MiniLAW: Ministry of Law News

With this update and version number (0.7.0) we want to highlight that the game is substantially past halfway complete. Almost every main feature that we plan to include in the full release (0.1.0) is already available. With this current build we added two new enemy units, fixed endless mode, and added lots of optimizations. See below for a more detailed log and a few gifs.

• New enemy units have arrived!
  
  
• Renegade Justice Ranger. Fast and agile, be careful he doesn't counter your moves.
  
  
  
• Syndicate Ranger. A melee unit that is particularly tall and may have illegally procured augments similar to your own.
  
  
• Additional player throw move, heavy throw, a two armed throw that has a longer windup. Heavy throw scales up twice as fast with melee power, so eventually it throws significantly farther and higher than standard forward throwing action. Activated by pressing in the direction of a currently active forwards throw.
  
  
  
• Endless mode should now function as originally intended: no overarching case to solve, no bomb to find, no plot to foil. Clues no longer drop in Endless mode. Crime grid no longer draws. Just beat the dudes up and get dat req.
  
• Reduced the new armor damage reduction by 40%, bringing the player damage model slightly closer to pre 0.5.0. End results is maximum armor build is now less tanky.
  
• Map screen blocks display street names now instead of just numbers from a grid.
  
• Enemies now have a chance to resist a knockdown, so now stronger enemies will shrug off a knockdown from a dash, jump landing, or heavy melee moves.
  
• Increased the drama of the Cube level.
  
• Grab now works more consistently. Constable can no longer crouch while attempting a grab and the grab cant be spammed repeatedly.
  
• Small crouch change: crouch move speed scales up with player movespeed, up to the point where player can crouch and uncrouch twice as fast as default. Letting go of crouch now automatically makes the character stand even if a full crouch has not been reached.
  
• Player cover taking speed scales up like player crouch speed does now.
  
• Visual and audio changes to non in-game menus. New font for said menus matches more old school monitor look. Also changed various other fonts in game. Tell us what you think!
  
• New animation variations for Constable for walking/running+other actions: now instead of drawing normal walking/running motions for melee/blocking/grabbing/getting hit, Constable animations now ground his feet in the middle of walking/running for these actions. Result is a sort of dragging walk animation in place of his legs stopping mid walk or run.
  
• Melee sprites for transitioning two heavy moves (right cross, uppercut) into a crouch should look more natural and less janky.
  
• Doubled framerate of new architectural style printout animation for main
• Revamped main title card animation and doubled the framerate to add a bit more drama.
  
• Increased the number of possible endings by at least 1.
  
• Implemented new "monitor pile" cover objects into various levels.
  

• Fixed the crash to deskstop while hovering over the Cube.
  
• Fixed the crash to desktop while talking to the Renegade Justice leader via phone.
  
• Isoblocks that have the cube over them should now be properly incapable of hacking your vehicle.
  
• Fixed a bug that was giving enemies stamina in fast collisions.
  
• Player switches out of a hit-wall state and goes back to knockback, so on a long fall where the player contacts multiple walls the pc should not get stuck in the single animation and fall straight down.
  
• Rewrote player knockback collisions to make the animation cycles more consistently look as they should.
  

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Back on track with 0.5.1! In this build you will see a lot of minor bug fixes that add up to a lot, and a few cool additions to combat and the environment. Strap in and get ready to bash your way through New Babel with a few more new maneuvers in your arsenal.

• New low rumble sounds for various heavy melee moves
  
• Adjusted maths and tolerances for all mouse-over functionality in both equip and buy menus; player pointer location should be a more consistent representation of what they are actually hovering over than before, and the area of the buttons should match what is onscreen almost exactly.
  
• New grab move, backwards throw, happens faster than forwards throw but has less range.
  
• Perfect blocks of enemy melee attacks now impart a stamina penalty against the nearest enemy, which is probably the attacker.
  
• Two new player moves, rising knee and rising shoulder bash.
  
  
  
  
• Raid console warning now stipulates that flipping failsafes is necessary. Three switches are now labeled as failsafes. Instead of 'caution', flipping all failsafes will make the raid console register as 'ready'.
  
• All enemies now have an explosion resistance. Most lightly armored characters still take full damage and force from explosions, while several tankier, heavily armored enemies will practically shrug explosions off.
  
  
• New type of civilian, the VR Junkie
  
  
  
• Explosions can now interact with swinging light objects.
  
• Ragdoll verlet collisions now have less bounceback, so bodies should ricochet off walls/floors less from perpendicular impacts.
  
  
  

• Fixed several oversights in the new glancing hit system for enemies that got them locked into a walk animation that they could not exit until hit.
  
• More adjustments to new enemy hit-taking system to make it more airtight.
  
• Adjusted enemy alarms during attack tracking so they should only be delayed for a maximum of 10 seconds if they get really, really confused.
  
• Changed compression on all music tracks to work with sync groups and also not take up a huge amount of space in final export
  
• All dash moves have an increased range of detection, trigger faster after the detection, and animate through to their last frame after the fact.
  
• Renegade Justice ranger should have better spacing on his attacks now, making them land much more consistently.
  
• Dispatch now makes a specific message to the player if they have augments in their inventory, but no augments installed
  
• Player dash smoke objects shouldn't travel through the ground now
  
• Coming out of a combatroll should now properly put you in a crouching state.
  
• Door lock object should now properly self destruct in event that it's door is destroyed, preventing a hard crash in event that a door becomes unhinged the moment it gets unlocked.
  
• Block/grab interaction fix: block cancels grab
  
• Rewrote roaches to behave more consistently, shouldn't randomly float down to the ground sometimes.
  
• Changed the way enemy knockout and death states get triggered to be faster; should be no more apparent gap between an enemy reaching 0 health/stamina and switching to the correct state
  
  

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So here we are at 0.5.0 ! It's been a long time coming, but now the game is finally fully completable - we're very excited for you to see what is in store at the endgame!

There is now a final boss fight culminating with multiple possible endings. Can you save the city or will it end in the destruction of every living thing in New Babel?

• Lots of new optimizations to the smoke simulation in game. Various exploding, burning, and mechanical items have pretty smoke. Player muzzle flashes can now produce variable amounts of smoke; shotgun and rifle muzzle flashes consistently produce the most smoke.
  
  
  
• Bigger, animated phone activator icon should now be more obvious and also has a brief opening animation when you hover over it.
  
  
  
• Multiple touch ups to the New Game intro cinematic
  
• New Level \\REDACTED\\, experience the fun and excitement in \\REDACTED\\ if you can reach it.
  
• New music to go along with the \\REDACTED\\ level.
  Listen Now Here-------------> https://soundcloud.com/lasso-games-llc/incognito
  
  
• Completely new intro cutscene when starting a new game.
  
• Functional credits now roll at the end of a game.
  
• Time now serves to scale up enemy count as well as the block condition. MORE DUDES.
  
• New work in progress ending cinematics for the various endings that are possible.
  
• Fairly large change to armor system maths. Armor now starts off taking 5% more damage from all enemy attacks, but the impact that increases in armor value have on it's durability should be considerably more pronounced; now you should be able to build a tank proper.
  
• Player block now mitigates a flat 15% of the damage taken to the armor before any other calculations are made, improving player durability during even non-perfect blocks.
  
• Enemies now take a stamina penalty for having their melee attack/hacking attack against you blocked, meaning that you can essentially knock out some of the weaker melee fighters just by repeatedly parrying them, making their spammed attacks hopefully less of a problem in close range.
  
• More sound variety to various objects. Screens no longer make computer noises, and now have their own set of VHS sounds. AC units no longer sound like transformers and have their own set of noises. Computer monitors and towers make 80s/90s computer clicking noises.
  
• Beefier swoosh noises, given to several characters with heavier melee moves.
  
• End call button now has a response to the pointer both visually and aurally. If the other line hangs up on you, you get a dial tone. Hanging up yourself results in a phone hangup noise.
  
• New Tape Reel and Server Monitor cover objects as well as light bar objects.
  
• Interacting with brainjack locks now imparts a slight amount of screen interference.
  
• Map screen sidebar now flashes view switch button when over a block with a crime.
  
• Crime grid now responds to the player pointer.
  

• Fixed the mouse position desync issue found in the buy menu.
  
• Enemies should no longer be confused and have to regain their targets if an attack may have killed the player but was blocked (e.g. perfect block of 'lethal' attack).
  
• A series of small adjustments to death alarms and death scripts to ensure that player character won't get stuck in hacking mode if 'killed' right before a hack is completed.
  

We have been asked about a roadmap for the future of miniLAW. While we don't have an exact timeline for the rest of this content, we are shooting for full release this year! The final stretch roadmap includes:

Revamped Tutorial - The tutorial we currently have is very combat and movement focused, and while that is a huge part of the game still the scope has dramatically expanded since it was designed. We will be revamping the tutorial to cover and explain more aspects of the game, and try to streamline it to get you playing as quick as possible.

Multiple endings - While there are a few in there already, we've got some more plans! Stay tuned!

Cinematic Assets - To go along with these multiple endings we are working on several new sets of animated cinematics, as well as tuning up the ones we currently have.

Detailing - While the game is largely feature complete, we are still going to be adding quality of life and visual changes where applicable, whether that be UI tweaks, edits to dialogue and text, or new props in levels. We'll let you know in the future changelogs!

As always, click Follow to be notified of announcements like these! Also, check us out on social media. It always helps to have people like and share our social media content. If you're on Facebook or Twitter, look us up! :D



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We finally got around to implementing gun barrels! Worth the wait? Let us know. Two new levels to explore. We've also patched a few conversation system bugs and added some kicks.

• Gun barrels or "Constricting Aperture Barrels" are now dropping from certain persons in New Babel. They can only be swapped and installed at HQ.
  
  
  
• Added 2 new levels:
  "Automat Lane"
  
  
  "Encabulator Fabrik"
  
  
  
• Two new quick kick moves, accessed by pressing down while in the middle of a stationary standing jab/pistol whip. Kick can either interrupt a jab/pistol whip or follow it up. Try experimenting with the kicks as they can be comboed into each other and into some other moves. Updated the commands screen to list the above new moves.
  
  
  
• Optimized some conversations to include reference to light, as it is relevant to the populace of New Babel.
  
• Touched up the intro pixel cinematic.
  
• New wall props and effects placed where appropriate in levels.
  
  

• Fixed a bug that immediately revealed all leader conversations on some saved games.
  
• Fixed a convo looping bug in the RJ leader convo.
  
• Fixed instances of contraband objects spawning in multiples.
  
• Fix a bug that caused the player to get stuck at the end of a skid animation in specific circumstances.
  
• Increased the virtual room size for some levels to let camera and fluid simulation effects not go wonky.
  
• Fixed player Drop animation looping over from the start on particularly long falls.
  
• Salty gumball now work 1000% more correct and do not start broken.
  

As always, click Follow to be notified of announcements like these! Also, check us out on social media. It always helps to have people like and share our social media content. If you're on Facebook or Twitter, look us up! :D



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Progress continues towards full release. The way to endgame through dialogue and clues is almost complete. We are still working on fleshing out New Babel's world with many additional pixel assets. Neons, power poles, graffiti, dancing, and more than a few new levels and lots of new dialgoue has been added. And a few necessary bug fixes.

• The four gangs: Rudeboys, Biofreaks, Renegade Justice, and Animus, now have leaders, with portraits and corresponding dialogue trees that are accessible when certain criteria are met.
  
  
  
• Six new levels for you to explore and punish. (Two previews below.)
  
  
  
• Dancing and lots more neons are available. (See above!)
  
• Added some foreground objects. Glass screens, horizontal and vertical rafter, and railing objects now draw in front of the player.
  
• Two new music tracks.
  
  
  Soundcloud Link to new track: Hammerhead
  
  
• Power lines and various power poles objects are throughout New Babel. Praise Edison. Also picture frames!
  
• Created and distrubuted a ton more graffiti in New Babel. 99% more gritty feeling.
  
• Pixel smoke simulation adjustments; resolution of simulation doubled! Creation sprites and velocities altered. Improved terrain occlusion offsets in smoke simulation, now all smoke collisions with platforms and walls should be correct within 1-2 px. Adjusted smoke creation angle maths for many objects. Wall gauges and wall valves should now vent smoke when damaged.
  
• Adjusted math for enemy trap creation; should dramatically reduce the number of traps you need to look out for when a gang becomes unhappy with you.
  
• SALTY GUMBALLS.
  
• Red lights.
  
• Updated dialogue for the Commander and Toboloswsky.
  
• Sky color adjustments, gives the sky a touch more green and red so it's all less blue.
  

• Shift/Ctrl/Alt keys will now show up properly in control rebinding screens.
  
• Several series of calls that did not get removed from possible clue drops when completed now do so, so you shouldn't repeatedly get clues for these storylines after they have been finished.
  
• Adjusted buy-menu maths to try and get pointer and cursor to match up.
  
• Large explosions now properly produce a glowing, occluded explosion, without borking a background layer for a second.
  

As always, click Follow to be notified of announcements like these! Also, check us out on social media. It always helps to have people like and share our social media content. If you're on Facebook or Twitter, look us up! :D



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