawn inside objects! Which means the game is slightly harder because more enemies will come for you!
  

[h2]Fixes and Improvements[/h2]

• Fixed enemies spawning inside objects!
  
• Fixed some places where Little Mac was getting stuck (Thanks for the feedbacks!)
  
• Fixed some crashes
  
• Fixed all explosion VFX not having the correct size, they were actually HALF the size!
  
• Fixed combat text appearing when Explosive enemies dealt damage to other enemies
  
• Fixed Portal not closing properly for the Host Player
  
• We've also done A LOT of internal changes to prepare the game for huge changes in the future
  

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[h2]Director's Commentary[/h2]

Hey everyone!

I'm super happy with the progress we've been having on the game, not only in what we've been capable of releasing but also with everything we're currently working on behind the scenes. This week was basically that, we released some cool stuff for you guys but in reality, the star of this update was all the updates we've been doing on the back end for features you guys will only see in a month or two from now. Can't wait to show it to you all!

[h3]See you on the next update![/h3]

[h2]ːholopackː Features ːholopackː[/h2]
[h3]New Map Area![/h3]

A train station where loading and unloading happened before the Harvest Festival has appeared in The Zone! It's a verticality heaven with lots of jumping points and ways to escape from the enemies!

[h3]Two New Enemies![/h3]
Bomb Launcher
This monster is not very movable, but he'll launch grenades at you from a huge distance so be careful! And if you dare get close you're in for a surprise ːhddeadː

Flying Bomber
Those monsters launch 3 bombs at you at the same time, but those are sticky ones! So be careful where you walk!

[h3]Itch.io Update![/h3]
- Itch is now on the same version as Steam and you can play together by sharing the Room Code

[h2]Enemies Rebalance[/h2]
- Added 2 new enemies to the Waves
- Changes Spawn ratio of certain enemies
- Snake's Bullet doesn't go through walls anymore
- Reduced Snake's Health
- Other enemy stats rebalancing

[h2]Visuals[/h2]
- Added A TON of new Art to the Map!
- The Shop now has a new model and textures!
- Improved visuals on the Silos part of the Map
- Added Slow VFX when inside Little Mac's Slow Area

[h2]Fixes and Improvements[/h2]
Upgraded our Character Controller
- Fixed an issue where Ash would keep bouncing forever when trying to climb certain objects
- Fixed an issue where Ash would jitter when sliding on certain slopes
- Ash's maximum walkable slope angle has been reduced from 62 degrees to 42.5 (This will make it harder to stay on top of certain trees).

Bugfixes and Optimizations
- Fixed a lot of Crashes that were happening
- Started optimizing our Net Code
- Fixed A LOT of small errors that were happening and causing certain strange stuff to happen (like dead enemies spawning)

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[h3]Director's Commentary[/h3]
This update marks the start of our efforts into making combat a lot more interesting. With two new enemy types released and some more in the works, we want to keep combat super fast paced and interesting during the entire duration of the run. We also did a lot of enemy tweaking like reducing/changing some spawns here and there and changing some behaviors like the Snake's Bullet not going through walls anymore.

We also focused a lot on the game's Stability, we identified some issues that were causing Crashes and we went hard on fixing those, the side-effects of this is not only Crashes being fixed but the game running MUCH smoother. We want to keep solving stability issues on a higher priority than other issues, so please keep reporting any crashes or things that are game-breaking! :smile:

As always, thank you SO VERY MUCH for playing Atomic and helping us make it better and better!

See you on the next update!