BOOM! We have officially completed Milestone 1!!! WOOHOO!!
I'm super proud of what the team has accomplished in a mere 10 weeks of effective team time. From hiring a completely new team to getting everybody on the same page and delivering something that actually feels, looks, and sounds really good. We essentially rebuilt the original prototype you saw in the trailer into something much better for development.
Post update:
Adding some of the things we have been working on in various stages of development:
Classes
- Assault
- Engineer
- Medic
- Hacker
Character class abilities
- Medic: Healing ray
- Medic: Area revive
- Assault: WaveCracker (Shockwave blast)
- Engineer: Droppable gun turret
- Hacker: Stasis field
- Hacker: Invisibility field
Weapons
- Engineer: Shotgun
- Assault: Assault rifle
- Medic: Burst rifle
- Hacker - Rapid fire SMG
- Handgun for all classes
Bullet types
- Bouncing bullets
- Penetrating bullets
Level based pickups
- Minigun
- Flamethrower
- Grenade launcher
- Burst / Auto shotgun
Haulables
Things you can haul around in the levels
- PowerCore (mission objective)
- Gun turret
- Energy recharger
- Health recharger
(Also static versions of charger and turret)
Level systems
- Room based fog of war system pushing the feel of exploring the unknown.
- Procedural level generation
Mission types
- Swarm (Basically a first stab at a survival mode as a time based challenge as it's own thing)
- Infiltration (One of the main game modes.. get ind.. do stuff.. get the hell out!)
Other things
- PlayerHUD (Individual small floating player HUDs following the player)
- Selecting class and late joining in the game.
- A massive push on the environment art side of things.
- A more dynamic and smooth character locomotion system.
Milestone 1 was focused on getting class-based gameplay up and running in local co-op. And that's exactly what it does. Although there are still a lot of rough edges, feedback from local 4-player testing has been very positive so far. The game seems very easy and intuitive to pick up and play.
There are a ton of design challenges ahead, from all the little things to big things like online multiplayer. That is the next big hurdle to overcome in Milestone 2.
While in the delivery phase of MS1, we actually got a head start on MS2. Today, we had the first playtest of online multiplayer at the office in a VERY early stage. We were basically running around in the player hub where many things were not being replicated over the network for the other players. But it was actually functional and a great leap forward nonetheless to see the game running online.
Yes, the playhub is also something new and will be expanded upon in the future.
The four classes we will initially focus on are Assault, Engineer, Medic, and Hacker.
More good things are in the works!
And now, back to making the rest of the game!
Cheers and all the best for the Bitfire crew!
Jonas / Game Director @ Bitfire Games
Feel free to drop by our Discord. You are very much invited! :)
https://discord.com/invite/YDrrCwA
And wishlist of Steam if you haven't.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2303200/DarkSwarm/