POSTAL 4: No Regerts News

Save slots! You guys will no longer be limited to a single "save slot". With this new system, you can use as many save slots as you like (Unless you are brave enough to make a thousand slots in which case the game will probably crash... But who cares, go crazy! The game is your oyster)

Preview:



[W.I.P] Dude-Eye Targeting for the Revolver! Still missing HUD art, and it might cause a crash or two in some situations, but we put it in so you guys can start playing around with it :)

What is Dude-Eye Targeting?

Killing enemies with the Revolver fills up an execution meter (Currently only a placeholder text) and allowing use of the alternate fire. When 'Right Mouse Button' is held, you can pass the targeting reticle over any human enemies in the immediate area to mark them. When released, the Postal Dude will automatically shoot for their heads, killing them instantly.

You might be familiar with it if you've played Paradise Lost, the general idea is pretty much the same in POSTAL 4 but we made some much needed improvements (Although not all of them made it into this patch). For example, the targets are now sorted even after you've marked them in a weird order. That and combined with the fact that your entire view no longer turns helps add to the weapon's look and feel or clean and efficient aim.

You will probably notice some bugs which we are already fixing as we speak, we will also be implementing proper art, and adding in some cool animations.

Here's a short video showcasing this new feature:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
And here's how the final HUD art is going to look:



Crosshair when wielding Melee weapons

‘Quit to Desktop’ button in Game Menu






Polished up Weapon screen UI (Changed/Resized font to keep the design more consistent across the board, fixed text cutting off)

Replaced various placeholder UI icons

Increased Boomerang Machete speed

Replaced Vomit ammo type with Urine (Spurt'n'Squirt 9000)

Decreased thrown trail opacity (Grenade/Molotov)

Implemented keypad button press artwork

NPCs will now start with full magazines





Molotov fire not having any sound

Optimized collision on more models

Not being able to explode Sewer Dwellers’ heads

Head gibs floating in mid-air, often seen in the Prison

Water Effects appearing when getting off the Scooter

Being unable to respawn when dead whilst on the Scooter

Shovel freaking out bystanders

Inconsistent HUD/Phone health and armor display

Control menu locking out the rest of the settings

Champ not “pointing out” key items in starting area

Fluids causing door sounds to play continuously

Just some fixes for ya' today :)



Crash related to an Armor pickup
NPC's respawning in position right after they had been killed
Optimized collision on various models, should help performance a bit some areas
Optimized LOD's on foliage

Saves! Yup, that fundamental feature that you’ve all been waiting an entire month for! Saves are not yet in their final form, but they are good enough to now showcase and make use of. As of now they allow you to:

• Save anywhere when not inside a mission area (Prison/Sewers) and it’ll remember your position, completed errands and current inventory
  
  
• Load from your last save at any point in game
  
  
• Resume from your last save/checkpoint from the main menu
  

There are a few features still missing and will be addressed in a future update:

• It’s not possible to save your location and position from within some errand maps such as the Prison/Sewers. Although if you die in Sewers or Prison, you'll still be able to respawn from the last checkpoint you hit
  
  
• There are no save slots yet, only your previous save/checkpoint is remembered
  
  
• It takes longer to load from a save than we’d like, but this will improve as we work on the streaming system
  

A couple cheats to allow you to warp around the world a bit easier, mostly for our internal testing but you guys might find them helpful. Press ‘T’ to bring up the talk bar and type the following to wrap yourself to a location:

• /TurtlePower (Teleport to the Sewers)
• /DoNotPassGo (Teleport to the Prison)
• /INeedAJob (Teleport to the Job Agency)
• /SPCA (Teleport to the Animal Catcher area)
• /OneStarMotel (Teleport to the Ending Motel building)

Few notes:

- Note that these do not automatically complete any errands, it’s just a way to quickly travel between areas
- We will be adding the ability to manually save from inside the Sewers and Prison in a future patch!




We’ve tightened up our Anu’s ready for you to go deep into and explore! The Anu’s Inn building was previously a thrown together placeholder building that was inaccessible and had a ridiculously high in poly count for what it was. It’s now far better looking, all rooms are open to explore, and it’s less likely to contribute to melting your PC components

BEFORE



AFTER



Redesigned the starting area

BEFORE





AFTER





Various updates and improvements to level design in some areas, and minor performance updates

Ambient sounds in some areas across the game, most notably the Laundromat

Replaced placeholder Ammo textures




Some weapons not correctly reflecting light, so they no longer appear black in some areas

===Added===

• New scooter textures and colours
  
• More ambient sounds to levels
  
• Population setting ('Low', 'Medium' and 'High' in 'Performance' settings)
  

===Changed/Improved===

• Updated the credit screen
  
• Made Vitamin X Kick more powerful!
  
  Preview:
  
  [previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
  
  
• NPCs in Sewers
  
• Spurt’n’Squirt now turns on the pilot light when changing to Gasoline
  
• Impact sounds from weapons such as the AK
  
• Replaced more placeholder textures
  
• Lighting optimization
  
• Weapon textures
  
• Fluid collision system to better sync NPC hits
  

===Fixed===

• Crash when changing HUD types from the main menu
  
• Classic HUD reverting to the new HUD icon for empty inventory slots
  
• Beggar Sign not being removed from your inventory when seeing Bellow early
  
• Various mapping bugs
  

Notes:

• Saving is coming next week! We are just testing now and ironing out some bugs, but they’ll be in the next update.

Last week’s big highlight was the release of Vitamin X power up and the instantly iconic ‘hose urine stream’.

What more do you want? We probably could have slapped a 1.0 version number on the build and called it a day and still have gotten a Game of The Year award due to this inclusion, but we don’t have anything better to do so I guess we’ll push on with some more updates.

As you guys might have noticed, the game is being improved in the ambient sound department. The outdoor areas play host to bird and insect noises, the Penitentiary has a set of both pre and post riot background noses, and we snuck a little gag into the beginning of the cinematic with Bellow. Sound improvements will be on going.

We also added the ability to change back to the classic POSTAL 2-style HUD, and in the future we'll be adding more options for users to customize their game. Currently, switching the HUD will crash the game if you try and change it from the main menu, guess we should have tested that first, eh? Booting the game back up though will see the HUD set correctly though. Or just change it mid-game where it’s not a problem. The fix for this will be a part of the next patch.

Behind the scenes we’ve been getting our new lead level designer settled in and he’s been giving us a few tisk tisks, and vows to start improving things, both visually and technically. First thing he’s been focusing on is replacing crappy placeholder art assets and reducing overall polycounts on objects that need it the most.

Finally, we’ve taken on a full time member who only has one job (at least for the foreseeable future) - optimization and streaming research. He’ll have the unenviable task of digging through any and all documentation, spamming various forums, contacting anyone that might have some advice, and getting in there and applying some good ol’ fashioned trial and error to find out what works best and what does not.

Saving is semi-implemented on our end now, and undergoing testing. The first update to include it will allow you to resume your game from the last used checkpoint and have all the previously completed errands remembered. We’ll keep improving the same system until we hopefully end up with full save states.

That’s all folks, see you in a few days for the next update!

Running With Scissors Team