Urban Strife News

[h2]Layered Portraits[/h2]

We know how important it is for the player to immerse into the game world and how much the portraits of your team and your avatar matter in this respect. So we’ve implemented a system of layers under the character blueprints that saves your choices in the shape of a portrait when you create your avatar’s 3d model, including sex, face type, skin color, haircut and choice of clothing with their respective colors. Of course the system can be expanded to regular NPC actors too (those you interact and have a dialogue with), allowing modders to create a lot of variations, using just one 3d body mesh and collection of easy-to-make 2D layers.



[h2]NPC Portraits Restyling[/h2]

Since we were working on the immersion factor, we took a look at all the NPC actor portraits and upgraded them to more refined, hand-painted versions (initial heads were just renders of the 3d mesh). Now they will fit the story, their intended role and background and will be even more lovable (I mean just look how redneck cute Billy Bo is, don’t you want to take him home?).



[h2]Spawners v2 (continued)[/h2]

We have talked about spawners a lot, we know. We are quite excited about this update because it is quite transformative for the gameplay. Today we’ll show you the smallest Prologue spawner in action (bus zombie herd). What you’re seeing is basically just one small wave of zombies, awakened from the pile of slumbering dead hidden in the bus. If you keep making a racket, more raise up until the spawner is destroyed (by fire) or emptied (herd total depends on the difficulty level and zone). If you played last year’s demo and felt the zombies were a walkover, this is another universe now. Approach even the smallest herd foolishly and you’ll get your team swimming in more “friends” than a stage diver at a rock concert.



[h2]New low level (craftable) weapons and ammo[/h2]
The sawed off hunting shotgun with a 2 shot mechanism has been ready since the demo, but somehow didn’t make it into that build. In the new game prologue we’ve restructured both the loot found and the equipment of the early enemies. We’ve found this vintage hunting shotgun, in its sawed off version, to be a perfect starter weapon, together with the redneck crossbow and the nailgun. Since the scavengers you’re encountering don’t exactly have access to a weapons trader, you’ll find out they’ve resorted to crafting their own ammo, grandpa style, using packing paper or cardboard, gunpowder and some nails. You won’t hit a flying pigeon with this setup and from range those nails will go everywhere, but get up close and they’re suddenly a handful of deadly metal pieces spewed out of a shotgun.
Also this homemade recipe of nail shots will fill in the gap nicely until you get your shelter's ammo press working or access to a stable supply of “regular” munitions. Nails are everywhere, cardboard too, you just got to be a bit lucky scoring some gunpowder. You can laugh at uncle Jim Bob’s recipe, but when that zombie is in your face you’ll thank him!



[h2]New Animation Pipeline[/h2]

Urban Strife development has had multiple artists contribute their work when it comes to character models and their animations. It's quite a challenge to standardize input when you’re working with freelancers and when you couple that with the fact that the game includes work done years ago, some with source files lost, making upgrades to the characters risked being an impossible task.
As we’re adding new talent to the team, we’ve found out that we don’t have a way to import our models into major 3d tools. For example, importing animations on 3DS Max Biped from incompatible skeletons proved to be a hair pulling experience. So we went and built our own pipeline for HumanIK in Maya and Character Studio in 3DS Max. This now allows us to import/export animations generated from multiple sources, for different skeletons. Also, we took the time and built ourselves a complete library of all idle animations (the start point for animations in general) for any future expansions and modding.
This entire experience taught us a lot, so the post-release modding SDK will come with a special pipeline for Blender, the free, open-source 3D creation suite. We assume most modders would rather use that, considering the price of the professional tools isn’t exactly cheap.



[h2]Animations Revamp[/h2]

As we’ve mentioned, the new tools allowed us to add new animations to Urban Strife and revamp some of the old ones that feel clunky or unnatural. You can see a small example of the old rotation in crouch vs the new one. The animation revamp is not just eye candy (it’s a lot of that too) but also goes into quality of life improvements. Poor animations, like the slow turn when opening containers, were on top of the list of complaints we had from the testers. Fluid movements produce smooth gameplay and while it’s not an easy task (Urban Strife uses more than 1000 animations), we’ll try to improve as many as we can.
Just to understand the complexity of our animations system, most of the transitions should be multiplied by 5 (unarmed, armed with a pistol, a rifle, a one-handed melee weapon or a two-handed melee weapon), then multiplied by 2 (standing / crouched) and then multiplied by 2 again (for the relaxed or aiming stances). Do the math



[h2]Regiments Launch[/h2]

Since we’re all fans of strategy here, do not forget to mark August 16th in your calendar. In just a few days our good friends from Bird's Eye Games will launch their much anticipated cold-war RTS. If you have played their demo you know you must have it on your wishlist already, but if you haven’t, do it now. You won’t regret it.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1109680/Regiments/

[h2]Main Campaign - Tier 1
[/h2]
So, what can you expect in Tier 1? Without giving out too many spoilers, you’ll get to rescue your master mechanic, Reginald Owen, from the highway Gas Station where he tried to start his own fake Second Chance church only to become a slave of biker warlord Snitch. You can do it nicely, by helping Snitch liberate a nearby motel and start a proper bar and brothel like any respectable biker baron. Or you can side with his archenemy, Father California, the man who stuffed the hotel full of zombie cultists and refugees just to keep the bikers out.



Then you’ll meet the Saint family and their ability to “sing” to the undead to manipulate them. From their Village On Top Of The World (a rather pompous name for a camp on a supermarket rooftop, true) they set out to spread the love for the dead in Urban. Much to the disgust of the true owner of the supermarket, Judge Jenny. As a response to their actions, the honorable judge has proceeded to condemn the Saint brothers in her radio broadcasted trials and has put a large bounty on their head.



But if you’re all about the biker life and Snitch doesn’t inspire you, how about meeting the Devilson clan? They make their bikes out of parts they source from stolen Army APCs, how’s that for badass? They proved a nut too tough to crack even for the feds and now they hold prisoner the FBI agent who failed to infiltrate their camp. So no wonder the local bureau chief, Special Agent Smith, will very much like to get rid of the whole Devilson clan. But are the feds offering an honest helping hand to your Sheriff’s Department or just trying to infiltrate the Shelter? That’s for you to decide.




[h3]A Note on Tier Progression:[/h3] Although you’re free to roam around and approach the game however you want to, we have an internal naming system for the maps based on their proximity to the Shelter and the closest are named “Tier 1” maps. These are designed to be of light-moderate difficulty combat wise, giving you time to get equipped properly before tackling more dangerous foes. As a rule, the farther you get from your own base, the more difficult the battles will be (since you will get closer to factional HQs where the big bad boys live). Also in the late game you’ll also need to factor in the emergence of the roaming herds of zombies. In your glorious march to save the world and humanity you are bound to leave behind a trail of dead bodies, like every other brave conqueror there was. These will come back to bite you (literally) and add a bit of fun to any long late game road trips. And to top that, you will most likely be at war with two of the three main factions by then.

[h2]Player Vehicles
[/h2]
We spoke of the dangers of exploring mid and late game and that brings us to another topic - your car. It’s entirely up to you if you want to save the ozone layer while there’s a zombie apocalypse raging on and just go exploring on foot, but expect walking to be slow and dangerous. Instead do it like a true American, just use a gas guzzler of a car to haul your team and your loot. Yea, you’ll take precious gas away from your base, but if you want to go far and do it in style, you need a ride. You can use the old beat up police sedan former Sheriff Rogers drove, but except the large trunk space, there’s little you’ll love about that hunk of metal. It belongs in a museum, it will eat up petrol like crazy and will go from 0 to 60 mph in two days. And yes, the siren doesn’t work either.



Option B is repurposing one of the caravans left behind by the refugees flocking toward cult camps. Most of them are complete wrecks, but with a bit of luck you could find one that is still drivable. Its advantages over the old police cruiser aren’t that many, except storage space - that you will have in abundance.

If you fancy a bit more protection in your road trips, then you should see about befriending a faction that has actual mechanics, not zombie herders. The bikers can provide you with a custom made truck with both the spiky hardware upgrades and the engine power to smash through an incoming horde of zombies. It takes some tweaking, greasing and welding, but the result is devastating to the undead population.

Finally, you can choose to drive an Army tactical behemoth that was designed to take a lot more punishment than rotting zombies can dish out. No upgrades needed there, Uncle Sam has them prebuilt for you.

[h2]Feeding the Shelter (Survival Meters)
[/h2]
In order to keep things ok at home, you will need to keep your people fed, healthy and entertained. Of course, running out of gas for the generator before you build the alternative power sources (wind, hydro or solar) would be equally bad, but that’s a story for a different time. Your base can’t fail, because at the point in time when your story unfolds, it’s about the only safe place on Earth for you so it would be game over. Thankfully, your people won’t just sit idle and demand you to feed them. Mayor Adams will start organizing them, they just need a bit of hope and support. Once they get rolling, they’ll start scavenging too and leave you to mind the fun parts: exploring, diplomacy and combat.







A large proportion of the “trash” loot will be destined for the needs of the shelter, in order to keep those three main meters in the happy zone. There will be special NPCs where you’ll be able to unload the food, health or morale items and one that will even take random scrap to be recycled as construction materials (wood, metal, chemicals and components). Beside taking the weight off your back, literally, these NPCs will also inform you about the potential effect of your donations. This way if you want to keep a stash of booze for a bit of trading, you’ll be able to calculate exactly how much you can keep for yourself.

[h2]Economy and Loot Progress
[/h2]
In the previous dev update we have explained that we are transitioning to a new loot distribution system, based on defined areas. Well, that has happened and we’ve wiped clean all the loot tables in the suburbs then went and redid everything based on the new loot generation rules. Now two major changes happened: first the amount of loot available in the Prologue is mathematically sane and will fit the scope of the campaign and the story, giving the players enough time to do battle, but also pushing them toward new territories (you need to have slim pickings otherwise where’s the survival angle, right?); second, we can set a “theme” even for random loot so when you’ll walk into a zone that looks like a car factory, you won’t get to loot condoms and nudie magazines.



A good example of the advantages of the new system is the Little Italy suburb. This place has five lootable houses. Each house used to have random loot containers with various items. The results were almost impossible to balance since all these items had random drop chances. Now these five houses share a Loot Area (split into subdivisions for Food, Health, Morale for easier editing), so they pull items from the same repository and randomly spread them inside all their containers. The containers themselves have a filter too and if a house gets lucky and pulls a can of spam, you won’t find it in the bathroom cabinet, but in the kitchen somewhere.

[h2]Code Upgrades & Modding
[/h2]
Most of the campaign code has now been ported from classic UE blueprints to the new USG Scripting Editor that will be the core of our Modding SDK. While at first glance it looks just like a tame dialog/rpg editor, this tool is way more powerful. With its library of functions it allows writing advanced game scripts so the modders will be able to create new quests, factions and enemies, alter maps through hidden level layers, design their custom event cutscenes, etc. We'll reveal more details as the modding package and the documentation will be prepared for release.

We’ve started 2022 with a lot of feedback from the Prologue Demo and a sharper vision of what the final game will have to be like. After the festival we took the time to do a lot of behind the scenes planning and organizing, which wasn’t very glorious and news worthy but vital for the final stretch of development. Still, even with all this housekeeping we pushed on with the actual game development. The Prologue of the game has been integrated in the main campaign and has received a well earned polish that includes a functioning, upgradeable Shelter. First tier of the main campaign is in development, also, to be completed soon. Anyway, long story short, here are some of the new things we’ve worked on:



The Shelter map layout has been optimized to receive the entire system of upgrades; your refugees will soon enjoy fresh tomatoes before their gym routine or a night cap at the biker pub. Some of the upgrades will be built from scratch, some will take advantage of the old structures on the site. For example an old office can be either a biker bar (with its own moonshine still in the back room), an army hospital complete with surgery tables or a peaceful cultist prayer room, with a small hydroponics for growing soothing herbal plants and nourishing mushrooms.




Just do not forget to upgrade your defenses. The basic electric fence will help you against zombie stragglers only. One of these days you will get a large horde on your doorstep and these fortifications will need to hold them back or you and your pals will be just another nutritious meal for the undead.





People complained the Shelter stole their hard earned loot from the intro sequence so Mayor Adams had a change of heart and now you will be able to recover your stuff from the Sheriff’s office. Speaking of the Sheriff’s Office meeting, everyone is a tiny bit less edgy now, nurse Lucy in particular. The girl has a heart of gold hidden somewhere, if you can go past the murderous look in her eyes.



The three faction representatives, Father Joseph (cultists), Honest Joe (bikers) and Sgt. Kowalski (army) will have the chance to rule their own domain, if you allow them to settle near the Shelter. If not, you’re welcome to piss everyone off. We’ve reviewed and streamlined all their scripts too. Honest Joe now has an actual reward for you, he sends Bubba Gimme to open a nicely stocked shop right in the Shelter and furthermore, he will upgrade Bubba's inventory each time you do good with the bikers. Father Joseph can now be freed at your leisure, during day/night time. He warns you that daytime is more dangerous, but you be you and play the game as you see fit.



And finally, Sgt. Kowalski said he doesn’t like his desk job so now he’s blissfully happy doing what every drill sergeant wants to do: yelling at recruits all day.




[h2]Zombie Spawner[/h2]
Another big update is that of zombie spawners. Instead of having a manually placed population of zombies, now we can control the zombie generation with a spawner (think of it like a mass grave/body pile someone forgot to get rid of).



We can set how many zombies are present by default, how many will raise if they get alerted and how many in total will be spawned. The type of the zombie generated can also be controlled so you will see some of the enemies you thought you dispatched come back to haunt you later. The spawner can be shut down with explosives or fire, when you locate it.




[h2]New Loot Mechanic[/h2]
In the demo, loot used to be attached to various assets (containers) placed throughout the maps by level designers. This is how we ended up with 10 or more lootable cars per map, because each time level design required a car to be placed, it also added to the available loot.
The new “Area Based Loot Distribution” system detaches the loot generation from graphical assets and ties the loot table to custom defined Loot Areas. A house could be one Loot Area, for example. Inside the Loot Area you will have assets that are defined as Loot Containers (bathroom cabinet, kitchen cupboard and dresser, in our example house) but instead of each container coming with its own preset loot, now they fill up with items set in the Loot Area table. And they pull those according to preset filters (medical items will go into the medical cabinet, kitchen stuff in the kitchen cupboard, etc).
This way loot gets assigned automatically to the proper container and adding more cabinets, cupboards and dressers to the house doesn’t run the risk of loot inflation. Furthermore, the total loot available stays true to the campaign design and the needs of the economy.

[h2]Migration to Unreal Engine 4.27[/h2]
Many of the technical shortcomings reported during the Steam NextFest playtest were due to the fact that we had locked the development on Unreal Engine 4.18 (released in 2017). This version was clearly showing its age, especially when people ran the game on new 4k hardware, but porting an already developed project on a new UE version is quite a challenging undertaking. It took us the first part of the year to port and bugfix the code in order to have a 4.27 version (last stable before UE 5) running smoothly. It came with a risk and a cost, but the upgrade made the project viable and compatible with new hardware for years to come.

[h2]Modding Tools 2.0[/h2]
Some time ago we showed on our website an early version of a tool that would allow easy scripting of missions and other RPG events. After the upgrade to UE 4.27, we had to upgrade the tools too so here’s the newest scripting system ready to be used (internally and by our future modders).
Its biggest advantage over the previous one and over a standard UE blueprint is that it’s more than a dry layout of functions and classes, it actually displays the quest dialogues and allows you to follow the entire RPG logic. So we went from the basic UE blueprints that look like this:



… to this early flow editor (before UE 4.27):



… to the new advanced scripting editor like the one below. For those using articy:draft or other writing tools, it would be quite a familiar experience.



You do not appreciate this to its full potential until you return to bugfix a quest a couple of months later, when you completely forgot who said what and why.


Expect more detailed info about the specifics of the first tier of the main campaign in the next dev update. The battles in this stage will take place over the domains of six local warlords, from all the three major factions.

Thank you for your continued support and patience and stay tuned for more!

Urban Strife is an upcoming post-apocalyptic survival TBS/RPG, developed by the Romanian studio White Pond Games, scheduled to be published by MicroProse in 2022. You can check out a selection of Let's Plays by various streamers from the recent demo showcase at Steam NextFest.

This was the first festival for Urban Strife since we've shown an early build at Gamescom 2017. It gave us precious feedback we've already started implementing in the game and a solid boost of 100 places in the Most Wishlisted games on Steam, a pretty nice bonus on top of everything.

We'll be moving to a newer version of the Unreal Engine so next iterations of the prologue should come with much better 4k and Win11 support. Dialogues and story will receive a polish too where they need it, for a more immersion. And definitely we'll improve the interface and the looting system for an enjoyable experience.

To thank everyone for attending we decided to keep the demo up for one more day after festival ends. It will make a comeback soon, new and improved, we promise.

Check out the Let's Plays here:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/710230/discussions/0/2956041222224521824/