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Viscera Cleanup: progress report

Hi everyone!

First off, apologies about the recent slow-down in regular updates to VCD. That is mostly down to a seemingly endless stream of admin and biz work relating to us setting ourselves up as a company, accounting and so forth. This is all new to us, so we’re stumbling around figuring it all out, and it’s taken a large whack of time away from proper game development. Hoping we’re near the end of that now. The other thing that took time away was the launch of Rooks Keep. We wanted to get that out to fans as soon as we could, otherwise it might only have hit after we finished VCD. Anyway, to the matter at hand!

I wanted to let ya’ll know what we’re plotting for the full Viscera Cleanup, updates of which will occupy the space between now and then.

Major:
—–

  • -Mac build [this we're busy with, and hope to get it working, but no guarantees!]
  • -Mod support with Steam Workshop
  • -Robot Facility [map, environment and mechanics involved]
  • -A few extra, small maps
  • -Improved punchout and office [more feedback and persistence]
  • -Janitor and hand animations
  • -Some polish and additions to existing maps
  • -Bug fixes, UI alterations
  • -Radio, complete with bangin’ tunes

 

Minor:
—–

  • -Polish and extra content [effects, sounds, certain props]
  • -Trading cards
  • -Achievements
  • -Many unseen technical things you will never notice

And that’s that in a nutshell. We’ll be updating as we go, hopefully we can get things out in smaller, quicker chunks as we work toward finishing off the game :) Curse all this biz work.. Curse it all!
Also of note, is that we’ll be updating the Santa’s Rampage and Shadow Warrior builds with a few fixes and technical things. Rooks Keep will also see an update to fix some issues it’s having. Those should all be this week.
We’re working on Mac and mod support right now. Mac is complicated by the fact we can’t test it, so we’ll be letting a few folk test out a private build we’ve got going on Steam. Mod/Workshop support is complicated greatly by needing a standalone tool to actually handle the organisation, cooking and uploading of the mod content itself.

Anyway! Thanks for listening, and thanks for all the the support and feedback. And remember, even if we can’t reply to everything, we do try and read it all ;)


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21 Responses to “Viscera Cleanup: progress report”

  • PUDmeister:

    I would trade all of that for “viscera not falling through sides and bottom of bins”. Physics adjustments are badly needed!

    • It may not seem so, but that is absolutely the most time consuming and trickiest feature in the game. There is so much padding around that mechanic, and yet it still occasionally happens, and it’s dreadfully annoying. It all comes down to the unpredictable and uncontrollable nature of the physics system in UDK.

      One solution is of course to make the bin much fatter so that the chances are diminished, but that then creates it’s own gameplay challenges. The inability to lift, large collision gaps (that can’t be filled) and so forth. All I’m saying is that it a very tricky thing. It’s been the most time consuming part of VCD so far.

    • Ksquatch:

      Actually, it’s pretty amazing how WELL the physics works in this game. With a couple dozen physics objects inside a physics object, first off the thing doesn’t spaz out and explode through a wall or something, and second, if I just handle the thing gingerly, I can get it all into the furnace no problem!

      I AM IMPRESSED! I’ve NEVER seen a physics engine so masterfully tweaked. I’m sure UDK is not really built for this kind of thing.

  • davis:

    are you going to fix the carry height of the body parts that drag the floor and cant be seen when you pick them up. the legs in the hazmat suit piece, for example.

  • jon pat:

    i like the addition of the join friend from there steam game chat menu, hopeing to see shadow warrior get updated with that same update as i am currently unable to connect to my friend for that game

  • bonnienoire:

    Please do something about the jumping/stacking/climbing mechanics :c Trying to get to those bodies on the ledge was incredibly unfun. Ladder would be amazing, but even just fixing the jump so that it’s not so pitiful (jet or antigrav boots, maybe?), or even just making the stacking work so that they sort of “settled” into each other, like lego pieces or something. All I know is that trying to get to high up places in this game literally made it feel like an actual chore, whereas the actual chore part was… well, oddly fun, actually.

  • This is something we’ve been thinking about. Thanks for the feedback :)

  • nield:

    I think the sniffer needs either an upgrade in its sensitivity, or perhaps a clearer output of what its readings actually mean, and better readability of the readings. I’m pretty sure the left mouse click shows specific mess to clean up with the mop, though its non-directional nature (It’d be GRAND if it could be made directional, which is kind of what you’d expect from an instrument with a nos on the end) can make it tricky to discover where the mess ACTUALLY is (Santa’s Rampage, destroying all the baubles for the Sanitized Earth achievement, I’m looking at you) and the right click is objects that need to be incinerated? I think? I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know specifically WHICH objects need to be incinerated on a certain level, so I just go for a Scorched Earth tactic: If I can pick it up, I burn it. It’d be helpful to know WHAT each object is supposed to be and whether to burn it: The Full game needs a tutorial level to cover everything like this, since now there’s some objects that are supposed to be stacked, not burned? Not knowing what object is what… kind of makes that hard. Asides from that, maybe a portable aldder/stepladder, because cleaning the ceiling is the hardest part of ANY level.

  • nield:

    Also, something else to add, maybe a saturation layer to boots? Because it’s pretty silly that you can step in one piece of mess and then, if you do it right, Jump out a HUGE trail of blood that extends for ages, and that taking out any tiny section completely saturates your mop.

  • Spike:

    still waiting for a multiplayer browser will that ever get implemented ?

    • A browser is something we’re considering, but it seems unlikely for many horrible reasons I won’t go into. So I can’t so NO for sure, or YES for sure, only that NO seems more likely at this point. :(

  • Adam:

    New update is a blast guys. Great work.

    Can’t wait to see what the final version will be like and for that mod support. The custom map possibilities are endless.

  • Still:

    Question about the radio: will we be able to put songs of our own on a separate channel/station?

    • Hey!
      I’m not sure if you will be able to. Not yet at least. UDK has no way of doing that by default. We shall see, but I’m not sure if it’ll make it :\

      • Still:

        If it doesn’t make it in the final game, it won’t be too big of a deal since you could just do it outside of the game, I just wondered. Thanks.

  • Thunderchild:

    Hi developers!

    Have you thought about some kind of progression system in-game? Like, you earn some money with each job and you can spend it in new mops and equipment (like ladders or something).

    That would make the game really more addictive even if the new items were only cosmetic

  • Oakforest:

    Hey all, I really like this game so far! I can’t really seem to find a place to leave “suggestions” so here will have to do. I think it might be a good idea to add some periodic janitorial sayings, you know, where your player controlled janitor chimes in to complain about how often alien plasma gunks up the railings or some such thing. I spent a good couple hours cleaning up a facility much to my enjoyment, however I felt just a tiny bit sad and alone that my character wasn’t saying silly things that I’d maybe say if I was in his shoes!

    Just a suggestion, take it, run with it, ignore it, whichever! I still like the game regardless!

  • Dirty Chicken:

    Please do something with multiplayeer this is terrible and yes i read “Frequently Asked Questions; Answers!”
    I dont understand it
    (If you are attempting to host a game for a friend online and you are connected to the internet through a router to the outside world, you as the game’s host may need to forward the game’s unique ‘Port’ number.
    Information about port forwarding can be found on your Router manufacturer’s website; Make sure that you forward ports 7777 (Game) and 27015 (Steam).)

    first i dont know what is mean ports 7777 what it is mean? where can i find it? and etc.
    Because i never used ports IP just to play coop, I am bad in english
    and i dont love to use Hamachi =(
    please do in future normal multiplayer for humans, not for hackers -_-

    • Hey!

      Yeah, we’ll be seeing what we can do about MP before the final release. Much of the hassle appears to come from the UDK-Steam linking, which we don’t have great access to, but we’ll definitely try everything we can to improve it ;)

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