Hello everyone!
It's been a long wait for you and a lot of work for me, but I can confidently say that the 1.3 update is finally ready. It includes a new map expansion, a new monster, improved enemy behavior, performance optimizations, and many other fixes and improvements.
1. Reactor Sector Expansion
This took the most time and effort to create, and it's by far the biggest addition in this update. The Reactor Sector has been completely redesigned and expanded, including a main hall, control room, storage rooms, and connecting hallways.
This sector acts as the finale of the first level (Prison). Once completed, it will unlock an elevator leading to the next level (Sewers), which will be added in the future updates.
2. New Monster: Fatty!
Fatty is huge, slow, has a lot of health, and deals massive damage - basically a tank. It can also shoot acid balls that explode on impact, leaving behind acid puddles that damage player if they step in them.
Use bigger guns or throw a few grenades to take it down efficiently.
3. Enemy Behavior and Spawning Improvements
In this update, I completely redesigned enemy spawning. Spawning is now much more scripted and controlled through triggers and event spawners, replacing the previous approach that relied mostly on distance-based spawning.
This change significantly improves the flow of the game and allowed me to remove enemy respawning entirely. Now, if you clear an area, it stays clear.
I also felt that Rib and Leggy monsters were too easy to deal with, so I've made them much more aggressive. They now move faster and pursue the player more relentlessly. This also makes the stamina system more important, as you'll need to sprint more often to maintain distance. The less health you have and the more items you're carrying, the less stamina you'll have available, making it harder to escape dangerous situations.
Enemies have become a bit smarter as well. They can now hear gunshots and react accordingly. Depending on their distance from the source of the noise, they may investigate it or move away from it.
And last but not least, enemies will now try to navigate around dead bodies and smaller obstacles by maneuvering to the sides, making headshots more difficult to land.
4. Other Changes
The player now moves slower when walking backward.
Reduced the flashlight's range and enabled dynamic shadows, making it feel more immersive.
Explosions no longer affect players, enemies, or dynamic objects that are behind cover such as walls and doors.
You can now start sprinting instantly without needing to walk first. This makes sprinting more responsive and parkouring much easier.
Added breakable glass.
Improved performance by reducing enemy AI path recalculation frequency, removing unnecessary shadow casters such as floors and ceilings, reducing shadow render distance, and replacing or removing many decal projectors with simple quads.
Fixed a bug where door opening and closing sounds could be heard when loading a save or using an elevator.
Fixed a bug where the laser wall deactivation sound could sometimes continue looping after the lasers were turned off.
Added a new console command: *testscene.
Renamed console commands:
*getallnotes -> *getnotes
*openalldoors -> *opendoors
Adjusted the materials of some objects and weapons, making them shinier.
Flashlight battery now lasts longer and recharges faster.
PDA opening animation is now slightly faster.
Various other fixes and improvements.
That's all for now!
Now that I think about it, it's been about four months since the last update, which is kind of wild. But that's to be expected - the Reactor Sector was a LOT of work, since it includes many different components. I also took a two-week break along the way, so that's that too...
Let's just hope the next update doesn't take quite as long. The next update will probably be a smaller one (1.3.1) and will include many of the features I originally planned for 1.3, including further reworks of some older areas, additional optimizations, and improvements to Nightmare Mode.
Until next time, have a great time everyone!