It was a slow start this month as I said in my previous development update, but I managed to get a lot of work done, including local multiplayer, new game modes, GUI, fixes and steam builds ready for early players!
The main priority this month was getting local multiplayer working. This included new bots that understand the game modes, zombies that will chase players AND bots during local multiplayer matches, and new controls for players during local multiplayer matches.
The bot logic was quite simple to create and I used a simple finite-state machine to ensure the bot always knows what to do, including attacking opposition characters, defending itself from zombies, and picking up weapons when its ammo is running low. All this was important to create a tough, but realistic, opponent to play against, or with in multiplayer matches.
One thing I did not manage to do was create bots that have personalities, which is something I will do later in development. What I mean by personality is a bot that could prefer to shoot from far, or a bot that prefers to use melee weapons over ranged weapons. This will create more unique bots that players can eventually identify and learn how to play against properly.
One great thing from creating bots is that I can create matches using just bots and they can all play against each other without my intervention. This was great for testing different scenarios and weapons and see how they play in a normal match.
I have so far created 3 different local multiplayer game modes, which are Death Match, Stock Match, and Hardcore Death Match. Some fans of my previous games will remember these are similar game modes from my previous game called Akuto: Showdown, and they would not be wrong. These were some of the most enjoyable game modes in that game, and I am hoping it will be the same in this game. I will be creating more local multiplayer game modes in the future so that there is at least one game mode that everyone actually enjoys in there.
The local multiplayer player controls have changed compared to the singleplayer player controls. This was due to me not wanting to have up to 4 aiming reticles from all the players on the screen at the same time. This would make the screen too busy and players will always be aware when someone is aiming right at them.
I have instead opted to place the aiming reticle under the character, with the health and ammo of a weapon above the character. All GUIs for the player are only shown when they are being used or a value has been changed.
But losing the aiming reticle on the screen did make it harder to kill characters from a long-distance, so I decided to create a simple aim assist that rotates the player slightly if a character is within sight of the player, but not directly in line with their reticle. It is not noticeable at all that there is an aim assist, but it greatly made shooting from a long distance more enjoyable.
Another underrated thing I added was slow motion visual effects when someone dies. This creates a greater emphasis on a character when they die. I had a similar effect like this in Akuto: Showdown, but it slowed down the game which was quite annoying for players not involved in a fight where someone dies. To overcome this, I have created a local slow motion visual effect that only affects the character who dies. This means the game doesn’t suddenly slow down for every player in the game, but just for someone who has died.
Below are two GIFs, the first one shows a bot killing a zombie without a slow motion visual effect, and the second one shows the bot killing a zombie with a slow motion visual effect.
Slow motion visual effect inactive
Slow motion visual effect active
As you can see, the second one looks, and feels while playing the game, much better.
Apart from that, I fixed plenty of weapon, GUI, and gameplay bugs. Next month I will be creating a new levels, updating the Steam build, and asking players to try out the game on Steam. This will hopefully get me some good feedback to see if I am going in the right direction with the game or if I should be focusing on something else.