SCP: 5K (Alpha Testing) News

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Follow our pre-launch Kickstarter page!

We’d like to begin this archive by again thanking you for your patience with the game development process. A lot of work has gone into the project over the past month and we’re happy to share some of it with you.



[h2]Audio[/h2]
Heaps of work have gone on in the audio department in the past month. We now have the firing and handling noises for 7 weapons fully mastered and implemented in FMOD, as well as the majority of the soundscapes set up in-engine. 

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Significant continuing work has also gone into the soundtrack of the game, which continues to expand and improve day by day.

In addition to this, many smaller sounds for various props have been developed, such as doors, switches, etc.

[h2]Art and Design[/h2]

We have new enemy concept art to show off, including the Psi-Z Killer and SCP-173-C. SCP-173-C will be in-game alongside SCP-173-B in the near future.





The second major map rework has gone underway, and the new layout is much more immersive than previous iterations.



We’ve been refining the layout in design for a couple of months and it’s super satisfying to finally see it in-engine. Some core features of this redesign include better use of space, verticality, and an enhanced sense of flow between the various areas and rooms.













In preparation for the demo, we’ve overhauled the Infamous Area to be part of the introduction to the facility. It starts off as a sewer-like access area, leading into the treatment and a back-access to the facility…







In addition to this, work on the essential props and architecture has continued. Some of this work includes final assets for the Backup Generator room door and shutter doors, the security checkpoint, and vents for the generator room.







The UI has seen continued updates, and we’re really happy with how it’s starting to sink into its style. These updates include changes to the weapon, player and hotbar UI, as well as some changes to the main menu and pause menu. Pretty much everything basically.

 

On the weapon side of things, work-in-progress textures have been developed for the UMP-45 and M24A3, as well as a model and textures for a new weapon…




[h2]
Programming and Gameplay[/h2]
A new weapon has been added to the arsenal! The Mock-18 is a capable sidearm featuring 18-round magazines and full-auto capability (we’ll see how this balances).



Significant work has gone into the first pass of Area-12’s objectives, as well as into the core systems behind the objectives to give the most flexibility for our designers. Work has gone into interactive keypads with random codes that update the environment accordingly, as well as to objectives that unlock doors, restore power to whole areas, etc.

Additionally, more work has gone into the server infrastructure, with better config support and more variables to tweak, better steam integration, and overall better stability and networking performance.

More work has been spent on the back-end systems driving the senses of the horde system, and while they’re not quite ready for integration yet, they’re starting to shape up.

Meanwhile, the programmer gremlins have also been hard at work in their basements squashing all sorts of bugs faster than we’ve ever seen before.

KICKSTARTER SOON!

• New footsteps and impact sounds
• Shotgun
• Hordes
• Soundtrack

Hey everyone! Everyone here has been hard at work getting ready for our next large phases of development. We've been improving systems, adding a lot more substance/finality to environment sets, and overhauling sound design in its near-entirety.

We are currently getting ready to launch a Kickstarter for SCP: Pandemic. We are incredibly confident we're at a stage where we can finally do this... and well, do it right. This isn't to mention that we're all incredibly nervous about this, but we think it's the best course to fund the remainder of the project up until the Early Access release. We are thankful for the backings of mod.io's Modularity label, Offworld Industries (known for Squad), and the fantastic SCP and tactical shooter communities that have supported us and helped us reach this point.

The thing we're most terrified of is overhyping/unintentional misrepresentation of the project, its ambitions, and our capabilities. Affray is a great team, and we've learned a lot over the time we've been making games and tools - but we don't want people to think we're some mystical A-team. We have and will make mistakes, and we don't want people to assume this is gonna be the best game ever or anything of the sort. We're still human, life happens, and this is all a lot of work.

So, no earlier than June 2021 is when we want this game to start up on Kickstarter. We will have some exclusive rewards for the 30-day campaign, so be sure to check it out when we start it!

We are excited to announce that we are now officially partnered with Black Site to work on our Kickstarter campaign together! We have been friends with these guys for over two years now, and we are super happy to officially partner up. They will be working with us behind the scenes on more administrative tasks and responsibilities, as well as helping us reach out to other strategic partners, such as content creators and other companies. Affray and Black Site share a similar vision and see eye-to-eye on how we feel things should be done, and so far we have worked very well together. Black Site has been advocates of ours for a long time now, so we look forward to continuing our work with them in a more official capacity!



[h2]General Development[/h2]

[h3]Audio[/h3]

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We have recently decided to migrate SCP: Pandemic's audio engine to FMOD, rather than stock Unreal Engine 4. This has been a massive improvement on its own, with far more immersive environmental spatialization, reverb, and alike. This also allows our sound engineers and composers to work outside of the editor with FMOD Studio, where the audio banks directly export to Unreal Engine. This is a massive workflow improvement for the audio team, and in general makes SCP: Pandemic higher fidelity.

Audio is incredibly important to Affray, so anything we can do to improve its pipeline and quality is always a major plus in our book.

As for specifics, we have created new sounds for:

• Hydraulic blast doors
  
• Existing and new weapons
  
• Environmental soundscapes
  + more
  

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[h2]Art and Design[/h2]
We have been continuing work on the environment, as well as working on crucial assets needed for the weapons of the game. Some notable work includes:

[h3]First Psi-Z concept art[/h3]

Psi-Z are an artificially-made series of anomalies made by The Foundation in our addition to the SCP-5000 canon. They are being designed to infect and kill civilians in global attacks. You are a team of GOC members and Foundation defectors trying to prevent the Psi-Z from being utilized in the field by attacking Area 12, the site where they are being made.

[h3]Bullets and casings[/h3]

These will be used for (big surprise) bullet casings, as well as for magazines when you are reloading.

[h3]Common Room map assets[/h3]


[h3]Railings[/h3]


[h3]Other map work[/h3]



We’ve added two new weapons to the game:

• The UMP-45 - a slow firing but hard-hitting and accurate SMG chambered in .45 ACP
  
• The M24A3 - a powerful bolt action sniper chambered in .338 Lapua with a 5-round magazine, that can pierce through multiple zombies and their surroundings
  

Please note that the textures and animations currently used here are placeholders.

There have been several updates to the weapons and ballistics systems over the course of the month in order to accommodate the new and future weapons of the game.

Bolt/pump-action support has been added, as well as case ejections for each of the calibers.

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In addition to this, different weapons can now have different penetration values, alongside some optimizations to ballistics to improve performance for shotguns when they arrive.

A number of animation improvements have also been made, including active ragdolls on zombies and players, third person hand IK for players, and better sprinting, crouching, aiming, and leaning.



The horde system’s backend is now finished and ready to be implemented in-game, this will allow us to have huge amounts of coordinated zombies with much better performance and AI. Expect more info on this soon as we integrate it into the game.




We are now entirely focused on getting ourselves and the game ready for a crowdfunding round! We have a lot of big plans to announce on Kickstarter. Stay tuned and be sure to follow us to stay updated on SCP: Pandemic's development, even if you're just here for the pictures.

[h2]Introduction[/h2]
Hello everyone, we’d like to begin this update by thanking you all for your patience during our development process. Throughout these last months, we’ve been hard at work on SCP: Pandemic, and are excited to update everyone on our most recent progress.


This is the first of what we aim to be regularly scheduled development logs to keep everyone up to speed with where we are and what our plans are from here on out. We aim to have something to show every month, and updates will be posted from mid to the very end of the month in order to allow us more time to polish things before being put on a show.


Starting from April, we have a lot to catch everyone upon. This month we will be discussing our departure from the Squad code base and the opportunities this means for the project, as well as highlighting general progress on the game’s development, from new environments to improved sound design.  

 



 
[h2]Current Development[/h2]


The Departure of Squad’s Code Base

During our development, we have made the decision to step away from Squad’s codebase and focus on creating our own. We are aware this might be a disappointing decision to some of our followers, but we believe this was the best move for this project in the long term for multiple reasons.


Working with Squad’s codebase (also made in Unreal Engine) was a great opportunity for us, however, as we began to modify the game’s code to better fit the project’s needs, we quickly became aware of the caveats of working with an unfamiliar external codebase. After trying to bend the codebase to work for our project, we decided that it would be within the project’s best interests to create our own codebase in order to better fit the project’s needs.


Alongside but unrelated to this change is the development of our future plans for SCP: Pandemic. To ensure that we can continue development on this project, to implement all of the planned features and future content, we have decided to make an important and integral change to the game: SCP: Pandemic will no longer be free-to-play on release and will instead be a paid title. This has come down to the fact that the game has evolved from the small scope proof-of-ability into a fully-fledged title, with larger content goals for a better experience and overall improved game. We truly appreciate everybody who has already donated to the project and to those people who have helped us get this far, and we truly believe this change will ensure that the game will continue to be developed for as long as possible and will help to increase development speed where it is truly needed! Anyone who has donated to us previously will still continue to receive the game at launch as before.



[h2][/h2][h2]General Development[/h2][h3]Audio[/h3]
Things have been busy within the sound department, more specifically the ongoing improvement to audio quality and specialization. As a development team, it is important for us to create an enjoyable horror experience, and one of the key elements to achieving this is with immersive and atmospheric sound design.


Our focus right now is on the more generalized sound effects that players are expected to hear most commonly, for example, doors (of which there are many). We also have our focus set on replacing the placeholder sounds currently in place for our weapons with authentic, handcrafted ones. Expect more on this in future archives. On the subject of overhauling, our enemy design is one of our main priorities to get right at this point within our development. Proper zombie voice-acting is in the works with more than a handful of variants planned for the final release.


Ambiance is crucial in creating the tense atmosphere we want in Pandemic, and our audio team has been hard at work expanding our list of ambient and cinematic audio tracks. We continue to work hard in creating our official soundtrack for use in Pandemic and future projects within our studio.

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Art and Design


With our established direction for the game’s design, we are hard at work at finalizing existing assets and environments as well as introducing new areas to explore. Those who have had the chance to experience our alpha build may remember the large, empty space accompanied by a server room and mess hall area. This blockout has since seen some pretty drastic changes to better fit the concept art and start to expand it into a more realistic environment. This comes alongside the first iteration of the final layout as we continue to work on the gameplay plan for the initial Pandemic map.









 

Existing rooms continue to receive some love as we work on additional details to fill the facility and make it feel alive. One of the ways we achieve this goal is through the use of additional assets to help occupy the space along the walls, like wires, electrical boxes, and trims.





We are just as excited to showcase some weapons to be expected upon release, as of right now we have the following weapons implemented:

• MP5 Submachine Gun
• Galil Ace Assault Rifle
• M9 Sidearm Pistol

 







That may seem like a small arsenal of weapons right now, but don’t worry.

We have many other weapons in the works as we speak and will share more information on that when we have something to show.
[h3]Code[/h3]
In light of our departure from Squad, we have been hard at work creating our own character controller to better reflect the control and feel of the game we aim to achieve. As of right now, we have all of the essentials needed for a first-person shooter with some additional features still to be developed. These existing features include:

• Deadzone aiming
• Sights and scopes
• Reloading
• Leaning
• Bullet Ballistics
• Tracers
• Health

 Weapon deadzone can be configured/disabled with a slider.

In addition, we are now able to update to the latest version of Unreal Engine in order to take advantage of better performance, lighting, and stability both in runtime and during development. A more up-to-date engine allows for a smoother development process and a better experience for players.

In addition to this, there are many smaller but still noteworthy developments over the past months: 

• Many existing bugs from the alpha build have been squashed.
• Proximity-based player respawning has been introduced.
• Networking and performance, in general, has been improved upon.
• Interaction system has been improved for higher ping connections.
• A UI overhaul in the works, taking advantage of a more unified design, starting with our menus and HUD and continuing from there.
• Good progress has been made on the horde system for driving overall zombie behavior, expect more info on this soon

 
[h2]Future Development Plans/Conclusion[/h2]
To conclude our first development log, we feel it would be appropriate to leave behind a taste of what to expect in the coming months of our continuous progress:

• A total layout and redesign of the current map.
• New enemy AI overhaul in progress and actual Psi-Z designs are now in progress.
• ‘Enemy Dismemberment’ system for satisfying response to damage.
• Enemy AI visibility/light system (for stealth mechanics).
• Continued updates on our UI system and design.
• ‘Common Area’ and general environment progress.

 

Thank you all for your continued support during our development journey, we look forward to seeing everyone next month where we’ll have more to show and talk about!

Hey all, long time no see. We've been doing a lot of work behind the scenes and we wanted to give a fairly major update.

We are no longer using the codebase of Squad from Offworld Industries. We are incredibly thankful to have used it for the time we've been able - and it really has helped us grasp what is needed for making something on the scale we want to bring things. It definitely helped us a bit in focusing on other backend systems for the year we've had it, but it's time to move on. We feel we are now capable of making our own character controller now that our frameworks like dismemberment, interaction, mission objectives, custom level streaming, horde/crowd manager, and so on are all near full completion and full implementation.

This is completely our decision. We genuinely think it will be a majorly positive thing for our retroactive project development.

[h3]We will be showcasing our new character controller soon! It's had some pretty solid progress so far.

Those who like the shooting style of Insurgency or Rising Storm will feel right at home.[/h3]

Thank you, everyone. Truly.

- Affray