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Project Wingman News

Report #2: CQ, VR, and QA oh my!

As the day quickly approaches to Project Wingman’s 1.0 release, we think it’s best to put out some reports whose goals are to bring us all to a common understanding as to what the game will be on release. So sit right there and let’s all get ready, together.



Overview
In Project Wingman, gameplay is king. It is the entire why and reason behind most of our decisions: it is our attempt at a greater realization of another step forward in this genre. So what better in the leadup to the game’s release than to talk about gameplay, as broad a topic as it is.

Chances are if you backed this game and or are following it, you know the gist of the gameplay loop: You’re a once in a lifetime pilot, carving through the enemies with back breaking strikes and skillful maneuvers in a myriad of different aircraft (the aircraft of which will receive their own preliminary report prior to launch). You destroy the enemy, you get paid for it, and by getting paid you buy new aircraft. The better you fly the better the results of the mission, and if you’re flying instead for the thrill of it, all that is just pretext, isn’t it? But I digress.



How the planes fly, how the guns feel, how enemies pop and how they fight back, all of it has been tuned to bring out the best casual combat flight experience that, not only we would love, but we think you will as well.

In fact to assure that, final play testing is underway amongst players randomly chosen from our earlier queries: a brave group of 20 something pilots going to war both in VR and out against software daemons and the unpolished mass that is version .9 of Project Wingman. It is with their sacrifice and diligence that we will see 1.0 be better for you, the end user, so we salute them.

We could go into each part of the gameplay loop, but release is about ten days away and we’re not gonna mince words. We’ll hit a few things that might be worth knowing to prepare you for release:


CQ
Perhaps of all of Project Wingman’s features, Conquest is the most unspoken of, and perhaps that is a disservice to it as a mode. In truth Conquest could’ve been an entire game unto itself, however as the dust falls it fits in just well with Project Wingman’s package as a whole, and we wouldn’t think of it any other way.

So as a recap: Conquest is a roguelike mode, where players proceed on “runs” in order to clear an overworld map of enemies. They do so by sortieing and fulfilling an objective in each area, facing down a boss in each area before extracting and moving onto the next.

Simple? It is. However there’s some chaos in the mix of course:

The enemy won’t take this attack from you laying down, so they’ll continually send reinforcements during your sorties meant to stop your run. The voracity and skill of these reinforcements are defined by the Alert Level. The higher the Alert Level, the more dangerous the enemy’s reinforcements. The Alert Level rises over time ingame, regardless of anything you do, so, depending on how much of a rational pilot you are, it is generally in your interest to complete objectives as soon as you can.

However, doing that you forgo a lot of options to gain credits by taking out non-HVT units…



The name of the game in Conquest is balancing your time and your ability to gain credits to buy allies in order to help you during your run. Farm too long in an area, you might be facing impossible odds in the next sortie. Go too fast and neglect too much cash on the table, and you might be unprepared for a boss.

When you get shot down, the run is ended, and you reset this sick game from scratch save for one thing: Prestige Points.

These are the only things kept from previous runs (plus any ill-wishes against the SOB that downed you).Using Prestige Points you can buy aircraft to use on each subsequent run. The aircraft list in Conquest is different from the list in the Campaign, as Conquest mode leans into the more “gamey” part of this genre, so we think you might enjoy the power fantasy that comes when you gain enough points to buy that late-grade aircraft variant…



As with the Campaign, modifiers can be toggled for runs as well, adding further gameplay variation to this action packed mode.

Rest assured you don’t have to do an entire run at once, you can pause and return to the game if you need to, but you’re not a save scummer, are you?
Conquest will release alongside 1.0, and as stated in previous reports, it is the game mode most likely to be expanded post-launch, (and to be honest we’d be amazed if it is 100% hitch free on launch given the nature of it) so any feedback is appreciated across our social media and community groups.

VR

Virtual reality integration and peripheral support into Project Wingman has been planned from day one, and on the verge of another day one, we have this to say:

It’s in.
There’s not really much to say without descending into the flowery PR speak of “FULL IMMERSION” and “FEEL LIKE YOU’RE REALLY IN THE COCKPIT”.

VR support in Project Wingman is a 1:1 experience with traditional players, asides from the fact that, for obvious reasons, you’re limited to a cockpit point of view at all times ingame as you are seeing the game through your very eyes.

This might be underselling it, but it is what it is: You can play Project Wingman fully in VR through the Steam VR and Oculus.

All the content, sights and sounds and gameplay, it’s there for ya’, so go nuts.

HOTAS support as well, that’s pretty simple. As long as Windows 10 reads it from DirectInput, you can bind it. Racing wheel enthusiasts and guitar controllers, go right at it if you want.

VR Footage A VR Footage B

Fun fact, we did test motion controls, as in virtual joysticks, a while back, but it never went past the testing phase. If there’s enough demand we can try reinvestigating it, of course, as it was an interesting novelty, and an option for those of us without controllers.

Now of course there are real life considerations that we have to approach: VR gameplay is going to require a beefier computer to handle compared to just running it traditionally, and you should expect that sort of performance gap. I will tell you what I use personally for my VR experience, and you can make a judgement call from there:
Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 2600
Memory: 16GB DDR4 at 2133MHz
GPU: GTX 1070

These are the big things to my personal rig, running a WMR headset, and I was running at very playable frame rates cranked all the way up at 150% render scaling. This is by no means a recommended spec sheet, and your mileage will vary, but as I stated earlier VR specs should be expected to be beefier than that for a crystal clear, silky smooth experience, especially for headsets pushing more pixels. If you find success with specs that are surprising to you, it’ll be surprising to us, so feel free to shoot us a message. (As for specs in regards to traditional gameplay, i.e. non-VR, we have those available on the Steam page.)

Now HOTAS setups and VR headsets are so various in configuration that of course some will run into issues, however we’re standing by in regards to that and will try to help who we can if their setup doesn’t work for reasons we can handle. If any issues rise up, feel free to note on the Steam forums, or on our other social media sites, but preferably our Discord if you can manage.




Follow us on our Twitter, Facebook, Steam Group and join our Discord if you want to be informed with PW news and discussion. Wishlist us on Steam!


More information will be inbound soon, especially for those due keys for the game.

REPORT #1: Campaign Overview

As the day quickly approaches to Project Wingman’s 1.0 release, we think it’s best to put out some reports whose goals are to bring us all to a common understanding as to what the game will be on release. So sit right there and let’s all get ready, together.

The story mode of Project Wingman, the campaign, is the first half of Project Wingman’s single player mode. It is the constructed mission experience of a mercenary pilot known as Monarch, leading his allies to save a country against an imperial power known as the Federation. We’ve all heard this type of story before, and what better way to pay homage to these types of games than having such a campaign in Project Wingman?

This campaign will put you in the position to show off your mettle as a fighter pilot, destroying enemies that will do everything in their power to stop you. Ace pilots, flying airships, insurmountable odds and excruciating firepower will be turned against you, but you’ll kill them all on your path to complete a contract for a country under siege. No big deal right?

All this while you’re accompanied by two wingmen, an AWACS (and maybe a WSO), with a cadre of supporting voices from the sidelines.







In a world where history has reset, the earth itself is at hazard as people fight over its resources. Mercenary is a common term and great air ships crowd the skies as fire keeps the world turning. That’s where Project Wingman finds itself.

Lore-wise, this world has a history, a before, and even an after this game’s events. It is a stage that we may yet do many things in, but for now, this is our first foray into the World on Fire.







This is our first major game trying to pull anything like this off, and the standards which we speak to from other games are among the highest in not only this genre, but this industry.

The storytelling of those games which precede us are on a measure we strive to match, but remaining realistic, we do not have the outright capacity to completely match. As a two man team in regards to developing the campaign, it would be unreasonable to expect us to do such a thing on our first time around, and to expect something that is equal to the old masters in terms of our campaign and story telling is perhaps fanciful. We ask you to temper those expectations.

Unfortunately we couldn’t afford cutscenes, as is tradition in this genre, and for this reason the game’s story progresses entirely in what we consider ingame. Rather than try to half-ass a story which relied on external storytelling elements, we decided to rather work with what we have and contain it down to what we are able to do ingame.

In Project Wingman’s story lies a straightforward, cohesive experience from beginning to end, all of it in service to the gameplay of you, an ace fighter pilot, overcoming an insurmountable foe with pure skill and determination.

Our artbook, due to various Kickstarters, will release following the game, and it will detail further lore bits, alongside some of Project Wingman’s “inside baseball” and even some short stories from me.

With the game's story in particular, we had an image of it in our head that was very cohesive, very focused, that we worked toward, but even then sacrifices had to be made. We wish that we had more resources to work with especially in this department over development, however the lesson of this story, as in the one of Project Wingman’s campaign development, is that it is a progressive experience.

We hope you enjoy the story you'll embark on come December 1st!


-Matt


As always follow us on our Twitter, Facebook, Steam Group and join our Discord if you want to be informed with PW news and discussion. Wishlist us on Steam!


More information will be inbound soon, especially for those due keys for the game.

Update: Release Date

Told you you’d see us again sooner rather than later. We have another important piece of information to share with you, so go ahead and take a looksie:


[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


Project Wingman goes live December 1st, and if all goes to plan, development is going gold this week, giving us a rather healthy amount of time to polish off what we can.

In the words of our forebearers: It’s time.

As we get closer to release expect more development updates, intended to get you up to speed with what to expect with Project Wingman’s 1.0.
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As always follow us on our Twitter, Facebook, Steam Group and join our Discord if you want to be informed with PW news and discussion.

More information will be inbound soon, especially for those due keys for the game.

Update: True Colors



How ya doin’ pilots. Coming off of a burst of speed from our recent Gamescom appearance, we’ve kept that momentum going that will, as far as we can see, lead us right into release. (It’s sooner than you think we promise).

But we still have a little time, so we think it’s time for a little update just to let you know where we’re at, and to show off some cool things we’re finishing up behind the scenes.



AoA Module


AOA, otherwise known as Angle of Attack, is what we’re using as the offhand term for an AOA delimiter. What this means is perhaps more readily explained by example:

Here's a video link!

Paint Jobs


On a more noticeable content creation side, the paint jobs of our aircraft are all mostly squared away minus last minute applications and touches. Camo, tail-codes, the whole nine yards.









No promises for a speedy release, however there is a pipeline being developed where users can implement their own paint jobs, so that is something in the future we can look forward to, post-launch.

Modifiers




Project Wingman has four difficulties at launch, ranging from casual play to a truly hardcore, perhaps a little unfair, experience. Furthermore, these difficulties can be changed up by way of the game’s modifier system. Inspired by the skulls in Halo, these will change certain dimensions and aspects of play, ranging from damage scaling to HUD hijinks, all awarding a higher mission score if you’re one to chase after them.

My personal favorite is the gun only modifier, combined with a 2.5x damage increase globally…

Now Project Wingman isn’t intended to be played with them regularly, however, if you want to turn them all on and do a run of the Campaign with them on Mercenary mode, we’d certainly enjoy seeing you try.

VR Integration


While there's not much to be said on this one. We've received a lot of feedback from testers on how to make it an overall better experience. Mainly UI improvements but it's the little things that make it better for you!

Here's an example of some VR gameplay!

OVERALL PROGRESS


All of this spoken about so far is granular, of course, and this close to release the full breadth of what we could actually share with you would “give away the ghost”. However, to simplify it down to percentages:

Campaign: 95%

Conquest: 80%

Assets: 90%

Audio: 90%

Post-Production: 95%

Polishing: 80%

VR Integration Campaign : 95%

VR Integration Conquest : 70%


As you can see a lot of that is pretty close to 100%. So we won’t delay. The time is nigh, and we gotta get right back to work.

However that means another issue that we have to bring up: A demo. Given where we are it would be very difficult to release a demo, seeing as, more likely than not, a demo release would take place no less than a week before the game’s actual launch, and as far as manpower is concerned that is a risk we cannot take. That being said as I’m sure you’re more than aware, there are testers out there in the wild doing their own work on QA for the game as these final days approach. (Which we will be taking more of if there are more interest under NDA of course. Join our Discord to sign up, other testing avenues will come soon closer to release.)

As always follow us on our Twitter, Facebook, and join our Discord if you want to shoot the shizznits with us (RBD2 and FlyAwayNow) while keeping informed with PW news and discussion.

We’ll be seeing you sooner rather than later pilots, stay beautiful, check your six, and all that good stuff.

And as always, Thank you very much for your ongoing support!