Captains,
Hope everyone is doing well!
Three months have passed, which means we're back with another State of Development for Selaco. We'll be covering four topics this time around:
Closed Beta Sign-Ups
State of Development
Modding SDK Information
v0.92b Patch Notes
Plenty of exciting stuff. Let's dive in!
With Chapter 2 bringing massive changes to both the game and its engine, especially when it comes to lighting, shadows and performance, we want to make sure everything is rock solid before we hit our Chapter 2 launch date.
To do that, we're running a Technical Beta for a portion of our Early Access playerbase - taking place in a Remastered Chapter 1 level so you can get an early taste of what's coming.
Release date is TBD, but you can sign up now. No paperwork or NDAs required!
NOTE: Due to the potential volume of submissions, we will not be able to get back to everyone. If you have been selected, you will receive an email in the near-future!
As is tradition, here's another update on how development is going.
Work on the update continues, and it's going well! In fact, we're planning on launching the Chapter 2 Update later this year. A more specific timeframe will be announced once we're closer to the finish line -likely a couple of weeks in advance.
We've written a more in-depth piece a couple of months ago that shows a tremendous amount of the new content that's coming your way. If you're interested in learning more, I recommend giving this blog post a read.
Despite Selaco being made by only a handful of people, it's amazing to see just how fast things are moving! Below are some of the things we've been working on these last couple of months.
One of our goals with Selaco is to have such a high degree of voice variety, that players can put dozens of hours into the game and still hear new lines from time to time. We've largely succeeded with that in the current Early Access build, but given how much longer the game is about to get, the need for more variety became apparent.
Over the past three weeks we've been doing a lot of recording sessions with our actors. Roughly 1.000 new voice lines have been recorded for our enemy soldiers (Enforcers included). We'll be doing another batch closer to the Chapter 2 launch to get more context-specific lines in as well.
We've also been holding auditions for other characters, and are currently getting ready for the ACE Security voices.
(Not an in-game screenshot)
On top of that, we're working really hard on a boss fight. But we'll remain tight-lipped about that one for the time being.
Swappable Weapon Kits have been finished! We talked about this before, but it was only an idea back then that we hadn't implemented yet.
The way it works is simple: you select two Weapon Kits in a Safe Room, and during gameplay you can swap between them at the push of a button. Two seconds later, you'll be using the Reserve Weapon Kit you selected earlier. Applies to Throwable items, too!
Our enemy AI rewrite is complete! Well, mostly complete - enemy combat encounters are now more dynamic than they've ever been, we just have to iron out some of the remaining kinks before we can put a stamp on it.
Here is a brief rundown on what has been changed:
Enemies now have proper Line of Sight and 'vision cones', allowing players to flank or backstab enemies without being instantly detected - even when they're already on alert. No longer do they have eyes at the back of their head.
Enemies now have to physically turn around to face their target before being able to attack, rather than snapping directly onto their target. This was a common complaint.
Their navigation and pathfinding has been fully rewritten with a focus on making their movement more natural and making it easier for them to reach their target. This new system also allows pathfinding to remain intact even when they're strafe-firing or attacking while retreating. If they want to be aggressive, they will reach you.
Soldiers can now issue follow commands to one another. Essentially a buddy system where two characters stick together at all times
Many improvements have to made towards their target prioritization when there's multiple combatants. If you have a sentinel drone that's being a nuisance, they will attempt to take it down.
Enemies are less overly oppressive without losing their sense of presence, giving players a little more room to breathe, plan ahead, or reposition without getting swarmed.
And so, so much more!
This does not mean the game will be easier. Their updated navigation makes them more deadly than ever, so the other changes balances this out wonderfully.
We're very happy with these changes. The combat feels much more addictive, and playtests have come back very positive. We expect the first thing players will notice is just how much better the combat flows while retaining Selaco's identity.
We've brought an artist on board who is creating character illustrations for every single enemy in the game. As such, here is a rough sketch of one of the new Chapter 2 enemy types:
And some of the finished ones:
Fine, let's show off one more enemy type then! This is an Invader equipped with a shield - and a very durable one at that. They're aggressive enemies who will actively try to push you away from their allies. And, this being Selaco, there are of course a thousand different ways to deal with them.
Now that enemies have to turn before they can attack, players can exploit the Oppressor's slower turning speed to get around the shield and shoot from an exposed angle. Alternatively, you can apply force to briefly stagger them and knock the shield aside - whether through a point-blank Shotgun shot, a Slide Kick, or other means.
They're still in their early stages, but shaping up well!
We've already shown some screenshots in the past, but here are some new ones.
(All screenshots are Work in Progress and will change!)
And so, so much more. Honestly, it's impossible to fill a blog post with all the things we've been doing without exceeding the size limit of a Steam Blog (if there is one).
We talked about introducing a Modding SDK before, which will become available a couple of weeks after Chapter 2 launches. Here's a brief look at what that will include.
The Modding SDK will be free DLC that players can download. Upon doing so, a new folder is created in their game directory containing many of the source files we've used to develop the game.
For instance...
Every single Weapon Model
Fully rigged Player Arms to allow modders to create all new animations and / or weapons
And, of course, enemy models!
The SDK won't just include assets, either. It will also include scripts to make sprite rendering easier, a converter to turn PNGs into DDS (which is more efficient on VRAM), and more. We also think this will be valuable for people trying to get into game development and want to see how the sausage is made, and for artists who need drawing references for Selaco related art.
Being deep in Chapter 2's development makes it hard to fully commit to older builds - we've reached a point where most changes would need to be done twice, given how different the codebase has become compared to the Early Access build.
The Save Menu previously lacked meaningful information, it was a long list of nonsensical names that ended up being confusing for players and often resulted in a lot of trial and error.
With this update, we've overhauled how saves are displayed to give a more structured list, including a proper level name, total time spent in that run, and icons to convey additional information at a glance.
Reworked Save Game UI
Added ability to change the amount of Autosave Slots. If the maximum has been reached, the oldest Autosave will be overwritten (Default: 16)
Added prompt when overriding previous saves
Cleaned up selection graphics for 'Delete Game' to make it more obvious when it's selected
DEV NOTE: Selaco aims for full object persistence throughout the entire game, meaning all corpses, object positions, and destruction states are exactly as you left them 30 or more hours ago. For most players, this won't cause any issues - but for those playing with Permanent Destruction and Permanent Gore enabled, save files can get massive! Being able to reduce the number of Autosave Slots will help prevent the Steam Cloud from hitting its storage limit.
(I promise this switch is not off-center in the actual update!)
We noticed from several playthroughs that players were running right past switches because they blend in too well with the environment. We've made two improvements:
Switches that are required to progress the game now have a glow effect
The green lamp on the switch is now emissive
Fixed layout issues in Invasion Tiers menu. Tier buttons were often centered for some reason
Fixed scrollbar in Invasion Tiers menu being impossible to click on (This menu is entirely reworked in Chapter 2)
Added more robust random enemy encounter spawn position checking, nobody should spawn in places that have not been visited and no enemies should spawn immediately behind you or in a room you just left from seconds ago
The increased Trait Trigger chances for slower weapons now only applies to traits that are triggered when attacking
Fixed Trait Chances being way too high on weapons with a Low Rate of Fire
We've made some improvements to the tool that allows you to upload mods to the Steam Workshop. There were pain points people brought up.
WorkshopUploader should correctly upload thumbnail images the first time
Streamlined update process for changing title, thumbnail and tags
Added clarifying text when there are unpublished changes
If you ever wondered why many Selaco mods do not have a thumbnail, it was due to a bug on our end.
Damage decreased from 8 to 7
Still deal high damage, but no longer insta-kills a player with high health and armor
Damage now scales with difficulty
Improvements to Level 2-3 to fix a few navigation issues many players were facing
Fixed an issue where a sequence break in Level 2-1 would deny 100% completion
Corrected Switch position that was horrifyingly off-center
Fixed an error where Alt Fire Weapon Description would cut off too early in some instances
Fixed a typo for the Cranial Penetrator Upgrade description
Fixed numerous texture problems for Intel ARC users
Fixed a crash caused by Strafe Nodes when the calling actor stopped existing
Fixed a rare crash caused by projectiles being destroyed earlier than they should
This is usually where we talk about how you can roll back to the previous version of the game, but given how this update is focused mainly on added convenience rather than major changes, we felt that setting up a new rollback version won't be necessary.
However, if problems do appear with this new build, we will set up a rollback version so you can play on the previous one while we are fixing things up.
Worth mentioning: Valve has recently made it much easier to dig up older versions of the game! Rather than a dropdown, there's now a clean list of every version you can try. Good stuff!
DEV NODE: We are aware that some older versions do not seem to launch. We will fix this in the near future - we're not quite sure what went wrong here.
These have been a good couple of months when it comes to making progress, enough to where we feel confident in planning to launch it this year.
If you want to help us succeed with Selaco, Steam Reviews are immensely helpful! they give us useful feedback while also giving the game additional visibility on the Steam Store. If you haven't already, please consider sending us your thoughts there.
And as always, feel free to ask questions in the comments and I'll try to get back to them. I'm always willing to answer questions about my fishtank.
Not much longer now. Back into the mines we go ♥
Nexxtic
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