Development Update #13

Hello everyone!

Welcome to the thirteenth development update for Haunted: Attack of the Dead Men.  What a fitting number for the week of Hallowe'en!  This update will focus on the newly added Map 12, and will also cover some changes that I've wanted to do for a long time.  Before we get into all that though, I figured it's best to start off with the important news about the game and its future development.

New Release Date and Roadmap

That's right.  Unfortunately, I will have to delay the release of the game.  I suspected as much last month but wanted to see how much longer Map 12 would take before making a firm decision, and this map took an additional two weeks, meaning it took six weeks from start to finish.  I strongly suspect Map 13 will take the same length of time, and with all the other polish that needs doing it just doesn't add up.  I will not be able to get the game finished by the end of this year - I have instead chosen Q2 2024 as a provisional release window.  I don't think the game will take until the end of Q2 to finish - my estimate at the moment is some time in May, but setting a release date a little further in the future gives me a bit more time to play with, and makes it unlikely I will have to delay the game a second time.

I covered what made me fall behind schedule in last month's update, but to summarise: Map 12 took a lot longer than I thought it would, and I forgot to account for the time it would take to upgrade the engine to Godot 4 in the original roadmap.  With the game much closer to completion now, I at least have a better idea of how much longer it will take, so I will outline a more detailed roadmap at the end of this development update.

Anyway, let's get into the good stuff shall we?

Map 12 - Descent into Darkness

Last month's update also had a teaser for this new map, as well as a little bit of detail on what this map is about, so if you haven't read that be sure to check it out.  In short, this is where the game starts to get a little weird.  While all the maps up until Map 11 are (loosely) based on Osowiec Fortress and real-world locations within it, I wanted something different for the final boss fight, and maps 12 and 13 are the lead-up to that fight.  Here's another video to show that off.

I mentioned that this was a secret underground lab, and many of the rooms have been designed with that in mind.  The idea with this level is to show off some of the research and experiments that have led to the resurrection of the garrison of Osowiec - here are some examples:

You can enjoy smashing up their laboratory...

...Or blow it up, that works too

Future undead soldiers need to be caged, for the experiment's safety... or for yours

They need to be able to shoot straight too!

I have also been adding some new features to make this map more interesting.  Among these are the smash-able scenery items found in the labs (you can see the various test tubes shattering when I use the machine gun in the video), and more interesting traps - there are several rooms in this level which will seal you inside until you achieve some objective (e.g. killing the enemies or finding something).  The smash-able objects is also noteworthy because I can now easily make any prop smash-able - I will likely go back and do this for other objects at some point (like the barrels, which are a bit static at the moment).

But wait a minute.  Notice anything different about the video and these screenshots?  If you've been following the game's development for a while you'll definitely have noticed...

New Weapon Sprites

This was a long time coming.  It's been pretty obvious that the old weapon sprites just weren't going to be good enough for the finished game - they were quite janky, and a bit inconsistent as well.  Especially those hands - ugh!  But, what made them bad, and why?

The "why" is simple, this is called programmer art.  These assets were thrown together fairly quickly to get the point across, rather than to look pretty, so I could focus on adding content to the game.  Understanding the "what" is important though, and has helped me make the new weapons look much much better.  The gist of it is this: perspective, and scaling.

I make the sprites for the weapons and enemies by first making (and animating) 3D models in Blender, and then taking screenshots of these models at different angles.  The major problem with the old sprites is that they were made without any real frame-of-reference, so I was mostly judging by eye how to position the camera and how much to zoom-in.  This lead to the larger weapons having smaller, less detailed sprites than they should have, while the smaller weapons had more detail.  On top of this, the hands were actually an afterthought as the original models didn't have them, so I added the hands on top of the existing sprites - again, these hands had inconsistent perspectives and scaling which made them look a bit odd.

So what have I done to fix this?  Well, I started by redesigning the player character's model to be more in-line with the game's cover art (internally he is referred to as "PlayerGuy", I haven't named him yet).  I made the original model not long after I started working on the game, and hadn't really revisited him since then, so it was high time I changed that.  Here he is in the main menu:

I realise I haven't really included much in the way of behind-the-scenes screenshots so far, so why not start now.  Here's how he looks to me (in Blender):

This model is a lot more detailed than the old one.  But here you can also see how I've ensured a consistent perspective for all of the new sprites - they are all attached to this new model.  In fact, I even made his head detachable and included a camera to make the process a lot easier:

If you've used Blender before, you might also have noticed that his Pickelhaube is a separate model as well - the reasons for that are still classified...

This has had a massive impact on the new Trenchgun sprite, for example.  You can see here he is actually holding it as you'd expect someone to hold a shotgun, and the result is a much bigger-looking weapon than before - in fact, Wikipedia says the Winchester Model 1897 (the weapon that the Trenchgun is based on) is a metre long, and that's without the bayonet!  I still think the left arm looks a little strange at the moment though, so it would be nice to have some more feedback on that.  When I get to it, I will try tweaking the pose a bit for the rifle (which will have a similar size) and see if I can apply that to the Trenchgun to make it look even better.

How much of this rework is done then?  So far, I have updated the Luger, Revolver, Trenchgun, Granate and the Shashka.  I should have the remaining weapons finished by next month, and I will go into more detail about them and the new animations in next month's development update.

So, what prompted me to rework these sprites now?  I have a good reason for doing this, and it all ties in to the updated roadmap.  Essentially, I have decided that if I can't get the game finished by the end of the year, I can at least improve the demo as much as I can, so it more closely matches what the final game will be like.  This leads me nicely into the last section of this update...

The New Roadmap

Much of this roadmap comes from the original, posted back in February, but I have reshuffled things a bit.  My priority for the next few months is to effectively finish the demo - well, as much as I can at this point anyway.  This means, to begin with, you can expect two major updates to the demo - the first, v1.5.0, will contain the new weapons and whatever else I am able to get done before Christmas; while the second, v1.6.0, will contain the remaining polish I have planned, including new scenery objects, balance changes and more.  I have included the full roadmap (v2) below:

• Demo updates v1.5.0 (December) and v1.6.0 (hopefully by the end of January, but aiming for sooner than that):
  • Finish the new weapon sprites
  • Update some enemy sprites (following the weapon changes)
    
  • Add new scenery to maps 1-4
  • Improve some of the visual effects (including for barrel explosions)
  • Add icons for the levels in the intermission screen
  • Refactor the enemy AI to try and improve performance
  • Implement stats tracking (which will be used for achievements later)
  • Numerous bug fixes and other small improvements
• Implement Map 13 - allowing six weeks for this takes us to March
• Implement Map 14 - a simpler map containing the final boss fight which will not take so long (maybe two weeks, as did Map 9).  This takes us to (hopefully) mid-March
• Implement Map 15 (the secret level) - I will allow one month for this as I already have the assets for it.  This takes us to mid-April
• Finish Maps 10 and 11 - Map 11 is done in terms of the backdrop but needs tweaking and balance changes.  The backdrop for Map 10 is also mostly there (barring some extra scenery), but it still needs enemies/items/etc.  I suspect this will take a few weeks, up to early May
• Polish Maps 5, 6, 7 and 8.  These maps, having been already added, will be missing some of the new scenery objects, and they may also need some balance changes.  With any luck, this won't take long - perhaps a week or two.  This takes us to mid-May
• Once all this is done, it will be time for the finishing touches.  I will be adding achievements at this point, and will also have to thoroughly test the game - this may include a closed beta period to get more feedback

Hopefully, this roadmap is a lot more accurate than the last one, as it is based on another nine months' worth of development.  If it does turn out to be too ambitious still, then with the Q2 2024 release window I will still have June to continue working on the game before having to announce another delay.

That's it for this month!  Stay tuned for next month's update as that one will focus on the new weapon sprites - there will also be another gameplay video for you to enjoy, specifically to show off the new sprites.

Thanks for reading!