Development Update #16

Hello everyone!

Welcome to the sixteenth development update for Haunted: Attack of the Dead Men.  This update will start by going over some of the other features that made it into v1.6.0 of the demo (which weren't mentioned last month), but rather excitingly, will also cover the progress I've made on the final boss fight!  Naturally, such a major addition both content- and "story"-wise must come with a spoiler warning.  If you want to discover the final boss for yourself, the last section will be clearly marked so you can stop reading there.

(Yet More) New Scenery

The last major bit of scenery I had planned for v1.6.0 may have been a surprise for some.  While the historical accounts of The Attack of the Dead Men focus solely on the battle on the ground, the First World War was very much unique in being the first major conflict that was also fought in the air.  Most of the great powers of the time had started to build up their air forces and were experimenting with using aircraft for many different purposes, including reconnaissance, maintaining aerial supremacy (through fighter planes), and bombing enemy positions.

At the start of the war, aircraft was primarily used for reconnaissance, but by 1915 (when the battle took place) various fighters and bombers had already been developed and seen limited use in combat.  How is this relevant to the game then?  Well, I thought it would be strange if there was no evidence of any air warfare having taken place in the area around Osowiec, given the intense battles that were fought over it.  So, I decided to add some scenery to that effect - here are some examples:

Germany had a much more advanced industry than Russia in WW1, so this is reflected in-game by there being more downed German planes than Russian ones

This Russian plane marks an important location in Map 3...

These planes have made an appearance in Maps 1, 2 and 3, however in Map 3 especially they serve an important role as landmarks in the environment.  Speaking of which...

Improvements in Level Design

A lot of the criticism of the game so far has come from the design of some of the levels (notably Maps 3 and 4).  While adding new scenery goes some way towards helping to address this (by providing new landmarks to identify key locations), it was not enough to overcome some of the shortcomings.  Having thought a bit longer about how to solve these problems, I came up with a set of changes for Maps 2, 3 and 4 to make them easier to navigate.  Below are some screenshots of what I did to Map 3:

This entire north-east section of the map has been fenced off with some locked gates that require the brass key.  This seemingly small change has made a fairly big difference on how players perceive the map - instead of this giant open area that can feel overwhelming to explore at first, there is now a more obvious goal to progress - a brass key is needed to enter this section.  This means you no longer spend time getting lost in here and can instead focus on the other areas of the map to find the key.

Map 2 received some smaller changes, mostly around hiding the secret switches and making the switch that opens the exit more obvious.  The other big change was to Map 4, however.  Previously in Map 4 the goal was to find two switches to reveal the steel key, however because it wasn't obvious what each switch did, many players confused these two switches with the secret switches instead.  The other problem with Map 4 was that one of the switches was located in a maze, and if you weren't already aware of what you were looking for in this maze it often became frustrating to navigate.

Again, the solution to this problem was simple - instead of hiding a switch in the maze, hide the iron key in there instead.  The iron key is a more obvious item to be looking for given that there are several iron-locked doors that can be found before reaching the maze.  Like in Map 2, the other secret switches were better hidden to make them less confusing.

That's it for the other changes in demo v1.6.0.  If you don't want spoilers for the final boss I suggest you stop reading here as I can't seem to add spoiler tags on itch.io like I can on Steam.  For those of you who are curious though, feel free to read on...

Finally, the Final Boss (Spoiler Alert)

I teased this all the way back in the ninth development update last July (how time flies!).  The first boss (in Map 9), being a protege of our main villain, made it necessary to reveal who he was, but I didn't go into much detail on him back then.  Since that was such a long time ago, this is a good time for a recap on this first boss and then we can dive into who he works for...

Grand Duke Peter Nikolaevich of Russia was a member of the Russian royal family and a known occultist.  His palace was described as "the central point of the powers of evil" and he had close ties with the main antagonist of the game, which made him a perfect choice for the first boss fight.  Here you can see him using black magic to resurrect the corpses of your fallen comrades as the fight begins.

While evil, this guy is still a bit of a one-trick pony in the first boss fight.  He primarily relies on manipulating lightning, either to attack the player or resurrect more minions to do the dirty work for him.  There are a lot of dark powers he has yet to master, however you have already put a stop to this by defeating him.  Now, in Map 14, it's time to face the final boss...

Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin.

You could probably see that one coming, right?  Who better to serve as the mastermind behind a bunch of Russians coming back from the dead than the man who wouldn't die?

Anyway, who is the guy really?  He's quite interesting in reality, and quite famous - even if you don't know who he was you've probably at least heard of him from somewhere.  From humble beginnings as a peasant growing up in Siberia, he managed to rise up through Russian society to become a close associate of the Tsar of Russia, even becoming a major power behind the throne after healing the Tsar's son.  It was this power and influence that would later become his undoing though, as he angered a lot of the other Russian nobility.  Eventually, Rasputin was assassinated by a group of nobles led by Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich and Prince Felix Yusupov - the latter of which just so happens to be the same guy that said Grand Duke Petr's house was evil - interesting how that works out!

Rasputin's assassination became legendary after Yusupov's account described him as having survived both poisoned wine and a shot to the chest.  Further stories about the event describe him as having only died after drowning in a river, despite a gunshot wound to the head as well as to the chest.  This last bit doesn't come from Yusupov however, and is simply a later addition to the legend.  It does give us plenty to go on for his portrayal in the game though!

So, what can you expect from the fight?  Unfortunately I haven't been able to record a gameplay video of it just yet, so for now we'll have to make do with some screenshots.  I will have a video ready in time for next month's update, once the final polish and balance changes have been done.

The level starts in the typical style for a boss fight, showering you with weapons and ammo to get you started!

The main combat arena, with Rasputin and an altar front-and-centre

He'll start the fight off by effortlessly resurrecting a new enemy on the altar!

At times he'll turn the lights off with a snap of his fingers so he can float around at a rapid speed

Other times he'll try to hypnotise you.  If you can't break line-of-sight on him before he claps his hands, you'll be forced to walk towards him for a time while he attacks again

His main attacks do a lot of damage.  One of them will likely kill you in one hit if you aren't ready

That's it for this development update.  It's been great fun working on this boss fight so I hope you've enjoyed reading about it, and will enjoy playing it when the game is released.  Stay tuned for next month's update, where there will hopefully be two videos - one of the boss fight, and another of either Map 10 or 11 in it's entirety.  It'll be good to finally finish those maps as well!

Once again, thanks for reading!