Temple of The Roguelike Forums
Game Discussion => Early Dev => Topic started by: PatrickLipo on March 30, 2019, 06:40:21 PM
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(https://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/AutoFireKickstarterCountdown640.jpg)
Auto Fire is a reinterpretation of the great auto combat games of the 1980’s: Car Wars (http://www.sjgames.com/car-wars/games/classic/), Autoduel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoduel), and Roadwar 2000 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadwar_2000). It combines the tactical combat planning, dynamic world-generation, and player advancement of Roguelikes with outlaw landscapes, decked-out cars and the ongoing quest for fame. Refine your vehicle, take on missions and build a name for yourself in a world where the only way to thrive is to drive.
While it uses 3D and has the trappings of a real-time game, it is really a turn-based roguelike at its core. I truly felt that this genre was the absolute best way to deliver a balance of simulation and large-scale adventure. Thus, Auto Fire fits nearly all the Berlin Interpretation (http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=Berlin_Interpretation) criteria (it is not ASCII of course, and the overworld gives it a bit of modality).
(https://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/SloMo5MB.gif)
- Play in-progress at Itch.io! (https://vertigon.itch.io/auto-fire)
- Wishlist us on Steam! (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1147880/Auto_Fire/)
- Vertigames Blog (https://www.patricklipo.com/autofire/)
- Twitter: @autofiregame (https://twitter.com/autofiregame)
- Discord: Auto Combat Zone (https://t.co/VVRd14Nb3P)
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/AutoVideo.jpg) (https://youtu.be/XvMQA6c6cIk)
Background
This game is a labor of love... something I've been dreaming about since I played Car Wars in the 1980's. I've been a game developer for over 25 years now (http://www.patricklipo.com/about/), both as a programmer and designer... I mostly do game design these days, but I do miss programming, which has led me to work on this game over nights and weekends after I made a fairly successful prototype during 7DRL 2016 (http://www.patricklipo.com/randomprojects/autofire-a-roguelike-in-7-days/).
Core Movement and Combat
You can use a keypad or more traditional roguelike keys to move your car turn-by-turn, adding and further nuance: Facing and speed. As a vehicle with momentum to deal with, you can accelerate to increase the number of moves you can execute per second versus slower-moving opponents. However, you must also make sure you do not lose control by depleting your grip.
Your vehicle has weapon mounts on different sides of the vehicle, as well as special systems such as minedroppers or flaming oil slicks. Each has a cooldown and limited arcs of fire, so it's up to you to manage your facing as well as your positioning to take out enemy vehicles.
(https://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/AutoCityCruiserKill.gif)
Adventure and RPG
As you progress through various desert and decaying urban environments, you acquire loot, weapons and supplies that you'll need to keep your car running. Various tires, engines, ram plates and armor upgrades also can be recovered. However, you'll need to hit a garage to make an upgrade, so choose well. Eventually you will be able to purchase entirely new body styles that provide different advantages in their weapon mounting and stats.
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/inventoryzoom640.jpg)
In between combat zones (such as ruined cities and desert outposts), there is an overworld which must be traversed. Each overworld region is controlled by a specific group or gang that will be affected by your actions, or perhaps ambush you if you draw too much attention. However, perhaps you might discover salvage, encounter a truck caravan, or build your fame by helping a motorist in need.
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Overworld2019Spring640.jpg)
Pocketed throughout each region are the citadels, corporate-controlled pockets of civilization where the wage slaves are fed video feeds of car combat, both organized and out in the wastes. These are safe haves where you can rest, purchase new gear, and take on missions or cargo.
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/CargoMission640.jpg)
It's still got a long way to go, but I'm pretty happy with where I am. It really comes down to scraping up the time and taking the best advantage possible. Hope you enjoy!
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/AutoFlamingOil.gif)
Updates!
You can find out more info about what's being worked on at the Vertigames Blog (http://www.patricklipo.com/)! And if you want to chat live about all things car combat, from Car Wars to Gaslands to Mad Max, there's also a Discord: Help us understand what makes car combat special to you... Is it about the sheer attraction of powerful vehicles? The weapons and electronics hardware? Maintaining high speed? Special maneuvers like the bootlegger reverse? Building up your ride and skills? You may just help us decide what features are next! Join us at the Auto Combat Zone! (https://t.co/VVRd14Nb3P)
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Also, I wanted to give thanks to Tzan (https://forums.roguetemple.com/index.php?action=profile;u=23984) for bringing me back here and giving a shout to Nookrium, who then did a great Let's Play (https://youtu.be/yH4s5t4htxM) a week back. I want to keep delivering the updates and bring this to the level I think it can reach.
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You're welcome :)
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Version 0.5.09 has been released! Get it on Itch.io now! (https://vertigames.itch.io/auto-fire)
Conditions
There's a condition system now, where entities can be stunned, set on fire, made to skid, be blind, etc, and that will last a fixed number of turns before automatically removing themselves. Nothing super fancy, but it allowed me to do stuff like cause a vehicle to spin out when it hits an oil slick.
It also allowed me to give the player's radar more functionality, because it now "paints" targets within a specific radius for a set amount of time. Ideally the player should be able to build up sustained fire on a single opponent, or race through a group (at high speed to avoid being shot) and hit everyone with a radar ping before swinging around and taking advantage of the higher hit rate (and eventually critical hits spurred by this).
There is a new icon system above vehicles to show their current conditions, which hopefully will teach players more about the advantages of speed and choosing targets.
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/AutoCityCruiserKill.gif)
Combat Calculations
I also did some work on the to-hit calculations... I was using a "Diablo-style" hit percentage generator that tended to not miss a lot... the greater the defense, the more the hit chance headed towards zero, but in an asymptotic fashion. What happened there was that it compressed the viable range of hits more than I would have liked. Improving or reducing your hit chances didn't really seem to have a big impact.
So, I switched back to a flat hit percentage generation where attack and defense are directly opposed totals (more like D&D or other pen-and-paper games). It seems a bit archaic, but I put the minimum hit chance at 10% and reward the player with crit bonuses if they exceed 100%... and you definitely notice if you're moving at speed and are harder to hit, or if you get a hit bonus from radar painting your target. You can read a bit more of the nerdery here.
Finally, I found a bug that was causing enemies to hit you 100% of the time no matter what your defense or how fast you go! Now moving at higher speed is significantly more meaningful.
Weapons!
I did a bit of work on weapon resolution to clean up some weirdness, as well as allow for effective area effects over various volumes. I can have weapons with blast radius at impact, cone effects, lines, and more. This gave me some vastly improved versions of scatterguns, flamers, and so on.
I also switched over my missiles to LeanTween (https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/animation/leantween-3595) (a great Unity package that's freeeee, although the Editor that goes with is worth throwing a few bucks at) so that I could use more sophisticated arcs (splines, eases, etc) for the projectile travel. This gave me some great drunk missiles and so on.
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/AutoScattergun5MB.gif)
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/AutoRocketsRevised5MB.gif)
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/AutoFlamethrower5MB.gif)
City Flow
A somewhat smaller bit of work but vastly important was looking into problems I was starting to see in my city layout.
A couple of years ago I put multiple months into a city generation method that took pre-crafted blocks and spliced them together, street-to-street, with props and so on. It worked pretty well... However, lately the cities seemed to have wayyyy too many skinny alleyways and dead-ends, even though I remember putting a fair amount of effort into reducing these. Worse yet, I'd started to see some passability and playability issues, which I know I did checks for. Ugh. I love dusty Mad Max wastes, but the cities are just as important a part of the game and they weren't fun.
I spent some time trying to re-learn what the hell the 2016 version of me had made. For a little bit I thought 2016 me was a bit of an idiot... but it turns out he was somewhat clever. It was 2018 me who introduced a number of bugs that caused loops to no longer form... that guy was a jerk. Specifically I had some code that overlaid roads over previously populated obstructions to create extra loops, and those no longer overlaid properly. In addition, my passability checks were not properly busting holes through the buildings and obstructions when needed.
I added a bit more two-lane roads and discouraged alleys from forming very often. In addition, I added some new block types to my definition that had fewer buildings, so some extra open spaces could be formed. I can pretty much make an infinite number of city block components, so I'll keep adding ones that give some more driving freedom.
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/City-Revision-1024x696.jpg)
User Interface
Most importantly, there is a new settings menu that can be accessed by hitting ESC. You can control the music and sound effects volumes there, as well as quit the game.
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Nice looking missiles, I'll have to check out that LeanTween.
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Another week, another build update! Welp. I'm probably a bit too excited about having a key configuration screen, but there you go.
Some bug fixes in UI are coming in also, along with settings that persist across sessions. Yay quality of life!
Finally, the vehicle selection popup at the start gives you more information so you can pick a car that matches your playstyle.
You can go get v0.5.10 right here (https://vertigames.itch.io/auto-fire/devlog/75018/auto-fire-v0510-quality-of-life).
(https://img.itch.zone/aW1nLzE5OTIzMjYuanBn/original/B9mhGr.jpg)
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Version 0.5.11 has been released! (https://vertigames.itch.io/auto-fire)
Oh man oh man it’s been far too long since I’ve published an update. That’s a terrible thing I don’t want to happen very often, but I started to put in the quest updates and it made sense to get a number of additional features up to snuff in support of it.
Worse yet, I sat on a hojillion changes in my source control before I checked everything in. I think it was like a month. Work was making me a little crazy, but that’s ridiculously bad form. On the upside, this update brings about a bunch of changes in a big sweep.
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/WatchtowerKill.gif)
My primary goal for this update was to add more exploration and stages to the boss fights and quests. For this I needed to support better quest state reporting, and make new emplacements to fight against to draw the boss out. Then I realized that the whole system fell apart when you left the area, so I had to improve how quests were maintained when you leave an area. Then I realized I wasn't really saving data the way I should and basically had to improve the saves to be near-ready for cross-session saves (hopefully soon). Then I realized that spawning emplacements in random locations was really ugly and made them hard to find, so I added a content socketing system for bosses, emplacements, loot and hazards so that their placement could be more deliberate and hand-crafted.
Quests
- Entering a map occupied by a boss now requires the player to progress through the map and take out a number of strategic structures in order to coax the boss to face you.
- Outpost maps are defended by armored watchtowers.
- Ruined cities require you to take out fuel dumps.
- The quest title is shown when entering and area, and updates are shown as the player achieves objectives.
- The mini quest display is cleaned up and should update properly.
- Quests are properly resumed when the player returns to a location.
- Reviewing your quests that are in maps other than the current one is handled better.
Music
- Added some post-apocalyptic music and a couple stingers. Adjusted existing stingers.
- Added dynamic music tracks for city and outpost tactical maps.
- Dynamic music now escalates as the player takes out more emplacements and the enemy spawns get more intense, up until the boss is unleashed and the boss music is played.
- Added boss-specific music, and adjust the intensity based on how close the boss is.
Visuals
- Adjusted the anti-aliasing so the game isn't blurry. Temporal anti-aliasing can cause a smearing effect might work for realistic titles but ain't great for games with precise information to dole out.
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/RevisedMisses.gif)
Combat/Systems
- Added sustained fire bonuses that improve player accuracy after multiple attacks.
- Painting an enemy with the radar will improve player accuracy against them.
- Improved some targeting response elements by indicating which entities are people, cars, emplacements, etc.
- Emplacements such as watchtowers have new aggro and play distinct spotted sounds.
- Extended the aggro duration of enemies and made sure they don't lose interest in the player while still in sight.
Balance
- Junkthrowers do 50% more damage. They were supposed to be scrub-tier weapons but they were just sooooo bad.
- The Stallion now has a bolt rifle mounted front and two junkthrowers (one per side). Its combat capability was depressingly terrible.
- Mines have a lower cooldown again.
- Significantly more cash is dropped from loot crates and enemies. Killing a boss and getting $4 was definitely sub-awesome.
- Zones have fewer garages.
Map Generation
- Quest emplacements like watchtowers and fuel dumps are placed in sockets that are part of map generation. Thus their placement is more crafted.
- Loot crates and barrels also have specific hand-crafted sockets for various map generation tiles, for a less haphazard placement.
- Crates are off the beaten path, sometimes in nooks or dead-ends, but generally in a place somewhat thought out.
- Barrels are placed in clusters around road hazards, fuel stations and large wrecks.
- Loot and barrels now have a tunable target number placed per map. Before it was a much wilder range of possibilities.
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/WatchtowerDeath.gif)
Progression
- Population, quest progression and entity placement is now saved when exiting and returning to a map.
- Entities, enemies, sites and pickups now save their state (when marked to do so) when leaving and returning.
- This is not quite all the way to full savegames, but we're very close.
UI
- Improved the display of enemy misses somewhat. Shots go wide and misses are pretty clear.
- Cleaned up the "chrome" UI window borders. They were originally photoshopped from actual chrome dashboards but that didn't scale as well as I'd like. Buttons have their own appearance now.
- Improved some bugs with weapon targeting and the widgets over target vehicles.
- Can now display entities as singular or plural for quest readouts.
- Boss and targeting popup displays are now cleaner and, well, less terrible.
Bugs
- Fixed the handling of rotating large objects... This means that there should no longer be any invisible barriers.
- Improved some poorly-handled persistent effects such as oil jets and skids... These are now handled with greater safety and more robustness.
- Enemies no longer can get in a state of attacking inanimate objects or themselves.
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" attacking inanimate objects or themselves"
The wasteland is a depressing place :)
Something to think about adding:
When you save the state of a map when the player leaves and the map isnt cleared.
You could also record the game time when leaving.
When they return you will know the elapsed time and if its been " a long time" you might respawn enemies and emplacements the longer the time away.
You could have enemies mention in text how its been a long time or a short time, if they talk.
Its "just one more thing" to add right?
Something to think about anyway.
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Good suggestion. I'm happy having the maps not reset at all (haha) but yeah I want the outposts and cities to have some meta simulation. Each locale is controlled by a specific boss who is a member of one of the existing gangs, so I'm hoping to get some evolution in the state of each locale and faction over time. Taking note of time is great, and even more so I want to make angering a gang or boss to have lingering consequences.
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Respawning an area partly over time is a style thing.
Letting the players keep 100% of their progress is fine too.
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I've been laying the foundation for a trailer over the last couple weeks, so most of my progress in Auto Fire has come in the form of cleanup, although there are a few gameplay tweaks, mainly to make that early experience a bit better. On the upside, there are less-soldier-y gang members, a cleaned up HUD, some new lighting and vehicle trails, check it out.
(https://img.itch.zone/aW1nLzIxNzc1NDcucG5n/original/pKHRt7.png)
Starting next week, I'll be able to work on Auto Fire full-time for a while, so prepare for some meaty updates. The goals are to significantly improve the player movement, reveal more options when driving, and fleshing out systems that have only been teased, like a more alive overworld.
See you on the road!
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Download-Badge.jpg) (https://vertigon.itch.io/auto-fire)
General
- Upgraded to Unity 2019.1, which seems to have gained a little performance.
Balance
- Improved the visibility of enemy cars (they were very short)
- Increased the range of junkthrowers since they were still kind of frustrating to use.
- Adjusted population cap to accommodate new fuel dumps and watchtowers.
- Fuel dumps are now guarded by flamer gangers
UI
- Cleaned up UI
- The equipment quotes in the info popup are now aligned correctly
- Revised weapon icons
- Revised, crisper UI window frames, etc.
- The player can turn the skid meter on or off in the options screen
- Removed the skid meter behind the car by default, since it didn't look great.
- Remove random encounter dialogues until they are ready.
Visuals
- Revised the road decals to make for softer edges
- "Soldiers" are now desert warriors
- Foot gangers now use the proper pose to match the weapon they are wielding.
- Added headlights to the player car when in a ruined city.
- Lowered overall brightness of the city map, so that the light sources could stand out.
- Increased the light brightness for streetlights and barrels and fire.
- Revised the trails from the taillights of vehicles entirely. They use a new system that makes them very smooth.
- Improved the detection of offroad when a vehicle is driving, for visuals and gameplay ramifications
Audio
- Gangers now use battle cries rather than military radio transmissions when they spot the player
- Vehicles now rev their engine instead of honk when the spot the player
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Nice lighting changes.
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Thanks! I had all the lights already, I just had too much ambient so you could barely see them. Makes me want to get weather in sooooo bad but there's so much else to do.
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An honest-to-god trailer inbound! VO and everything... Wooo!
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/AutoVideo.jpg) (https://youtu.be/XvMQA6c6cIk)
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Well, that was quite good. The voice is good too.
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Funny thing about the voice... I had the trailer all ready to go when a friend said "This trailer would be far better with a real pro-tier voiceover." I said "Haha sure I guess, but I have to get this trailer out by tomorrow." He then (should have) said "Hold my beer..." He found an actual pro voice actor who was willing to turn around a recording within 24 hours and... there you have it.
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Wow nice friend. You can really tell its a pro voice which is why I was surprised :)
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Auto Fire v0.5.14 inbound!
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Download-Itch.jpg) (https://vertigames.itch.io/auto-fire)
I’ve made some pretty good progress on Auto Fire, finally steering to towards a new phase of its development... The prestige and reputation systems. These are more important than you might have originally thought to the future of the game.
You see, the world of Auto Fire is not the dreary low-tech wasteland that it appears to be so far... Yes, the world did undergo a dreadful catastrophe, but that was many years ago. Life goes on. The corporate citadels around the badlands are packed with people living out their lives in relative monotonous comfort... Wages slaves in a company town.
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/loadscreen7.png)
It’s dangerous for the average person to travel and gas is extremely scarce, so few people ever leave the shelter of the city they grew up in. Meeting new people is a rare delight. Entertainment is limited to whatever the can find within the walls or by watching vids.
Life is pretty boring in the citadels.
By contrast, things are pretty rough out in the badlands, but it’s a lot more interesting. City folk are eager for any tales from the outland. Drivers are their reality stars, and sometimes even their heroes. As a driver, your reputation is everything, so you’ll have to do whatever you can to build it.
(https://img.itch.zone/aW1nLzIyMzIxMDMuZ2lm/original/azscaI.gif)
Some other changes:
- Weapons have been rebalanced to make one-turn cooldowns the norm. This helps people get a better feel for turns, and hey it's more fun.
- Enemy movement and weapon recharges happen on turn boundaries. If you are moving at 20MPH, you get one move per turn, at 40MPH you get two moves per turn, and so on.
- Finally, Fame is being tracked on the player. Leveling up your prestige ranks will get you access to new missions, vehicles and equipment.
(https://img.itch.zone/aW1nLzIyMzIxMDEuZ2lm/original/J2R4DP.gif)
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v0.6.00: A Smooth Startup
It’s arrived... a big update, worthy of a full point! Auto Fire has had a lot of work put into it over the last month, not the least of it being the revised onboarding (that’s fancy-pants dev talk for what a new player experiences). A lot of players’ first experience with Auto Fire was tough, because there were some really dangerous enemies out there in the badlands, and you were just as likely to meet them while you were still trying out your training wheels as any other time.
In the spirit of making the game more playable and easier to understand, there’s now an intro that eases you into things a bit... and sets up the conflict against your (generated) rival down the road! Clear out those bandits and get back to civilization!
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/TutorialEncounter.gif)
The game also tailors that early experience when you’re stuck with a couple of junkthrowers and not a lot else, so that you are less likely to encounter enemies that want to come punch you in the fun bits right away. This way you can pick up some loot, head to the garage, and upgrade away!
In addition, the player can now customize their character more fully upon startup. You can choose your portrait, and the dialogue (even the procedurally-generated stuff) will adjust for male, female, etc.
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/CharacterCustomization.gif)
There are a ton of changes that came in, but a lot of it is nerdy stuff that only I care about... Oh, hey, here’s some cool stuff you might actually notice!
Campaign:
- There’s a new encounter system that extends the random encounters in the game previously. You now can see your opponent, they can call you by name, and choose a course of action.
- The game starts with some intro encounters that help give you a sense of what you’re doing there and what to do next.
- Character customization has been extended to support player portraits as well as choosing gender.
- Both enemies, players and any NPC can now be male or female. Dialogue is set to use the correct language to address them as it comes up.
- You now have a (soon to be) publicity agent and a rival that are generated on campaign start. These are referenced and used throughout the game.
- Agents are now handled outside of factions. Thus agents (any NPC) can join you, an opposing faction, or be an independent operator like the player.
- A story manager presents basic encounters that drive the initial experience forward. This will hook in as more cause-effect things happen with the player.
- Naming has been adjusted to better fit categories of civilians, punks, drivers and corporate suits.
- Female names have also been added since we can generate those NPC’s now.
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/CrashIntro.gif)
Gameplay:
- Chests now break open when moved onto in the overworld.
- Weapons now start with a higher amount of damage (junkthrower starting around 10) but don’t increase as drastically (the maximum is about 250% of the minimum, rather than the former 1000%)
- Weapons have less of a randomized spread in their damages (used to be 70-130%, now is 80-120%)
- Armor for the player’s vehicles have correspondingly been increased, from 100 per side to 150.
- Armor repair kits now repair 15 per side rather than 10.
- When the player is ambushed into a battleground, they start in the middle of the map rather than near the entrance.
Gameplay:
- There’s a new intro cutscene that sets the situation when the campaign is started. Because I know dying would be a chore and you'd murder me if you couldn't, these can be skipped.
- Encounter text also has a teletype-style reveal, which again can be skipped if the player is impatient.
- Portraits can show or not show in encounters, and can even show as a transmission.
- The loading screen shows hints and has a spinner so you know if the game is live.
- The cursor keys have been remapped to work properly within menus. Key navigation of menus still needs improvement, but it should be better than it was.
- Fame/Prestige is displayed properly on character and city menus.
- Adjusted a bunch of buttons to be more visually interesting.
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/DangerZone-1024x635.jpg)
Visuals:
- Cars now don’t kick up much dust when travelling on roads.
- The gas can in the world is now red, matching the icon(!)
- There is a quick stint of slow-motion when cars are destroyed, and the same effect is back when the player died.
Audio:
- Revised some of the stingers when entering maps.
- The turn-end sound was revised to be less in-yo-face.
- Button presses have more audio feedback in more cases.
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Download-Badge.jpg) (https://vertigames.itch.io/auto-fire)
This coming month will be all about adding variety and continuing to improve the interface. If I demonstrate the game at a show, what will draw players in? What will it take for them to understand what’s going on? What last flourishes or abilities would really sell the whole package?
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If the combat system is mostly set, the only other thing is demonstrating a quest chain.
If you'll have them. Doesnt need to be too complicated, like the way Borderlands does it.
Do A, B, then the Boss.
I assuming you dont have have a lot of them yet but you just need one for now.
Not sure how many scripted quests you wanted to do. Maybe its supposed to be 100% procedural?
When you feel ready let me know and I'll poke Nook again, if you dont feel comfortable doing it yourself.
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My story manager is coming along. It's just a cause-effect chain that fires off an encounter and/or combat. I use it for the intro already... I also have a QuestManager with a tracker that lets you know what quests you have, the rewards, and so on.
The main challenge is that I have to enhance those systems to work with my procgen stuff... If I want to create a quest to go to a nearby outpost and kill some fire-oriented bandits, I have to find some of that sort of gang in the existing overworld, or populate a nearby location with that particular location and boss. If I can't do so, for some reason, I need the system to fail and draw another quest. It's just a bit of a logistics hassle that I haven't quite had time for.
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One day on the heels of v0.6.00 comes v0.6.01! And it includes OBJECTIVE POINTERS... It was needed!!!
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/ObjectivePointer.gif)
https://vertigames.itch.io/auto-fire/devlog/91828/auto-fire-v0601-objective-pointers (https://vertigames.itch.io/auto-fire/devlog/91828/auto-fire-v0601-objective-pointers)
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A way to find objective locations is important.
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We've finally launched a new Discord server to help relay information about Auto Fire. It will hopefully also be a home for other types of vehicle combat enthusiasts, because we want to learn from fans of Car Wars, Gaslands, Mad Max, and so on.
Join in and help us understand what makes car combat special to you? Is it about the sheer attraction of powerful vehicles? The weapons and electronics hardware? Maintaining high speed? Special maneuvers like the bootlegger reverse? Building up your ride and skills? You may just help us decide what features are next! Click below to join in!
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/portrait_stallion256.png) (https://t.co/VVRd14Nb3P)
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I am rolling off of a bunch of updates by the first coder to touch Auto Fire outside of me... My friend Jim streamed his work (http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/image-1024x578.png) this past Saturday and Sunday and helped get some cool functionality in that I hadn’t done before.
Along the way he also added some Quality of Life improvements to some of the code, for his convenience but of course it will be helping me even more. Friends are nice to have!
In particular, I’m looking to snarf some of that ram functionality to wrap it up into a couple vehicle gadgets: A Ram Piston and… a Bootlegger somethingorother. Plus it lays the foundation for me to knock enemies around as the result of player action… something that ramming desperately needs.
For the time being, the new build has some fancy new features:
Critical Hits
Weaponry now has a critical hit functionality when fired… By default a weapon has a 5% of delivering a critical hit, with a crit dealing 2.5x damage. You can improve that crit chance by 25% by painting your targets with radar (the 1 key) before attacking. Sustained fire does still improve your chance of hitting (as does radar painting) but only radar enhances crits.
Critical hits are a core method with which I want to handle skill improvements, electronic warfare, and general hit bonuses. Improvements to hit chances are also in there somewhere, but I don’t want to have a lot of shots missing in the game… that can be frustrating. Hopefully this will be a whole new angle by which players can decide what to do next.
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/RadarCrit.gif)
Revised repair functionality
While gas and ordnance still cost cash to purchase, repairs to your car now need precious parts to fix up. You can refill your resources and make repairs in 10-unit portions now, rather than in an all-or-nothing fix.
Resources will become all-important as time goes on, an cash will mainly be focused on acquiring new gear, doing deals, making bribes, and so on.
Improved smoke screens
Smoke screens are a staple of car combat, but to date it hasn’t really been effective at getting anyone off your tail. I already had wide smoke screens but decided that it should be the norm… you should feel good about spending your action using one if you are in trouble. These wide smoke screens will nearly fill a roadway, to help you make an emergency escape… It really can deliver the goods.
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/SmokeWide-1.gif)
...and other stuff
Gas now informs you if you are full and can’t pick up any more.
Some improvements to UI and feedback
Menu/UI Usability improvements.
Links to the help page and Discord from within the game.
A few additional bugs fixed.
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You might consider putting the Discord link on the top post here and also on the Itch page.
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Done! A fine couple suggestions, my friend.
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Auto Fire has been going through a lot of work focusing on making the game more approachable for someone that might want to sit down and play. This is specifically useful in preparation for the SIX show in Seattle (https://six.seattleindies.org/) on September 1.
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/RefinedGamepadInput5MB.gif)
In particular, I put a fair amount of work into adding Gamepad Support to the game. Yeah it’s still turn-based, but driving with the stick feels pretty good. Here’s the quick rundown, assuming you have an Xbox-style stick:
- Hold the Left Stick in a direction, and you’ll get a preview of the result:
- Up/Down: Acceleration/Deceleration
- Up-Left/Up-Right: Swerve Left/Right
- Left/Right: Turn Left/Right
- Down-Left/Down-Right: Hard corner Left/Right
- Centered: Coast (if moving) or wait.
- The Left Trigger will commit the move and advance the turn.
- If you hold the left trigger you can move multiple times in a row.
- The Left Shoulder will Boost your vehicle, allowing acceleration over 40 MPH.
- Tap the Right Stick in a direction and you will target the nearest enemy that uses that weapon.
- The Right Trigger will fire any available weapon at the nearest target, or the targeted enemy if one is already being targeted.
- The Directional Pad can adjust your aim target.
Additional functions:
- The A Button will Activate an entrance.
- The B Button will Brake.
- The X Button activates the radar.
- The Y Button brings up the Character screen.
- The Right Shoulder and A/B/Y will use the appropriate Equipment slot
- The Start button brings up the settings menu.
- The Back button brings up the Automap.
The game is still the same at its heart, but holding a controller just immerses you just that much more, plus you’re not stretching your fingers over the keyboard. I’d be thrilled to take any feedback you might have on it.
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/MotionVisuals5MB.gif)
In addition, there should be a lot more information in the game about speed and what direction everyone is travelling in. As is natural, a common player instinct is that if a vehicle isn’t moving onscreen (while the simulation is waiting for you to make your next move) that it is not currently moving at speed. The wheel motion, dust from the tires and indication of speed changes should help you digest what the simulation is up to!
As always, there’s another grab bag worth of things that happened along the way:
- The HUD adjusts the key prompts based on whether the player is using the keyboard or gamepad.
- Radar now uses the R key (and resides in vehicle equipment slot 4). It has a separate spot on the UI.
- Enemies now do not shoot every possible chance they get (rather than move). They are just as likely to try maneuvering than shooting.
- Improved AI will not try to move directly in front of your vehicle anymore. This was really frustrating because they’d keep forcing you to maneuver around them to keep from colliding, rather than shoot them.
- Enemy cars are more likely to get moving rather than sit-n-spin.
- Fixed issues with auto-targeting with specific weapon sides.
- Adjusted some female surnames so I avoid generating women named “Scott” or “Howard”
- Control remap interface is temporarily disabled until it can be properly revised.
I hope you can check it out!
Download on Itch.io! (https://vertigames.itch.io/auto-fire)
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It's real! Auto Fire can finally be wishlisted on Steam. Somehow that makes it just that much more real! Please head on over and give that wishlist a click... it's a small thing but you'd be doing me a great favor. Click the Cricket to check it out!
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/CricketBeautySml.png) (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1147880/Auto_Fire/)
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*click*
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On September 1, Auto Fire was demoed at the Seattle Indies Expo (https://six.seattleindies.org/), a companion exhibition to PAX West (https://west.paxsite.com/) in Seattle, held just down the street. It was an exciting time and an exciting place to be, where 25 local game developers showed their stuff in a chill environment where players could interact directly with creators.
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/SIX-2019-Pat-1024x648.jpg)
The good news for those of you who didn’t make it out there is that there are a ton of updates that came in to make that demo play well, and you can now check them out for free on Itch.io (https://vertigames.itch.io/auto-fire) with Versions 0.6.04!
Fame
- Made changeover of interactions in the direction of social media to start to push the build-your-following gameplay.
- Fame is now “likes” and bosses now have their own followers that reflect their level of fame.
- Dialogue is now flavored as a chat/twitter interface. More of this to come.
- A media drone can now follow the player and take shots of their kills for extra fame. The specific drone loadout slot is coming soon.
Gamepad and Controls
- Revised gamepad controls! A button drives, B button brakes, B button enters location.
- D-Pad will aim vehicle weapons if not in targeting mode.
- You can now select all squares with the cursor keys or gamepad when the vehicle is aiming diagonally (it had “the bishop’s limitation” before this)
- Improved the inventory and loadout to better work with keyboard and gamepad. There still is a bug with the gamepad if you have a lot of items when loading out.
- Gamepad buttons have cooldowns before auto-repeat.
- Gamepad move marker now renders through the world if you are controlling next to a wall.
UI and Presentation
- The speedometer is now centered onscreen, and the boost key is hinted when the player reaches the 40 mph “safe” speed.
- Resources have been moved to the right side, and the armor is now in the lower-left, making for a less-cluttered interface.
- Icons now fly to their locations onscreen with some more panache.
- Easier to buy and sell in the store.
- Fixed some sounds in the store.
- Loadout popup is easier to use.
- Cleaned up the targeting panel somewhat.
- Gamepad buttons are now prompted, and are put up instead of keyboard tips if the gamepad is currently in use.
- Tutorial dialogue and loading screen hints now include some gamepad hints.
- Armor panel now uses an alternate visual
- Offscreen objective pointer now pulses and shows over more UI elements.
- New key art is used for the title and loading screen.
Content
- There is an invisible, harmless barrier behind the exit square on terrain maps. This keeps players from moving “past”.
- Loot drops now include a large variety of new drops, including some weapons with modifiers (such as high-density machineguns).
- New levels of tires, armor, ram plates were all created.
- The multi-rocket damage was brought down significantly, it was pretty silly.
- Adjusted the price of repairs (chassis costs twice as much, armor costs half as much) and gas.
- Large cities (the 5×5 ones) no longer generate in the overworld. They were cool but just stupidly complicated to get through.
- Fixed some agent names so that females don’t get stuck with a male surname that looks like a first name (like "Clark", which could be a male first name or a last name).
- Fixed some bad results from the procedural boss quotes.
Check out the new stuff or take a look at this quick video showing some of the revised gameplay/gamepad experience:
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/AutoVideo.jpg) (https://youtu.be/mcLaDzlZGag)
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So thanks to the regular pushing from a developer friend, I finally scraped together the time to add a bit of extra flair to Auto Fire.
One of the challenges of the game for many new players is that they didn't always grok how time progressed: That is, the fact that time is always paused when the game is waiting for your next move.
Now with the magic of time manipulation, that fact is a lot clearer... and cooler.
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/SloMo5MB.gif)
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Wow nice explosions!
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Thanks! And hey I just wanted to stop in with the big big big news: It's official!
Thanks to some pitching in by some ✨incredibly✨awesome✨folk, we're all-in to bring Auto Fire to Kickstarter in January! That's just 16 weeks away... gotta get back to work!
BTW you can always follow Auto Fire on Twitter as @autofiregame (https://twitter.com/autofiregame).
(https://img.itch.zone/aW1nLzI1MDA4MjIucG5n/original/gL%2BOrH.png)
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We’ve been working on some new special abilities for the vehicles in Auto Fire, including the Ram Piston. Different vehicle chassis types can have some crazy maneuvering abilities, although they’ll consume resources such as gas, so make sure to use them wisely!
(https://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/RamPiston1.gif)
The foundation of the special moves system was pitched in by developer comrade Jim (https://www.dungeonmans.com/), created on his Twitch stream (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/465299116) where we talked through some of the system updates needed.
The followup was transferring it to on-demand equipment, which didn’t have the ability to be aimed yet. The plan is to get some more moves in like bootleggers, side swipes, and some weirder stuff. Stay tuned!
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It’s been a few weeks since the SIX update, and there’s a lot of meaty gameplay work to show off. Ammo! Maneuvers! Slo mo visuals! Better ramming! Check it out today! (https://vertigames.itch.io/auto-fire)
Slo Moooooo
- One of the biggest issues of having a turn-based game with realtime visuals is that a lot of the time people don’t grok that the game is waiting for their next input.
- As a way to get around this, I added a slowdown when the game is waiting for player input.
- As a delightful side effect, it looks pretty damn cool.
- Had to move a number of UI inputs to use unscaled time so it ignores slomo. I might have missed a few, so will be on the lookout.
- Made a bunch of UI effects use unscaled time so they play at a normal rate even during slowmo.
- Fixed camera and a bunch of other elements that slowed down inappropriately during slowmo
(https://img.itch.zone/aW1nLzI0OTI2MDQuZ2lm/original/5Z8wBT.gif)
Special Maneuvers
- Special maneuvers appear as “equipment” (currently occupying gadget slot 3), but are eventually going to be baked into specific vehicle chassis, which allow you to take special actions in a crisis.
- This means that different vehicles will help with different playstyles.
- The first special maneuver is the Ram Piston.
- This maneuver launches the car forward 2-4 tiles within a set arc and rams an enemy out of the way.
- You can also use it to get out of a jam by launching to an empty tile.
- It has a cooldown and also uses gas as its ammo, which you can find out in the field or purchase at a garage.
(https://img.itch.zone/aW1nLzI1MDYyMjAuZ2lm/original/d2OOgG.gif)
Resources as Ammo
- Players have always been able to collect gas, ordnance and parts around the battlefield. These items are now used as ammunition for some weapons and equipment.
- Mines and rockets use ordnance
- Ram piston, flamers and flaming oil takes gas.
- Many weapons do not require ammo (just a cooldown), so ammo-consuming equipment will be stronger for its limitation.
- When you highlight a weapon, it should explicitly say the ammo it uses, if any.
- If you’re out of ammo, hopefully it will be very easy to see and understand.
- There is a dry-fire sound when out of ammo.
- All game hints are now moved to middle-screen and important information such as being out of ammo also appears in that space as needed.
- Now that ordnance and gas are much more needed by players, I added significantly more drops of them to the loot lists.
- Loot dropped from cars and crates now has a new definition type, so every drop won’t have 5-6 items in them (it was just out of control)
Ramming
- Ramming something at a high enough speed will now knock it to the side rather than stop you dead. It’s far more fun.
- The mass of an opponent or object now matters more. Your speed and your mass is factored against their mass.
- NOTE: More will happen with this in the future, since relative speed and resultant velocity aren’t all factored as they should.
Additional Targeting Changes
- Area-effect weapons such as rockets, shotguns and flamers can now be aimed at the ground if you want to position their blast for maximum effect.
- Some weapons and abilities now have a minimum range.
- Rockets have a min range of 2.
- Multifire rockets have a min range of 3.
User Interface
- Updated the position of resources in the HUD.
- Revised frames in HUD to use a superthin frame.
- Updated skid meter and needle, and repositioned turn pips.
- Boost hint only appears when at max safe speed now.
- Cleaned up the UI camera for inventory and garage. It’s not blurry anymore.
- Fixed broken portrait from game startup.
Audio
- Revised the collision sound (hated the old one).
- Added a new wood break and revised rock break sounds.
General
- Edited the speed lines for movement and ram tile with a new graphic.
- Fixed some rare crashes
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It's been a couple weeks since the last build, but a lot has happened due to things that I've wanted to get in for the Rogue Celebration 2019 (https://roguelike.club/), which I'll talk about in another article.
For Auto Fire, RogueCel primarily meant that I had a lot I wanted to do in proving out playstyles. This manifests in the player's vehicle chassis selection... It includes speed perks (passive effects triggered when driving at 60 MPH or higher), and special maneuvers (gas-consuming all-in-one moves that launch the vehicle to a new location and affects everything around it.
As always you can check out the state of development for free on Itch (https://vertigames.itch.io/auto-fire)!
(https://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/StunPerk.gif)
General Improvements
- Line of Sight is more accurate and forgiving now. You can target around obstructions and along walls effectively.
- Vehicles now automatically pick up items from the ground adjacent to the vehicle, rather than requiring the radar to be used. It feels so much better!
- The player also automatically picks up adjacent items in the overworld!
Gameplay Systems
- Vehicles now have two new equipment slots (which are not player-editable): Speed Perk and Special Maneuver. This equipment will in most cases be baked into the chassis itself when used.
- Created the ability for equipment to have passive effects when installed, and remove them when uninstalled. This will allow for special visual or gameplay things to result from triggers such as being hit, losing control, or colliding.
- A minimum speed also now exists for certain effects, allowing for things like speed perks which trigger whenever the vehicle is traveling 60 MPH or over.
- The stun condition keeps an AI (or player) from firing or controlling their movement until it wears off. This means pedestrians stay in place while vehicles will continue forward at their existing speed (or until they hit something).
- The focus condition increases the subject's ability to hit targets and inflict crits.
- Turret fire (the F key or the gamepad triggers) now can launch any weapon or special ability. It also won't attack the ground the way it used to.
(https://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/BoostManeuver.gif)
Vehicle Upgrades
- Ram Blast (Stallion): Speed perk that triggers an explosion whenever the vehicle collides at high speed.
- Ram Piston (Stallion): Special maneuver that launches forward and bashes through the selected target, knocking it aside.
- Advanced Radar (Stallion): The Stallion has special radar that has a bigger radius than other vehicles.
- Hyperfocus (Panther): Speed perk that increases the hit and critical chance when at high speed.
- Jet Thruster (Panther): Special maneuver that launches forward and puts the car at max speed, leaving a trail of fire behind.
- Jet Wash (Cricket): Speed perk that stuns vehicles and foot soldiers that are passed at high speed.
- Bootlegger (Cricket): Special maneuver that launches forward and spins the car around, ending with a large stunning pulse.
- Note: Special Maneuvers all consume gas!
Visuals
- Created new shader for the fog of war that moves more dynamically and has interesting edges. It's an improvement over the previous mushy look because a lot of the screen is usually under some level of this fog.
- Destroyed vehicles now do not fly into the air as ridiculously far. It was fun but you often never even saw the vehicle because it flew so high.
- Adjusted the color of the ordnance and gas can icon and model to be more prominently colored, so they are easier to spot.
- Added glinty materials to pickups to make them catch the eye better.
(https://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/RevisedFog.gif)
Content
- Adjusted the loadout of starting vehicles to match playstyles.
- Updated start screen to give more description of cars.
- Updated some tutorial text to match the new control method.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed bug with effects such as dropped items. One symptom was smoke and oil overwriting each other. This may also eliminate some of the mysterious crashes I've seen.
- Fixed a problem with firing while stationary, which remained in slomo during execution.
- Changed the ragdolls for humans and dogs to move smoothly.
Audio
- Added audio mixer slowdown when slowing down time.
- When destroyed vehicles are flung into the air, they now play sounds when falling to the ground.
- Added a techy burst sound for the bootlegger.
User Interface
- The (A) button prompt disappears when the player centers the gamepad stick.
- Targeting squares are more yellow now, rather than green.
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Ohhhh man how could I have missed the Explode-o-Ram?
(https://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/RamBlast.gif)
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Testing out my new hardware in the run-up to my first stream, I whipped up a quick video blog showing off the most recent changes to the build and its vehicle playstyles. Enjoy!
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/AutoVideo.jpg) (https://youtu.be/q7hUSygsbsk)
And hey, yes! I did stream for the very first time this week. I unfortunately didn't know that Twitch didn't default to saving past broadcasts so the first session isn't viewable, but head over to my channel (https://www.twitch.tv/vertigon) and give me a follow! I promise to save all future sessions!
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There have been improvements to Auto Fire both big and small! There was a list as long as my arm of bugs and nitpicks that I discovered when showing off the game at the Roguelike Celebration (https://roguelike.club/). Quality of life improvements are always crowd-pleasers, and they happen to also be me-pleasers since I’m playing the game everyday.
More importantly, I started setting an eye to a longer play arc than I have now. That includes laying the foundation for loot, health and damage that’s defined by a progression arc. This means that I can balance numbers globally, as well as more easily drop in enemies and items to the game and have the system distribute them more easily.
This may not affect your experiences that much just yet (aside from some new items dropping!) but I’m looking forward to bulking up the content soon.
(https://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/BootleggerStun.gif)
Gameplay Improvements
- Rams are more sophisticated in their detection now! They now check relative speeds, and factor in the ram plate only when your front is colliding with the enemy.
- The relative mass and levels of the vehicle are also factored into the damage that is done.
- The Cricket’s Bootlegger now executes a stun burst upon completion! (Like it’s supposed to!)
Content
- Sectors are now set up to control the challenge within them! This gives me the first tools to really smoothly lay in progressively advanced content.
- There are now tables that control the base amounts of health, damage, fame, item value, vehicle value, and various resource drops.
- Varying the content from this baseline will help generate new content and help balancing as the content grows.
- This was waaaaaay harder than it should have been, except it’s because vehicles have a fairly involved way of installing themselves on various vehicle chassis. Players do it differently than enemies, but they all use the same basis.
- Loot tables now spawn based on the challenge level of a map or opponent as well. Items are now set up to drop in quickly via a spreadsheet, allowing content growth to be much easier!
- Part of the result of this is that there are some new tires, engines, blast gadgets, and weapons that took a few minutes to whip up. A significant improvement.
(https://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/CricketFlipDeath.gif)
Visuals
- Adjusted the fire trail from exploding barrels and vehicles to be more flamboyant.
- Added physics objects to destructible entities.
- Fixed orientation and camera angles of special moves.
- The overworld vehicle is a tad smaller now, to better fit the other elements within.
User Interface
- Automap is (finally!!!) closed with the Escape key
- Objective Pointer improvements!
- Objective pointers now can point to things that can be killed in the map if there are more than one.
- When there are multiple objective targets, only show the ones that have been seen so far.
- Pointer flashes regularly and is pushed slightly further inward for better visibility.
- Pointer starts in the center and moves out when changed.
(https://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/OverworldRevised.gif)
Environment
- Revised the feel of the ground, leaning a little bit in the direction of more detail. I don’t want it to get too busy but it was blandtown.
- Experimenting with grass, textures, some more boundary variance, and so on.
- Outposts now have some slightly more interesting walls.
- There can be breaks on multiple sides, and now the break isn’t always predictably on the south end either.
- There are some corner variants now, just to mix things up.
- The walls have a bunch more variance and they are not always rail-straight.
- Wanted a little more verticality, so I made the guard tower and water tower taller.
Audio
- Physics objects like exploding cars now have sounds when they collide with the world!
- Some sounds are no longer affected by slowing down time, because they sounded pretty dumb (like the “clink” of a dropped item)
- MasterAudio (my sound system) was logging all sounds, spewing into the text log. Turned this off, which could improve performance slightly.
Bug Fixes
- It turns out I wasn’t reading my data files in an internationally friendly fashion. PC’s with Russian language, for example, would have empty levels and no weapons. Derp. This should be fixed with new parsing improvements. Hopefully Russian computers can run the game better now!
- When attacking with a ground-only weapon or special move, don’t snap to an enemy.
- Vehicles now have their special moves and speed perks built-in as vehicle defaults. This makes them not part of the inventory and not removable.
- Fixed some targeting issues caused by weapons with a minimum range calculating incorrectly.
Other
- The Steamworks library has been added to the game! It doesn’t do much yet, but it’s a start!
- The game has been updated to Unity 2019.2.9f, and now uses Unity Plus. This means no more Unity splash screen for extra Pro Points(TM)
As always, you’re welcome to try out the current build at Itch.io (http://)!
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I’ve been doing development streaming on Twitch lately, and it’s been pretty enjoyable actually. It’s early afternoon for me, Tuesday at 1PM Pacific (https://www.twitch.tv/vertigon), and it’s been fine. I worried about the cats disrupting things but I just embraced the cat break. I worried about boring people with some noodly code problem on camera but there’s always something I can pick up that’s interesting to work on and talk about. I’d like to think that people are learning things about game development as well, which it turns out is part of what it’s about.
I’ve saved some of these streams on Youtube, which has been good since there are sometimes concepts that I want to convey to people that are helping me out… and having a demo of its use is super-handy.
Auto Fire - Development Stream #2 (https://youtu.be/OU5rc63gcVw)
In stream #2 I showed off how patches are created in-game, and punch up some in-game objects. (The first stream was unfortunately lost to the fact that Twitch doesn’t save broadcasts by default). We also got our very first Cat Break with Sammy.
Auto Fire - Development Stream #3 (https://youtu.be/cjHdYpDVB2M)
Stream #3 started pretty weird because I had the mic off for a good chunk of the start. In this I actually crack open the very improved Blender (https://www.blender.org)after only an hour of watching tutorials and use it to update and break up some models, to improve the physics impact of destruction. Then we cut loose with some rockets...
Auto Fire Dev - Rocket and cannon madness (https://youtu.be/rntXe0UodC8)
See you on Tuesday! (https://www.twitch.tv/vertigon)
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Hey all! I'm working hard on Auto Fire to get it in a state where it can Kickstart at the start of the new year, and you can help. One way you can help me build awareness is simply by following @autofiregame on Twitter (https://twitter.com/autofiregame). Just click the link, it's easy, and would help me out a lot!
In the meantime, one of the new features is the rocket barrage thrown by the watchtowers. Once they sight you in, you've only got a couple turns to get your car out of the way!
(https://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/HomingTower.gif)
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Watched stream 2 for a while. I find development stuff interesting, even though that kind of development is not very similar to working with only C++ and a simple graphics library. I have to check out 3, because I've been using Blender for years (long ago I graduated as animator). This game project isn't actually that bad, because it has an interesting theme for sure. You don't see cars in roguelikes that often.
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Thanks! I've been a professional game developer for a lotta years and I've definitely done the bare-bones thing... My first few games were Watcom C and good ol' $A0000. Early on in the development of Auto Fire I had a decision point where I could have stayed 2D and a lot simpler, or just go for the 3D thing with physics and all the stuff that an engine like Unity provides. I'm a visual beast so I chose the latter.
I'm really enjoying the combination of cars and roguelikes. It's literally a game I've wanted to make for over 30 years.
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And apologies if the streams are pretty fluff-intensive. It's still very hard for me to have the brainpower to dig into a deep system while on camera. Sometimes simple math defies me when I'm on the spot. :-)
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Been a while again since I'm juggling some contract work. I'll trim my update to the bone.
Things are lively on the Auto Combat Zone (https://t.co/VVRd14Nb3P) Discord mainly because of the Car Wars 6th Edition Kickstarter (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sjgames/car-wars-sixth-edition-by-steve-jackson-games), which is pretty exciting if you're a fan of cars shooting other cars. I'm all right with my project taking a back seat as the community gets amped for a new release of a game I first played 35 years ago.
Content
Lately I've been adjusting my focus towards cleaner content generation... by that I mean missions and encounters rather than map variance and weapon variety. My current quest system seems... fragile... right now and I need a more compelling arc to the player. That means less of a soup of basic sandbox missions but more of a crafted arc.
To remedy I'm probably going to go a little too far in the crafted direction, by laying out my overworld sectors a bit more deliberately and creating an easier method for predefining some of the more story-driven quests within. I originally had a campaign map of 10x10 overworld sectors (each with multiple combat zones within) and I brought that down a little to 6x6 so that I can pull the player through a bit easier. Adding sectors back in later should be easy, and I'll still need all those generated quests to glue together the rest of the content.
On the upside, I've created highway maps that connect each sector together, so when you head north from overworld sector 2,3 you have to brave the open road to reach the next sector. Right now that's pretty bare bones, but the goal is to both make some really hazardous runs, and to ultimately support Convoy Missions which are the lifeblood of Mad Max and Car Wars' storytelling. Maybe even some Eastbound and Down (https://youtu.be/WJPM-M_Z65o) haha :-)
(https://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Interstate.gif)
I also leveled out the difficulty and base it off a health, damage and loot table with a level 1-20 scale. Enemies have a "difficulty band" that they appear in based on the area, and an adjustment to their stats within that band (e.g. 0.6xhealth, 1.8x damage, loot level +1). This isn't "leveling to the player" (which is one of my least favorite features of certain RPGs) but rather keeping me sane by using a set of tables as an anchor for balancing. It also means those stats I have to balance with aren't buried in the vehicle definitions like they were.
Gameplay
To add a little more emphasis on shooting and driving, we have some delayed action effects now. The first place it manifests is in guided rockets that take a few turns to reach their destination. This was a little quirky because of the team-based turn updates that are part of the system right now. Rather than each move being interleaved, the player executes a full turn of moves (for example, 3 moves if they are moving at a speed of 3), then the enemies do all their moves (based on their vehicle speeds). This means the rockets use the same stop-start logic. It reads a bit funky but I think it still works.
(https://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/WaterTowerRocket.gif)
As part of this I started making a bunch more of the world destructible. This wasn't a big deal, but going through the exercise of breaking up the models I had into parts and assigning them physics properties was a good process for future adds.
Plus, driving through a windmill feels good.
(https://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/RamWindmill.gif)
Fame Building
Finally, as part of the overall "fame" experience, I brought back my old "classic" combat log and reinvented it as a social media feed with only limited gameplay information (kills, item pickups) conveyed within. Yes, the populace in the walled citadels are following the player's exploits and voting with their "likes" and slinging emojis. Your rivals and your stunt driving will tie more and more into the social experience as we go forward.
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Long time no post! Auto Fire rides again!
OUTPOST REVISIONS
Check out the results in action right here! (https://youtu.be/74hZH_GnFN8)
Something that is really enjoyable, believe it or not, is refining ways to generate cool maps. To see the result of a mad pile of code and some assets turn into something you can play can be a bit addicting. I've certainly got a lot to do for entirely new content, but since I was working on creating new types of maps, it was worthwhile to look back at how I was generating outposts.
(https://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/DesertOutpost20200916-1024x576.jpg)
Auto Fire uses a few different generators, one for rolling terrain, one for piecing together city blocks, one for populating hand-crafted levels... Originally I had been using the straight terrain generator that I use for battlefields and the overworld maps... a method of laying out blobs of varying terrains using Voronoi regions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voronoi_diagram). If you're unfamiliar those may sound froo-froo-fancy but for grids they are almost embarrassingly simple: Throw a bunch of spots down on the map that have a particular terrain type: mountains, clearing, rough terrain, etc. Test every tile on the map and mark it as part of whatever spot it is nearest. Add some noise and various other properties of each spot/region, plow roads to get you from place to place and you're pretty far along. It's at least enough for stuff like the overworld, where the specific terrain isn't so important.
(https://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Overworld-Feb-2021-1280.jpg)
For outposts, however, that was only part of the equation… I needed walled areas, I needed an “inside” and “outside” area. I wanted buildings to make the interior more interesting. I managed to piece together features like the walls and special setpieces like water towers and little dwellings. In the end the placement of buildings were random, which created a lot of unbelievable areas and many dead-ends… a curse for a driving game where speed is king.
The buildings were also single-tile affairs… This scale mismatch was deliberately set on early in the game’s development for cities, but have since been changed to a double scale that allows buildings to be more interesting and for roads to have more width in cities.
What I realized is that I had a really refined measure of control in cities, with varying width roads, support for passability and large crafted areas, and just overall a less random feel.
(https://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Outpost-Before-After-210209-1280.jpg)
Cities are constructed using 8×8 blocks (which was 4×4 back when buildings were single-tile) that are crafted to hold a 2 or 4-lane road connector or a 1-lane alley (either left or right side). Each block has one or more exits, and a bunch of places where optional exits can be punched through if the system needs to create extra loops.
So why not do this with desert maps? Walls can be made this way of course, but we don’t want a desert map to look like Manhattan… Luckily there are a ton of tricks to keep roads from being straight and buildings falling in irregular patterns. This generator set used 4×4 tiles and almost entirely 1-lane roads, which can meander within a block like a Carcassone tile (https://cundco.de/en/mini-expansions/carcassonne/281/carcassonne-castles-in-germany-new-edition-de/en) to keep things from looking too precise. One set of blocks can be used for the inside of the walls, and another for the lighter desert features outside. Everything’s great except that terrain needed to come back into the fore.
(https://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/City-Block-Pieces-1280.jpg)
(https://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Desert-Block-Pieces-1280-1024x594.jpg)
And so it did! Parts of the terrain generator came over to the block generator to give the map a more natural appearance… considering it was largely giant squares. With it we got terrain rendering thanks to Microsplat (http://megasplat.com/microsplat.html)and some pretty nice grass from Advanced Terrain Grass (https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/terrain/advanced-terrain-grass-100014). Our road-plowing routines guaranteed passability and some other code helped give the driveable spaces a little bit of vertical rise and fall.
So “why now” might come to mind… “You’ve had outposts for years now, so what’s the big deal about revising them now?” Fair question. The main reason is my recent investigation into new map types: Industrial parks! Dueling arenas! Race tracks! I have some examples that I’ve hand built with assets I have, but I want to get those generating also… and this same method will work for all of them.
Highways are also a culprit, because they are okay maps, but the road is arrow-straight and can’t really incorporate curves. With my current overworld system I can’t draw two-lane roads without using this block method. Also, a road that curves gently like a highway or race track is best laid out on an 8×8 tile… or even a 16×16. These things are all possible in our brave new world!
(https://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/IndustrialBiome-1280.jpg)
That’s the big news of February… a new build will be coming out tomorrow. Excelsior!
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Another update is inbound! This one is focused on revising the world generation methods for more interesting and playable maps. This lay the system foundation for new types of biomes and better overall map layouts moving forward. You'll see the biggest example of this with the walled outpost maps, which are entirely revised and much more look the part.
There were also a lot of stability and quality of life improvements along the way... You can shoot mines! Car control and skidding interact a bit better, armor repairs cost less parts. There was a bug with missions that people who liked to haul cargo ran into. For keyboard and gamepad players, the dialogues should not lose their selection (which required you to touch the mouse if it happened)
(https://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/OutpostFeb21.gif)
Check it out and get your vroom-vroom-pew-pew on!
(http://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/TryOnItch.png) (https://vertigames.itch.io/auto-fire/devlog/223643/auto-fire-v0626-talkin-about-my-generation)
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Been a long time but the game is still in the works. Trying to a get a long-delayed release out with massive visual and UI cleanup, consumable use and a deeper set of equipment.
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It’s been a long time coming, but Auto Fire is back in action with a bunch of updates and improvements!
There has been a major UI revision for just about all of the supporting screens and menus. Consumable gear was added so you can manually heal up in the field if you have the right items. There is a significant and growing tutorial that pops up how to play the game as situations present themselves. (And yes, you can turn them off in the settings!) More is in the works, including the long-promised arenas, hope you enjoy!
As always, check it out at https://vertigames.itch.io/auto-fire (https://vertigames.itch.io/auto-fire).
(https://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/AutoFire_02July2022.gif)
Gameplay/Content
- Some garages and repair outlets have a limited amount of gas or ordnance they can sell you.
- Consumable gear was created that can repair your internals, drop mines or smokescreens, or basically enact any normal equipment’s function.
- You can also target yourself on specific sides for armor repair gear, and the UI reflects it on your armor display.
- When you complete an encounter, the loot is generated immediately rather than waiting until you move.
- Radar is now a dedicated equipment type and slot called “Sensors”. All cars have a default radar sensors package, but this can do a lot of different things.
Combat
- Desert encounters now include combat moments that will drive you into a fight.
- AI Updated for more responsiveness when spotting the player.
- AI consider facing when planning their navigation routes, meaning that vehicles will plot paths more naturally and loop around their targets.
- The line flamethrower can now target the ground.
Content/Tuning
- Starter car only has 1 plate of armor all around, and no minedropper. You’ll have to buy your own upgrades to get the good stuff.
- Equipment crates now drop more items (versus from normal vehicle drops)
- First outpost in the starter sector now requires some vehicles to be killed before the boss emerges.
- Old instant repair and armor pickups removed from drops in favor of the repair consumables.
- Desert sectors should no longer have random encounters, only emplaced ones (that is, glints and smoke columns rather than just rolling dice)
- Adjusted grip recharge rate to be a bit more generous.
- Significantly more parts are awarded on the field.
Controls
- Big cleanup to allow for gamepad control of menus without losing focus.
- Made accelerating into a skid work better, should not infinitely skid if you thrust against it.
- Acceleration now waits until the next move to reduce your move’s time slice, so as a player you cannot reach max speed in a single turn the way you previously could.
HUD
- Rework of the HUD colors and aiming interface.
- Shrank the HUD components (gear, armor, social) slightly to allow for more playable space.
- Changed social feed to dark mode, because the bright display was distracting from the gameplay.
- The boss is removed from the HUD once you wipe them from a location.
- Event-based tutorial popups appear when the player experiences various events, from taking damage to skidding to picking up gear.
- The player’s challenge is now expressed with skulls, which is conveyed in the travel/gas popup to tell you what you’re getting into.
- Added a real date display that updates based on player turns.
- AL has a new look.
Menus
- Complete rework of the character and loadout screens.
- Complete rework of the repair experience.
- Complete rework of the vehicle stable, to show all stats for all vehicles.
- Complete rework of inventory, buy and sell screens to add categories and better controls.
- Complete rework of the loading dock experience to show a map where you must deliver your chosen item.
- Automap re-envisioned to use a higher quality smooth shader.
- Automap locations are now interactive and can be hovered for popup info, and they ping indicating where quests are directing you to go.
- Quest display revised to display a map telling you where you must go.
- Quest steps are now crossed off in the Quest character panel.
- Faction and skills are now shown in the character panel.
- Entirely new inventory icons, for a punchier and yet colorful look
- All item UI buttons are have a new shiny shader.
- Items now display with level badges, indicating the raw progression tier the item has.
- The loadout view shows pips that indicate when a higher-level item is available to be slotted in that location.
- The inventory view shows pips that indicate when an item is new and has not yet been examined.
(https://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/SIX-2022-Shot-2-1.png)
Visuals
- Enemy shouts appear in bubbles both on the HUD and over the enemy vehicles in-world.
- Agents no longer echo their encounter dialogue into the social feed (it was cluttering the experience too much).
- Zoom in moments happen after the level fades in rather than zooming when you can’t see.
- New power lines, cargo containers, and other assets
- Adjusted lighting on tail lights.
- Adjusted location labels for visual appeal
- Made label ping show through world for visibility (hard to see the exits in canyons)
- Location labels do not obscure your view when you enter a zone.
VFX
- New explosion and fire VFX from toon explosion to a better stylized/realistic hybrid. (It doesn’t block the player’s view as much)
- Revised fire oil, burning objects and flamethrower VFX
- Revised occupation VFX
- Added decals on the ground from gunfire and explosions.
- Fixed up flamethrowers on player as well as enemy flamers
Settings
- Did some fixes to how I was handling settings for those of you with laptops and unusual screen limitations.
- There is now a minimum allowed resolution (Horizontal at least 1024, Vertical at least 720)
- Graphics Settings should properly record your selected resolution.
- Music and audio should also set and record properly in the main menu.
Audio
- Vehicle audio uses Realistic Engine Sounds package and adjusts and shifts gear based on speed.
- Use audio mixer to duck car audio when waiting between turns.
- A new stinger or tutorial popups and specific informational moments.
- Revised boss music slightly to stutter less, and use a continuous loop sometimes for quality’s sake.
- Audio is set properly on startup from the prefs now
Bugs
- Fixed several bugs with how bosses dole out their quests and get resolved at the end of a combat.
- Fixed several screens where their text didn’t align properly.
- When returning to a previously visited map, we handle the population correctly.
- Fixed speedometer flashing visuals to properly flash at the end of a turn.
- Made reverse skidding work better, it had some really bad behavior.
- Entering combat in the field (via random encounter) now works properly.
- Buying and selling at the citadel now properly supports stacks of items.
- Repairs now work properly, you can’t get free repairs if you are near zero resources.
- Small visual fixes and typos
- Impassable outpost entrance now fixed (the outpost generator wants a larger palette to place protective walls)
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Some great new updates to Auto Fire this month. The UI got another level up with some improved screens and a more lived-in look. You can now go to the citadel and help those people out, building renown with that city. Citadels are a little more solid in their representation also, with one of only a few corporations keeping control of the populace across the country. Finally, the visuals took an uptick with better lighting, new desert terrain visuals and cleaned up foliage. The time to check it out is now!
(https://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/DesertRace5MB.gif)
https://vertigames.itch.io/auto-fire (https://vertigames.itch.io/auto-fire)
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Something you never hear about in game development is the challenge of capturing footage for a trailer or some amount of publicity. Few games, particularly those with any kind of randomness or procedural generation, look 100% perfect at every moment during development. Even if there aren't bugs, you're trying to take a slice of time, a single image, where the game shines as what you envision it to be. It can take weeks and weeks and at the end of the process you feel a strange mixture of pride in what you have created and despair over all the things you have left to do.
(https://www.patricklipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/AF-arenaslick-5MB.gif)
So over August and September as I've been catching snippets for use in the Seattle Indies Expo (https://six.seattleindies.org/), I got a face full of the driving experience at times when I wanted to feel the Drive Magic. However, as you drive and shoot there are stalls (put in there intentionally) as the game resolves projectiles and impacts. That sort of turn resolution is pretty common in tactics games, it lets you see the results of your attack (or attacks against you) and process the result before moving on. I originally set the system up that way because "that's what Roguelikes usually do"
However, the frequent halts during my drivin' and skiddin' started to bug the crap out of me, especially when there were a lot of enemies nearby. Of course I don't pause the game when something happens offscreen, but when there are a lot of enemies it can happen often, especially in the arena where enemies were attacking each other.
So, to the experiments! I decided to try a couple things:
- I removed the projectile pause entirely and let attacks just resolve while the various vehicles moved to new positions.
- I adjusted the speed at which the turn played out based on the player speed, so turns (including those of opponents) just play out faster when the player vehicle is moving at higher speed. Turns at 25 MPH play out faster than turns at 100 MPH.
The results were interesting. Keep in mind that this is still 100% turn-based. The only thing that has changed is how turn results are represented.
https://youtu.be/LNrce4pa7y8 (https://youtu.be/LNrce4pa7y8)
You can specifically see the lack of a delay when the player fires machineguns and rockets.
Yes, the result needs a bit of work, specifically:
- Bullets don't yet "lead" their targets so they are striking behind the vehicle.
- Some slow weapons like rockets that take longer than a typical move duration (generally between a quarter and a half second) need to be converted to take multiple turns to reach their destination.
- (...but hey that's gameplay, y'all!)
- I still need to make sure combat resolution is as readable as possible, such as:
- Armor impacts and damage numbers are still getting obscured.
- The armor side that gets hit isn't as obvious as it should be
- And of course, special moves will still need to stall the game, but that's fine for something that doesn't happen often.
However, in all it did improve the overall feel of driving and smoothness. This was a worthwhile experiment and I'm all in on making sure the game feels great and still has a clear turn-based combat resolution. Not sure where this will lead, and I know that a certain segment of the audience will want to be crystal clear on what's going on in combat, in the same way that another segment will want to cut loose and skid around fluidly. Possibly I'll leave a toggle for the roguelike turn resolution if the player wants that (should be possible).
More to come as the game continues to evolve and improve!