Alien meets Hostel in yet another low-poly sci-fi themed horror-comedy fps
(UPDATE: FINISHED!) https://mutantleg.itch.io/zortch

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Let me get straight to the point:

This is Zortch Maxinum

a young adult girl (professional slacker) whose vacation took a turn for the worse

This is a Brainsucker:

highly intelligent being with a taste for human brains

 with the help of their cronies they have been capturing humans for centuries in whatever way they could
their latest scheme was to pretend their planet is a giant beach resort
fortunately only someone really dumb would fall for that ..
..err..

here are some screenshots:




also some teaser videos:

Progress so far:
Characters (models and animation), world textures, guns, gameplay code, bosses are mostly finished
There are still plenty of work to do and  so the planned release date is unknown

Fun facts:
- uses it's own custom engine
- started as LAB 2  but things got out of hand

that's all for now, see you at the next update!

a little status update (I hope I can manage to make these weekly)

right now I'm busy combining various level stubs into full blown levels

hmm.. not much of an update I suppose and this page looks kind of empty
so here are a few more screenshots:

Swimming in the pool - pictured: indifferent jellyfish - and a giant eye is firing a homing missile

A pissed Bloop Tank is shooting electric charges at us, meanwhile a smaller one on the background is on fire

Shooting at some pipes for some reason - that weird looking thing is your shotgun

Not only the planet has no beaches - it doesn't even have a sea!

"The brochure was a lie - the sun was simply a spotlight"

recovering from health issues (there goes the plan for an update every week)

still managed to do some small updates:

- finally got the framerate to be stable: there was a very silly error where the flares were projected and calculated even if no flare sprite was set and brought the frame rate down - now its a consistent 60fps as it should be

- optimisations for the level editor  - a seemingly never ending task
 I  still have trouble balancing maps as they get larger - turns out no matter how much you plan ahead or no many tricks one comes up with - the sheer amount of content will always be a problem e.g.: this is a supposed to be a small game and maps still got about 300-500 actors on them

some screenshots - of the editor this time - a look behind the scenes:

one of the more complicated rooms

a top down view (the tiny blue dots are actors - about the size of a human ingame)

setting up an ambush

a small update -- I intent this devlog as a  semi-post-mortem as well -- and indeed it was started long long after I started making this game
so I would like to talk about some history so far:

- I started working on this right after Nekkrobox
- one of the goals was to improve upon things: have more guns, more enemies, improve content overall
- the project originally started as reasearch and practice and ended up in quite a feature creep
- there were about 30 enemies made until I realised I don't exactly have a plan with them

some problems I encountered and solved so far
- originally there was running and you would walk holding Shift - this was replaced by changing Shift to be sprinting - you are very fast and cannot shoot
- crouching turned into a replacement of sneaking - it not used much during the game but it gives a better immersion to have it
- a portable health kit was added - right now it counts as one of the weapons - as it was not a staple for FPS games a while I figured players might not notice it (we will see)
- many of the guns are a combination of multiple guns (the shotgun is both the single and double barreled one, the grenade launcher doubles as the rocket launcher)
- I also found out that a second reload makes guns feel better and the combat more intense - so for example for the shotgun originally you only had to pump it after every two shots - but a limit was added so it only can hold 12 shots
- still to make it less impactful - this update is only there to make the game feel better - Zortch reloads the gun 2 shells at a time

anyway please excuse my rambling, I realise it doesn't make much sense to anyone but for me yet
here is another vid with earlier versions of the characters:

a small update:
as you know one of the problems with making maps for an FPS is that sometimes you just don't know what sort of enemy to place
especially if there are many to choose from
for some reason I decided that one of the problems is that I don't have enough types
and the one that is missing is an enemy that can jump and also run and fire at the same time
(naturally I immediately added 5 variants for this enemy .. but I digress)
now turns out giving such an enemy a grenade launcher is not that hot of an idea..
especially with monster infighting implemented..
observe:

"not sure if I'm still needed here"

on one hand and I want to leave it in as is .. because it's hilarious
on the other hand this kind of eliminates difficulty: you just need to
find a good  hiding spot and wait for your enemies to deal with eachother
(I figure the joke will get old quick)

such are the problems with the development of this game

(please note: they actually check before shooting to not shoot the other ones in the back
.. but with grenades this check doesn't do us any good)

Finally figured out what the first boss should be..
you would thing that is something that would have been figured out earlier of course
but thing is making the start of a game is such a hard thing:
it needs something to introduce people to the mechanics and still be entertaining
e.g. there is always a chance that this might be someones first fps game (fat chance but still)

then the later levels can go out of their way being crazy
and that is something much easier to plan out

of course it's obvious now but the first boss is one of the brainsuckers
for a while I was not sure if they should be the final boss or just a medium boss who show up
now and then and their leader to be the final boss

anyway some screenshots:

the first boss hard at work at this little terminal - some brainsuckers are invisible to be able to sneak up on their victims (we can add Predator to the ripped off franchises list .. of course in this game's lore they are coated in a special paint)

you can spot some snacks  at the desk..

afters some damage the boss becomes visible and more pissed at us

also the game sports a non-violent mode and this seem to be the right date to show it off

see you next time!

addendum to the previous update -- I forgot to add screenshots of the so called first level (it evolved a bit since then of course)

Edit: reading back I realised I forgot to talk about the first level at all..

anyway: long story short is that I'm convinced that after the first part of the game is done
like the first 1-2 levels and first boss  the rest of the game will be easier to make
the idea is that the first levels are both and introduction to the player
and introduces the main mechanics but does not get too rough
of course it  all sounds very obvious -- the tricky part is how to think like a new player
from experience I found that new players are very creative when it comes to ignoring the obvious
and I need to think about every single possibility to make things airtight
.. so this is my biggest worry -- the first ~10 minutes of a game is everything and needs the most attention
and I lost count how many times I restarted this level

some of the prison cells

on our way to the reactor without any bad intentions

just looking around

there is a jailbreak in progress

"Rarr! Stop posting devlogs and finish this game already you slacker!" - yells the raptor

- had some performance problems and decided to add fogging to the first level
- it's a prison level so I thought it would kill two birds with one stone: improve performance by not rendering far things and make it more moody
- problem is the walls got invisible if they got out of the camera frustum and the skybox got visible behind them
- I experimented and changed the sky to use stencil textures
- but the stencil caused problems with the framebuffer (off screen) rendering and I had to rewrite the whole thing
- but this has the added advantage that I can create weird rooms now:

also some screenshots:

I found out that if I use the same textures for the skybox as the level it gives the impression that the level is much  much bigger than it is

now its more like a city than a prison

also started the second level ..  here is a shot from the editor. I just wanted a small introductory section but then things got out of hand (maybe I'm getting better at this?)

until next time!

still working on the second level

it got a bit bigger since last time  (maybe a little too big )

now it feels more like a vacation

I found that CSG and caves don't match: now I just use raw meshing to mold them to shape -- it feels like working with digital silly putty
another secret is that lowpoly caves are all about the texture

oh dear oh dear oh dear

upgraded the spider mines

they sure came a long way since their first draft

and finally here is a little video about them:

just a small update .. with small screenshots!

I  created a new skybox for the second level:
I realised I can combine a (seemingly) infinite plane with a regular skybox
if the skybox  has an alpha channel

also added a lens flare effect to the sun

there were of course a few bumps in the road:

MADRE DIOS

and I had to rewrite the sky rendering again:

also I found out I can use the console and screenshots to leave messages for myself to correct later on the maps:

until next time!

just a small progress report this time

map 2 is more or less finished  there are some small errors still
(e.g. you can pick up the key through the forcefield without disabling it)
but the map structure is all there

for now here is a little collage of the progress:

last image also shows the baked lightmap

started on map3 - so far its a little green



also the red door has been redrawn .. it's hard to make photos with these dudes around
(of course I could disable them witch cheats but .. well it just  doesn't feel right)


hmm.. I guess I'm slowly losing my head

until next time!

another small update (with small screenshots)

progress on the third map is going fine - in fact it's almost ready
(gameplay wise it's ready but I still want to place more decoration)

in case if you are wondering: those boxes are meant to be a maze
at first I worried that it will be too easy  to solve - naturally I keep getting lost in it during testing


here is an earlier version in wireframe view


also I started on making a restaurant based area for a later level ..
 I want to have some cheap burger joint in the game .. this is about its fifth restart


 thing is designing buildings is not my forte


and indeed the toilet has a fatal flaw

until next time!

- updated the console to have proper typing (and I'm ashamed to say that I have never heard of WM_CHAR before ..
one of the downsides of making your own engine I suppose)
- spent most of the time fixing bugs
- added a new weapon (kind of - you can now place the tripmines on the walls)
- updated breaking glass  effect

also the saving system is under testing .. had some major bugs with restoring the textures after a savegame is loaded

I'm not sure if I should be worried more about  that this cadaver managed to steal an items texture or the fact that he is rocking it

some update on the restaurant map as well:

still need to replace most of the textures but already looks ok lightmapped


and it somewhat looks like a restaurant



it kind of outgrew itself .. I wanted it to be a small part of a larger level
but now it's big enough to be it's own level


as you can see there are a lot of glass windows -
you will have a lot of fun on this map if you like breaking glass


I know I do

until next time!

did some optimisations:
- the first level (prison) was running a bit slow -- turns out the root cause was the energy doors everywhere
and they slowed things down because their bounding box was way too big
- everyone was thinking too hard - when a monster stays put it tries to do a linetest every now and then
to check if the player is  seen - and I just placed way too many of them 
- frame skipping transition was way too visible 

also added a soccer field to the restaurant map:

in general development is plagued by feature creep
I thought this fancy isometric view would be useful for making maps ..
but it's only useful for making fancy screenshots

also added a soccer ball model

because that's important..

check  it out in action:

until next time!

more optimisations
I did some profiling on the code to see what parts are still slow
turns out checking the  z-buffer (for flares) was as slow as rendering the whole scene
so the flare check was replaced by linetest (the downside that it only works against the geometry
and now you cannot blot out the sun with your guns)

finally fixed a curious error with sounds - on the second level a garage door wouldn't play..
but only if you went through  and finished the first level
turns out in OpenAL  alGetError is also used to clean up any previous errors
and you need to do that before doing anything critical

more optimisations for the first level: I had to remove some parts

unfortunately my occlusion culling is 2D - only the empty areas count as walls

not only that but these large holes are only potentially obstruct ..
I will need to come up with a better scheme in the future -- but for now I just need to
remember that carving out one large room and filling it with stuff is a bad idea to make a level


also I added the movieset to the ever growing restaurant level


it will be in this little silo


I was not too happy with the previous version - the initial idea was that it's a giant camcorder
that is recording the scene


so I decided to make an actual asset for the camera and not rely on the level editor


I believe this is what kids today call as jank

until next time!

this time I did some restructuring ..  thing is I lost track of how many level stubs I got
and realised that starting a new map from scratch can wait for later

here is the current level select  as you can see there are 5 bosses and about 19 levels (in  various stages)
so I decided that it's time to cut things and 15 levels + 5 bosses will be plenty
also 5 levels from these will be small and very linear maps
the four extra maps will be merged into .. wherever I can merge them into
and there will be 10 big levels - and by big I mean these will be the exploratory levels
so these will take about 10-15 mins per map and I predict that the full game will be about 3 hours tops
.. which is still a lot considering that my past games only took about 30 mins max to beat (according to lets plays I found)

ok so the plan is:
10 big maps  5 small maps  5 boss maps

of course these are just plans - and you know how plans are
(I originally wanted 30 large levels after all )

anyway this is one of the maps I reworked to be the new level 2 (so the old level 2 is now level 3 and so on)
this was originally a frankensteinish mish-mash of various ideas put together and they never quite fit
and back then I decided to deal with it later

this is how it looked like before the rework


this is after - as you can see only most of the lower part was kept


the little basketball field and the large room was what I wanted to keep  -
there is a joke with the basketball room that I absolutely insisted on having in the game
and so the whole map was twisted and turned to make it work

an unfriendly game of basketball

to get all secrets on this level you need to throw the ball in the hoop
just to screw with potential 100% speed runners



your reward is a powerup - in this case the Zortch equivalent of Dooms megasphere (extra health and armor)



still redoing this map was not easy - I left myself many notes with the
"just type it into the command line and make a screenshot " trick
which starting to prove itself very useful


sometimes I figured out the solution as I was typing (here I was wondering why some enemies didn't spawn)
many times I would just make a quick note without thinking .. like a reflex

in the end one thing is certain:

.. I'll see myself out

also here is another little gameplay video - this time about puzzle design:

until next time!

warning - more crazy planning ahead
(mostly just updates on the levels)

ok so I added a little thumbs up icon for maps that I feel are good enough for release
of course after everything is done then I plan to polish them a bit - but for now they are good enough
the red circled ones are being built right now
and I plan to merge the two sewer-ish maps together
(they are sewer in name only - pipes and water pretty much it)
I don't know what will be the fate of the question marked maps yet


also there is this tiny level -- that is sort of completed and doesn't fit in with the rest
for now I figured it could be an unique level in the demo version



this map was originally going to be a city map at the later phase



not much was done - turns out big maps are hard to make and hard to play



after some trimming and moving things around this its current state



it's still pretty big but much more fun to play



another before image - things were a bit empty



it's amazing what a little paint and some iron grating can do



there is a little metro area - below the stairs you can find a little security room
where you can look at the security cams



the enemy behaviour keeps surprising me -- what is this mofo even doing?



also I combined the planetarium area with a miniboss map
the original idea for this map was that all room doors are locked
and you can only use the ventilation areas to go to new areas
and end up in small but bizzarre locations everytime
I'd still like to extend this a bit (make it more of a labyrinth)
but for now it's good enough



and the burger place saga is still on .. this time with a small update



the silo was moved into the cliff and acts to connect the two areas



the lower half of the map looks like a banana -- but I assure you it's not intentional

until next time!

just a small update about some fixes

so I had a problem with lightmap errors popping up everywhere

turns out no matter how well you calculate the lights or how big the lightmap resolution is
there will be errors

some more visible than others

so the way the lightmap is now calculated is that the whole map is turned into one single mesh
which hindsight is not that a hot idea lightmap wise - but I digress

and then the triangles are grouped together into small surfaces based on their normals
the algorithm is pretty much trying to get the biggest flat surfaces possible
and then we do a planar uv on them (not that simple as it sounds)

now the problem here was that CSG was added to the editor and the resultings rooms
are  generated into one big mesh -- which is then cut into small pieces to help visibility culling
but the cuts are not perfect and by a very tiny bit the coordinates and uv coordinates are different
at the edge of a cut

now when the groups are built for the lightmaps it was too strict and looked for exact matches for vertex coordinates

now they are packed better - it's still not perfect as there are holes - but the space is much better used

 for many this is but a boring wall but for me - it simply pleases me to look at it

until next time!

I'm trying to take it easy and rest (like you supposed to on a holiday or something)
but find myself working on the game still

with most technical problems solved I have no choice but to make levels
(no wonder most people nowadays go with random level generation - this is some hard work)

so I had two sewer levels for some reason  and decided to combine them

only the large swimming pool area was kept from the top one - I'm not sure what to do with the rest (probably will be included in some other level)

this is a shot of the small sewer level - I thought it would be easy to make
but had the most problems .. and I'm still not happy with the lighting

for the subway level I added a hack to the game that exports the full path as a mesh


it's now easier to plan out things .. but I'm not sure what to add next

overall there are 6 maps still need to be finished  and three are already half done

anyway here is a long boring vid about the level editor:

see you next year!

first update of the year - I never know when it's appropriate to stop pretending I'm resting and actually work .. and it happens each year.. I wonder how others do it? 🤔 

but I digress

now according to the games lore the Brainsuckers are capturing spaceships (or at least used to)
those crash on the planet, the Brainsuckers open it up somehow (like a shellfish)
and then they promptly eat the brains of the crew - and use the remains of their body for experiments
this is an important story point because it explains some of the creatures backstory
(e.g. parasites from the spaceships,  body horror experiment enemeis)
..the thing is even though it sounds like a good idea that is logically built up
when it comes to  explaining it ingame things get tricky

so I thought why not hint about it in the level background (or skyboxes in this case)
e.g a skybox with a spaceship graveyard  (not easy as it sounds)
and there could be giant magnets to capture ships ..
thing is  it's not obvious what these are for  and I would still need to explain
about it in a manual or something



one of the first problems with a spaceship graveyard level is that you need spaceships
of course there are plenty of asset stores around but finding something with my games
style and my low poly demands is near impossible -- for now I'm trying to make as many as I can



naturally I made things even worse for myself because I want a big shuttle to be one of the levels
because I thought it would be interesting and look cool .. and be easy to do .. turns out it isn't



as I found out modelling a spaceship is rather simple  (any sort of geometry will do and just call it a ship)
the problematic part is texturing them
usually the cop out is to have add a lot of details to the surface and let the lights and shadows
do the hard work - a now ancient trick discovered by lucasarts for movies  - but this is a bit tricky with a lowpoly style



 another problem with 3D models - too often they look better without textures

until next time

just a small update 

the burger map saga continues:

now I removed the football field (will be on another level)
and moved the restaurant in the lower canyon part
I'm not fully happy with the colors - it was supposed to look dawnish
(so not sunny but not in the night either)

also I started on another map - I felt there are not enough moving things on the maps
so this one will be a factory area full of them



there will be some jumping -- but everything moves slowly and there is no falling damage

still .. there are some bugs now and then

also a vid about the also in-progress shuttle level:

until next time!

another small update

seems I figured out what the remaining maps should be
it's quite ironic: at first I wanted all the maps to be weird and abstract
hence why the game takes place on an alien world
but turns out that my brain just doesn't work that way
all of the levels need some logic behind them or they just feel wrong

anyway

I made this underground castle - it's kind of hard to see

there are plenty of guards - I guess people will can just follow where the bullets coming from

from up it looks better

also I added this secret area and wanted to add a brainsucker statue
but accidently added an invisible brainsucker instead .. works a lot better though

and here is a video of another level I'm working on - I added conveyor belts to the factory level

until next time!

another small update (mostly just mapping updates)

only three maps left (sort of - polishing is still left for all maps)

still throwing around ideas for the last level - this one has a bunch of pyramids and teleports
it's not bad but I'm not sure about it

another idea for a bigger map - a large shopping mall
still at the early stages

a sort of multi-store map - the engine is not quite optimised for it but they are a lot of fun

so far it's shaping up better than I expected (I tried to make mall levels before
there are about 5-6 rejected ones)

for the subway level I'm just winging it .. the subway part looks great and works great
its the rest of the level that is tricky

until next time!

more map making shenanigans

decided to go with my first gut feeling and  put the burger place on its own level after all
I finally textured it and now it is in this little crater

the movie studio and the football field moved to the mall level

and retextured the shuttle on the uhh.. shuttle level

for now the plan is to take a break
and don't play/test the game make levels or do anything for a week at least
then look at it with fresh eyes and figure out what should be changed (go through all levels)
and then after everything is ready start on the final level
I might try to make some of the remaining artwork 
(I really should just rest but I know myself)

until next time!

an even smaller update this time

finally done with the burger level (phew!)

in the end I moved the soccer field section back there
this was the most difficult map to make so far



the mall level is almost done - mostly the  enemy placement is missing
I have some additional ideas I want to add but I feel burnt out and really need a break

considering that at the start of this devlog there was only one single finished level
and now there are about 20 I think I made good progress
on the other hand I never want to make a game this big again
which is ironic because it's a small game.. oh well

what's left is making the ending and some additional artwork
.. and endless polishing and testing

until next time!

post zortchtest update!

first of all a recap for those not in the loop,
the zortchtest revealed a few very large bugs:
(also once again thanks for everyone who tried zortchtest)

 there was an error with the stencil test:
  - on windows if you want anti-aliasing you need to make two windows: one to request an opengl context - with the opengl context you can ask if the gpu supports anti-aliasing - if you do then you close this window and make a new opengl window with anti-aliasing support
- and there was a problem on the second window where I forgot to request a stencil buffer - and in this case you get a window format that either supports it or don't - and it was a toss up - some gpus returned one with the buffer and one without
- the stencil is used to draw the skybox - surfaces marked with the skybox texture only draw into the stencil
- the skybox is drawn after this step - without any depth checking - and without a stencil buffer the stencil test always passes - so the skybox ended up obscuring the whole world

there was a problem with loading things from zip:
- all the data is stored in large zip files
- loading from these files was surprisingly slow
- turns out it was opening and closing the file for every texture load
- this slowed things down for the initial load of the game (and somewhat loading textures for levels)
- there was a simple fix  for this - open the zip at start of loading and close it when it's done
- and still use the old method for loading resources ingame (which happens very rarely)

and now I'd like to talk about my  third big mistake: scaling of the lightmaps
- initially I wrote the unwrapper to maximise the size of the lightmaps
- the lightmaps are stored in one big single atlas texture (it's good practice to use as few textures as possible - switching between them is slow)
- I started to work on a new lightmapper and my goal was to be able to have multiple lightmaps in the game
- initially I was thinking of having lightmaps with the max size of 1024x1024
- because I have a small old laptop and this it's maximum resolution
- also old games like Quake3 had multiple lightmaps of 256x256 because at the time many video cards had this as max resolution
- now the thing is todays even the crappiest gpu has a max resolution of 16384x16384 per texture
- and in the level editor I have a preview mode - the lightmap is 256x256 for the whole level and it looks passable
- long story short: if I don't try to maximise the space used for the lightmap atlas and just say 32x32 world units is equal to 1x1 lightmap pixel
then - even for the biggest map - the lightmap comfortably fits into a 2048x2048 texture - with space to spare
- and on older gpus I just resize the texture and it still looks good enough
- I'm a fool.. an utter fool 😔

a screen from the editor - the lightmap for the entire map is a single 256x256 texture

I added an option to scale textures down if they are too big - and tested it by manually setting it
to a small value - this is a screenshot of the first test

I made a mistake somewhere and things got unintentionally funky

this a screenshot with the fix - the max texture size is set to 32x32 for debug

I kinda like this style - we now truly channeling the spirit of the N64

this is one of the old lightmaps - I tried to scale the uv coordinates to maximise the usage of space
 this didn't result in better looking lightmaps ingame - but more time needed to bake them

scaled down version of the lightmap (from the same level)
there is a lot of wasted space now - but the lightmap looks better ingame
and takes less time to bake

be sure to try out ZortchTest and tell me what you think!

until next time!

another small update

mostly working on fixing bugs (how can such a small game have so many bugs? 😔
adding small missing features - like giving the sharks ability to eat hamburgers
and boring stuff like adding extra details to levels:

starting area of a boss room - everything is all over the place

.. and here is the updated version: everything is neatly arranged  according to feng shui


 
I swear every time I open this map this room gets taller 🤔



I wonder if the games subtle environmental humor will be appreciated
on one hand: the problem was that the room felt too empty - that mission is accomplished
on the other hand: I thought it would be funny if they  tried to use a nuclear box as a makeshift beam
but it gives the impression that the ceiling has fallen on the box - so much for implementing ideas  😔


and finally: I tried to make a screenshot of the fan's new ambient sound - I may be getting tired 🥱


until next time!
and remember: you can already play the first level in ZortchTest!

and now for a mini update

I'm finally done with the ending - it's the longest ending I ever made for a game
but also feels really cheap..
it's kind of weird how much work was put into this game overall and it still feels cheap 🤔
(let this be a lesson to you kids: hard work doesn't lead to success - but I 'm getting ahead of myself)

anyway .. what is left is more refinement for the levels
they are all pretty much finished but could use more secret areas:
- there are not enough walls that can be destroyed by explosives I feel
- also there is a mysterious helper who helps you all through the game who is leaving messages for you
(and that is also how all the supplies lying around is explained)
I only need to actually hide these messages about otherwise the ending will just seem silly
(there is a big reveal about who is it)

now let me tell you - posing a low poly character around is not as easy as it looks:
Zortch may be ready for her closeup but her textures are certainly aren't
.. oh well that is programmer graphics for you

also some videos:
did I mention there are water sections in the game? and there are fish? and they are called piranha sharks? good thing they prefer fast food..

and another gameplay video:

and for my usual broken record moment: be sure to try out ZortchTest! (and comment about what you didn't like in it)

time for a micro update .. with micro screenshots!

I did a full playtest of the game today
the first three episodes seem to be great
the fourth is ok
and the fifth is a disaster

anyway here are some of the highlights  of the test:

I need to rethink the factory area
climbing up on moving stuff is not as fun as I thought
well.. the climbing is fun it's the  part where
you fall all the way down and have to do it over again is problematic
anyway this level needs a major rework

the shuttle level has a giant floor covered  in fans so it's a flying level
and turns out grenades caught in the fan never explode

on the last level the conveyors don't work
for this at least I know what is wrong



and I couldn't even check my time because
the ending got broken in the way
(it got tested hundreds of times before
and only broke on the playtest )

and there are other unrelated bugs..
but I don't know where to even begin

until next time!

another update

I started writing a help file (just simple single html one) for the editor
and after a full page (one screenful) of explaining hotkeys I realised it might be a more complicated program
than I remembered.. and I still haven't started on the model editing shortcuts

anyway
I'm done with rearranging the maps - made the hard decision to not to add more
I really wanted a 5x5 grid but I just don't have enough maps in me
I got enough raw material for it - just not good material

thing is I'm just tired and I had to realise I'm overcooking the game
and need to accept that there are levels and  ideas that I can't fit in no matter how good the initial idea was
so I need to face the music .. face the fact there are some ideas I just can't get to work
that only sounded good on paper  or I'm just simply not good enough to make work
anyway time for the last push and get this thing completed

still there are a few areas that I just can't let go:

the burgermap so far was nothing but trouble - I made about 4-5 variations for it and none of them worked
I tried to fit the restaurant into multiple existing maps but just doesn't fit
thing is it's an interesting area just not fun for combat
even redid the burger on the top - it now looks worse than ever
it's just an area I really want in the game  no matter what
ironically  it was first a small little amusing easy to do idea
I'm still hoping for a miracle - some idea where I could fit it
but I might need to let this one go

there are many more scenes I want to add of course
like this movie scene
this one is a bit easier because it only needs a small room

the planet scene I want to definitely add - but it's a big room
it's harder to figure out a good place for it

and for the toilet scene - I might already have an idea where it could fit in

also I  finally painted icons for the level select (mostly by painting over screenshots)
getting closer to completion 

anyway let me shill ZortchTest one more time (this is the first level of the game you can already play)

until next time!

just a small update

big news is that now I got some help - FreeHawk has agreed to beta test the game
I kind of pride myself on someone who is good at finding bugs - but this project
turned out to be simply too big

anyway we already found bugs I overlooked (e.g. shotgun sometimes doesn't reload when you run out)
and I'm already thinking about refinements for some levels

there was also one big bug that happened when testing the beta
I fixed the bug that could cause the player to get stuck in the hamburger
and random small holes in general
(it was related to clamping to the terrain)
and I feel more confident now about making levels and adding areas

but in turn this fix caused the second boss to simply disappear midfight
I drew a handy chart about what happened:

the cause was that with the new fix the boss was able to fit into smaller holes
there are special cases with geometry  e.g. when there is a slope on the ceiling
which are difficult to handle - so in this case the actors do multiple checks
to see if they were pushed into the wall
now this is a costly calculation so there is only a limited number of checks:
the player checks max  64 times - but enemies only 8 times
so the fix was simple: for all bosses the max check was increased to 64
also in case they fall off the map they count now as defeated so you don't get stuck on the level

another thing I'm working on is the ability to add custom levels
the editor is hard to use so I doubt there will be many made
but I thought I could include some of  the cut or unfinished areas this way
there is not much to mod  unfortunately - most of the game logic  is hard coded
but I figured some might want to add extra textures
so I added support to resize non power of 2 ones - just in case

this didn't went smoothly at first 

there is one big problem I'm not sure how to fix:
there is a potential crash with alt-tab -ing
but according to my research it's just something
win10 and win11 sometimes does
and it affects all games (wtf)

one solution is to use borderless window for fullscreen
but the game is already using that
so I'm not sure what to do about this

anyway despite all the problems release is getting very close
the last episode still needs some tweaking
and I want  to at least enhance the final boss a bit
not sure how to explain it without spoiling it though

until next time!

mini update

- finally fixed a light issue that only came up on some systems
turns out it was my fault again by screwing up an equation somewhere
the guns look a bit better now
- turns out there was not one but two issues with the shotgun reload

- working on the help file - made some animated gifs for the characters:

here we see Zortch in her natural state: confused but chill

right now the help file is just a html page
I hope I can turn it into a pdf later (but it looks better with animations)

originally I wanted the manual to be ingame
but I found that writing something witty for 30+ characters
is an impossible task

still it was nice to take a look at all the characters
the code is still there but needs major cleanup
maybe I'll restore it one day

I still need to do a write up on what changed on the first level of ZortchTest
and why .. but I'm too tired
there is just so much testing -- and I always find at least one little thing I want to change

"Until next time!"

another update

big news is that Abnessor is now also helping with testing

myself I'm mostly dealing with boring stuff like fixing bugs
like getting the framerate stable on as much machines as possible

now the game itself doesn't consume much resources
it should run about 60fps on an Intel UHD 600 GPU
(which has the extravagant 3DMark score of 134 https://www.3dmark.com/fs/23399206)

the funny part is that it only does it in windowed mode (according to tests  on my potato win10 laptop)
and it all falls apart on fullscreen (vsync goes haywire and sometimes waits more than 1 frame worth )
according to my research it's some sort of driver bug
that affects all of these cards - so I'm trying to figure out a workaround

also I thought it would be a good idea to target 60fps
now there are hardcore folks who demand more (with gaming PCs)
and there are many people for whom 60 is too much (causes nausea and motion sickness)
so in the end 60 is a framerate that is  not only difficult to achieve by all the driver and OS shenanigans
but also makes everyone disappointed in the end
now I know why most devs just go for 30 max and leave it at that 🤔

in other news a few new features were added that I believe I forgot to mention:

the game now checks if you did a save on the level and asks if you want to restore after defeat
(feature was suggested by FreeHawk)

of course not everyone found out about that you can save in ZortchTest so also there is a help page now:

hopefully it will clear a few things up
also as you see the default keys were changed so they are more common FPS controls
my default setup of course was combining Reload and Use - but this met with negative feedback
(it's still possible with setting both keys to the same key - probably I will be the only one playing this way)
also I preferred to use R to jump and F to crouch - the world was not ready for this either

there was also a bug with spidermines not giving clues about their whereabouts

for testing this I made their clues more subtle first - explosions above the ground

I found out their ground position was not reset properly after loading a save
and they were spawning the clues (little smoke effect) in the air

I'm also putting together maps for the demo
and cannot decide on which ones to use

so not much excitement..

until next time!

a special kind of update

code wise I'm working on some optimisations for the particle engine
it seems if I build the mesh for it in a seperate thread I can shave off some time (1-2ms)
from the rendering  (depending on how much are of them need to be drawn of course)

so I found some early concept art (from about 3 years ago when the project started)
and I thought it would be a fun idea to compare them to the final results
my idea of concept art of course is to load up an old mspaint and just scribble around 
without further ado:

some of them have notes

an early version of the guards (just  outlines without painting)

in the end I couldn't do justice to the giant frog's concept

also some early screenshots showing a bit different hud:

the earliest hud - still very doomish
it looked ok but I felt it takes too much space and also the numbers were confusing

the hud a bit closer to the final one - minus the font - some of the models are already  near their final form

"Join us next time to see just how hard it is to draw a brainsucker anyway?"

another look back at old concept art

now the original title for the game was "Zortch Maximum against The Brain Sucking Aliens"
and the inspiration was that brain sucking aliens is a sort of cliche in sci-fi
but funnily enough when you search for a movie that actually features this you hardly find any
this is kind of like the cliche of naming a dog 'Fido' - it's such a cliche that no dogs are named 'Fido' anymore

the thing was that I only had a title and some ideas for the plot
but only had some vague ideas on how the aliens would look like:
- I didn't want them to have legs and wanted some sort of lovecraftian abstract creature
- they of course had to be green
- no eyes - they have perception and senses just not as we know it
- and also they had to be intelligent and be able to talk to you somehow
the last part was kind of important - it was inspired by a fact I read about the original alien
in an early script the alien turns out to be able to mimic voices and make a log in Ripley's voice

and I just loved the idea so much: instead of a dumb  killing machine you are up against a smart killing machine
(one which runs by on a completely different idea of morals and logic - you won't talk yourself out of this one)
so not only they can overpower but outthink others as well - a creature that is really really dangerous

this somehow led to an idea of "Hostel meets Alien"
something about aliens that run a hotel to trap people
(so the game is a mish-mash of several ideas - some of them worked and some of them not so much)

anyway without further ado:

here is a selfie of a brainsucker -- so what led to this design?

some extra concepts like vehicles and bosses driving vehicles were dropped as they were beyond my capabilities to implement
there were plans for intro and cutscenes - but in the end it seemed better to leave things vague

I kind of forgot about the air cream joke -- maybe it's better that these were cut 🤔

"Next up: concept art of Zortch herself and more bad mspaint comics!"

and in this devlog we take a look at the protagonist herself
and her weird origins

in general I plan all my characters for potential sequels - and then end up never making a sequel
and I have so much fun planning that I always overshoot and only some of it gets in the game
usually end up very background lore heavy stuff .. where I am the only one familiar with the back-lore 😔

For the world itself there were a few important things:
- straight sci-fi  no twists, no metaphors  (no current events, trends or politics: true escapism)
- you are not saving the world or hostages - only yourself
- far from earth in space and time - but not that far:
   - humans are a nomadic species (escaped from earth a long ago - no contact with their homeworld)
   - space faring ended up with tougher humans:
     - almost immune to radiation
     - they are somewhat paleish with a slightly grayish skin
     - not competitive with aliens when it comes to invention: 
        - most of them are employed as laborers (blue collar)
- there are plenty of alien species - and only some of them humanoid

I also I like to mention I cannot draw the same character twice in the same way
I can't sign my name twice the same way either
my life is difficult 😔
but I digress

For the protagonist I wanted a somewhat generic hero - but with some twists:

- Zortch: generic mechanic girl
  - twist: she is an incompetent mechanic
  - she has talents and skill - just not in her field

  - country girl in the big city
  - polite and nice
  - yet incredibly destructive  ( not useful when you are supposed to fix things )
 
Some  traits are to explain away FPS game elements:
  - mechanic -> lot of pockets -> that is how the items and guns stored 

also I thought drawing hair like that would be easy to draw and model and came up with an explanation:
  - she doesn't like hair getting in her face -> but because her hands are covered in oil and she uses them to comb them back they end up in that weird triangular shape -> no shampoo in the world can take that stuff out
 

one of the reasons why I'm making a female protagonist is because I never made a game with one before (no finished ones at least) and also there is somewhat of a challenge element:
  - I heard that Mel Brooks was proud that with Get Smart he was the first one to make a TV series with an idiot in the leading role
and this was combined with the idea:
  - I read some interviews that the creators of Monkey Island felt that there couldn't be a 'Galbrush' the same jokes with a female lead wouldn't work
 in general there seem to be a trend of women getting portrayed as insanely competent in a world of buffoon oafish men

so in this case I thought of making a incompetent female: someone who is actually stupid and gets in trouble - but the twist is her other skills help her get out of it
and instead of a 'Galbrush' she is more of a female Roger Wilco (also she is nice to everyone but still only has a few friends - mostly non-human)

and another female portrayal I don't get is the 'Zero Suit Samus' -how they expect anyone to run in high-heels? - which is why I insist her on wearing these large boots (fun fact: funnily enough historically poor women would wear large boots and started wearing high-heels to look more like men - who wore them to make riding horses easier)
also originally I also wanted them to be rocket boots so you could use them for double jump - and would also explain how she has such strong legs for the ridiculously powerful kicks as they were huge heavy low-tech rockets - in the end this made planning levels too hard and now you just get an extra boost for kicking

and there are a few characters that directly inspired the design:
  - I really liked the design of the female lead in Cargo: Quest for Gravity
     which is where the idea of many pockets came from
     and the idea of having a character with insanely buggy pants filled with stuff
   who has these very large boots to kick stuff - which lead to another character that likes kicking:

  - I'm a fan of Duke3D and there was a question of how a female Duke would look like
  and in the end I found that I don't like Bombshell:     she gave me the impression of a typical abusive wine-mom
  so this lead to the idea: the heroine should be a young adult who is the opposite of this (someone who doesn't drink alcohol or smoke cigars etc. )

and some of the design choices were made during creating the 3D model:
  - I originally pictured Zortch with flat breasts - but she is so tomboyish you couldn't tell she is a gal
  - then agains she is nowhere as big as the female guards
  - in general it's tricky to model breasts that look average from far but not that big from close
  - of course the closer you get to things the bigger they seem 🤔

and one more important nuance:

this little chart shows the 'true origin' of Zortch - I wonder if anyone will be able to figure it out? 🤔

anyway, here is a concept art dump (proudly made in mspaint):

the original concept had you start with a BFG-ish weapon - you started with a rocket launcher instead of a pistol
as the lore went the nomadic humans would be harrased by giant space creatures
and  a simple 9mm just wouldn't cut it - so everyone had personal nuclear howitzers (an idea somewhat inspired by the Red Dwarf bazookoids)
it was a fun concept but ultimately didn't work in gameplay ( I wish I still had the prototype with it - it got lost along the way 😔

and of course making the 3D model was not easy
 I'm only good at making non-human models 😔
here is an early version:

and finally a separate one was used for the hud:

horrifying isn't it? - in the end I retouched the eyes in 2D

"It's  Amazing how much stuff ends up on the cutting room floor!"

next up: Leftovers

once again I'm recovering from an illness
still I can't help myself but work on the game
(usually the moment I get the strength to type on a keyboard  all hell breaks loose)

did some optimisations on the particles - I was too ambitious: one linetest per particle still could add up to thousands of linetests per frame if there are many of them
I try to replace all of these expensive checks with tricks (e.g. caching the ground Y coordinate for blood drops etc.)

also there was a weird rendering artifact with the lightmaps
I originally used a polygon offset for them which caused lines between shapes
the fix was weird: I'm not sure why but writing depth with 'less' or 'less or equal' seem to result in different depth .. weird

getting really close to release

anyway without further ado, some remaining concept art:

and some plans for the manual with character bios:

and believe it or not this was the first room ever added to the game:

(the screenshot itself was made in a later version though with the new hud)

"This project sure has it's priorities straight."

I uploaded the demo, you can find it here: https://mutantleg.itch.io/zortchtest (ZortchEaster.zip)

this is just the "easter demo"  -  there is nothing easter themed about it .. just released near easter 😔
(the full demo will be mostly identical but planned to  also contain the editor and a help file)

"Enjoy!"

mini update

believe it or not the game is still not finished .. still finding some last minute bugs
but we are at 99.8% somewhere

there is now a letterboxed mode - somewhat improves the fov in fullscreen

and I removed the aspect limit for windowed mode  - you can combine it with the letterboxed to get even more fov

"This amount of horizontal fov should be enough for everyone!"

It's out! Thank you for following this devlog! (stay tuned for the postmortem)
(there is a free demo -- but it's identical to the easter demo)

https://itch.io/embed/1972036?bg_color=000000&fg_color=2cea00&link_color=735bfa&border_color=000000

https://mutantleg.itch.io/zortch

a small update: I found some of the early prototypes that I thought were lost

they got some of the features that I talked about here (that were cut)

here is a little video of them: