Weekly update #2, 20th of July 2020.
Hi guys, yet another update. For those who haven't seen it yet, please go check the latest video updates (here and here) Marius did on our YouTube channel. Lots of new stuff in the game since last week, such as a…
Flyable plane!
For those of you who haven't noticed, the tech-demo version now allows you to fly a plane, specifically the Sunderland bomber. These planes were used as an anti-submarine weapon during the conflict, sinking a total of 26 U-Boats. For more information on the plane, its capacities and how they were deployed, check this link.
If you want to have a go yourself, you can download the latest tech-demo here or through the itch.io app here.
In the multiplayer, drydock demo and floating demo, you can bring up the debug menu by pressing 'U' and then 'spawn plane.' When you're done flying, or want to start a new flight, simply press 'U' again and spawn another plane, or 'spawn player', which will take you back to the U-Boat. If you haven't seen it yet, the debug menu also allows you to play around with weather and time.
New team member!
This week we also had a very kind gentleman join our team. He will mostly be proofreading and editing our written communications (such as the website, but in later stages, also the game manuals and the like.)
Deck gun/AA gun.
We have also done some work on the animation, sound-effects and networking of the 20 mm flak gun and the 8.8 cm deck gun. This is all implemented for multiplayer as well. This is a major step for us working towards making the transition from a tech-demo to a game, as, well, you can now have one of your friends fly a plane and try to shoot at it. You might argue that there is some 'gameplay' now, in the same way young children play with toy planes and shout 'pew-pew' at each other. So yes... even if it doesn't look or feel like much at the moment, it is a giant step in terms of development.
A damage model is yet to be incorporated - which given the quality we aim for will be quite some work indeed - but I do hope it will give you guys a bit of a feel where this is progressing towards. Please let us know what you think of it as well. Your feedback is very much welcomed.
Your suggestions and further towards the MVP.
At the moment, I am still working on the MVP-map; deciding on what features we want to have in the first version of what we can actually call a game. I haven't been able to put as much time in it as I wanted to over the last couple of days (real life got in the way), but I'm hoping and planning to finish it by Wednesday. I will not publish this, however, because it will require some further discussion with the other members of the team. I won't be publishing it later either, as everything on there will be subject to change, until we actually reach the MVP status. I think it's better to keep you surprised and excited with every update we do, than getting into the business of promising and risking not to be able to deliver it. With the pace and style of development right now and the state the project is in, I hope you guys understand the reasons for that approach.
Our approach isn't very linear. Rather than a simple: this first, then that, then that... we're instead building all the individual puzzle pieces and putting 'chunks' of those together as time goes by (a compartmentalized approach). It might be that we choose to work on something for a while, let it rest for a while and work on something completely different, pick it back up later or even do something different, etc. Given that, it's very hard for me to make any predictions and promises on when certain things will be finished and how soon you will see them in the tech-demo.
Come Wednesday, however, I do hope to be able to confirm some of the features you’ve been asking for in terms of whether they will be part of the MVP or not and what kind of game modes you can expect. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. After that, I hope to start focusing on the longer term development, which will allow me to get a better idea of where and how your suggestions that don't make it to the MVP will fit in the developmental track.
Upcoming work.
At the risk of disappointing you, the next couple of weeks (2-3 or so), we will primarily focus on squashing bugs, reworking some sounds and animations, basically cleaning up and tidying the thing a bit, so the unstable branch will become, well, more stable. Don't expect too many major changes or additions - such as what we did this week with bringing in the airplanes - during that period. If you’d like to know more about what kind of things we are tackling during this period, let me know. I do hope, however, to bring you some cool stuff (not in terms of changes in-game directly, but important and interesting nonetheless) with the update next Sunday; some of you might already know what it is, but those who don't... I hope you'll like it.
That's it for now!
As always, thank you very much for your support! Don’t forget to check out our Discord to stay up to date with the latest changes and have a chat. Much love, and I’ll see you all soon.
