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: