Dev Blog #58 - Marker System, Breakables, Preparations

Hello Patrons!

A blog post on a Sunday! We’re halfway into September, and if you remember our last blog, we mentioned that September is filled to the brim with deadlines for us. Just have to push on through for a little longer until we can go back to working solely on the full product.

Thankfully, I have time to write a proper blog post again!

Marker System

A frequently requested feature has finally become a reality! With Selaco having rather complex level design and often requiring you to memorize numerous locations, it only felt right to add a system to keep track of such things.

GZDoom had a built-in system for this, but it was quite lackluster. It only added a very hard-to-see arrow on the Automap, there is not enough control over them, and you cannot see them without opening the map. So where's no good visual on the thing at all. We wanted to fix this.

Visible markers on the map, defined by both color and shape to hopefully make it more friendly to colorblind players

What is it?

The Marker System allows players to place markers in the game world. These markers are in 3D, emit a faint light, and are always visible on the in-game map. Even if you enter a level then return to it later, they will still be exactly where you left them. They serve various purposes, as illustrated in the following scenarios:

• You come across a cracked wall but lack the necessary explosive to break it. You can place a marker on it to return later when you have the means to destroy it.
• You find a Generator, but it's missing a Power Cell. You can mark the Generator's location to easily locate it again once you acquire a Power Cell.
• You stumble upon a potential secret area but struggle to find its entrance. You can mark it for later exploration.

Markers don't directly impact gameplay but provide valuable assistance to players, enhancing navigation and planning.

How does it work?

There are two methods for placing markers:

On a Keyboard & Mouse setup, simply press the 'Place Marker' button.

With the gamepad, we had to improvise because every button is already being used. We came up with a pretty good idea that works wonderfully, and also ended up benefiting from the Keyboard & Mouse control scheme as a result. 

We've essentially reworked our Weapon Wheel to enable the selection of multiple wheels. For instance, if you hold down the Weapon Wheel button, you can press the Left Bumper / L1 button to cycle between different wheels, such as a Utility Wheel (for selecting throwables) and a Marker Wheel (for choosing marker colors). It's not fully implemented yet, but I'd love to showcase it when the time comes.

Players can add up to 5 markers per level. When the sixth marker is placed, the first one is automatically removed. To remove a specific marker, players can press the Use button while looking at one.

Challenges

One unexpectedly challenging aspect of game design is ensuring players are aware of certain features. While there is a 'Place Marker' button in the Keybind menu, not everyone reads this menu. How can we ensure players are aware of this mechanic without needing an entire tutorial popup for a feature this small?

The solution lies in our Weapon Wheel! This is a feature that many players will undoubtedly utilize. Thus, whenever the wheel is open, the button prompt to switch to the Marker Wheel will always be visible in the top left corner. Players who want to utilize this, or want to see what it’s about, will probably give that button a go.

Signs

Because this one always bummed me out. There are hundreds of different sign assets in Selaco, and none of them could be destroyed. They were completely non-interactive and would not respond to anything. This goes against our design philosophy of trying to make everything react accordingly.

This has changed. All signs can now be removed from the walls and have a very juicy 'PANG' sound when shot! You'll hear it in the Extended Demo when it's out! You can also press 'Use' to remove them from the walls. Why? No idea. Sometimes it's best not to ask too many questions about our choices.

Bricks and other breakables!

You can now bully your enemies.

We've finalized our weapon-throwing mechanic, allowing the player to turn almost anything into a weapon. We discussed this previously, and it's now complete! It ended up requiring more work than initially anticipated because not every object was designed with this in mind, both in terms of code and art assets. For instance, when you throw a brick at an enemy, it doesn't feel right to simply make the brick disappear on impact. Instead, the brick now snaps in half and has a unique effect.

The same principle applies to how we coded our chairs. Originally, when they were shot, they would be replaced by a more damaged version of the same chair, one that is riddled with bullet holes. However, when you start throwing it, this approach no longer makes sense because a thrown chair against an enemy would magically have a lot of bullet holes in it. We had to address many cases like this.

BONUS: Here's an example of a stack of bricks being hit by a grenade.

BONUS 2: This also demonstrates the Weapon Shake feature we added a while back! It really adds an extra layer of impact to explosions.

Mapping Improvements

Some minor things here, but probably fun to mention. We’ve added 3 new Actor Flags in the editor that mappers can use (which includes you, once the game ships!).

The mention of Cooperative is just there for future-proofing. This does not mean the game will ship with a Co-op mode.

Sentry

An enemy type that has the ‘Sentry’ flag will avoid moving as much as possible. This is useful in case we want to position an enemy in a tower or window and don't want them to pathfind towards the player or retreat to a different position when shot. If you get close or dislocate them, the Sentry Flag is removed, and they will start having normal behavior again.

Static

This makes an actor completely static. This is useful for a number of decorations the player cannot reach or should not interact with. For example, if you have a bunch of actors behind a window the player will never have access to, these actors can be made ‘Static’. Static basically means that it loses all interactivity. It cannot be destroyed, it cannot be touched, it cannot be thrown. Nothing. It exists purely for scenery. This saves a bit of performance!

Rifle Start Only

We noticed a few problems with our Rifle Start mechanic. As a reminder, a Rifle Start means that you begin every level with just your machine gun. All other weapons and items are removed from your inventory. This is a common way to play Doom, and an approach I personally really like, so we added it to Selaco as well.

However, we noticed a bit of awkwardness in places. (Minor spoilers) Level 3 ends with the player obtaining a Grenade Launcher. It’s a fun way to end a level, so to start Level 4 without it was a bit weird. The Rifle Start Only flag allows us to add pickups that are only visible when players are in Rifle Start mode. In this case, it allows us to place a brand new Grenade Launcher early on in the 4th level so they can still use it. It isn’t there for players who have it disabled because it was already mandatorily given to you the level before it. There are other cases where this is beneficial, but those are spoilers.

From the Archives

I was digging through some old stuff and found some interesting things. One such thing is the very first attempt at designing a Wrist Computer system. Take a look:

Now, let's compare that to the current build…

Quite a fun difference, isn’t it? Lets do another!

Here is the very old keypad. Ignore how the background is Hexen, Cockatrice used that as a base to do some basic UI tests in the engine.

We were still testing the waters here, so we tried to keep things simple. After some testing in the actual game, it felt like the system was a right fit, so we asked one of our artists to start drawing some sketches of a proper keypad system.

Final result:

This raises the question, would you all be interested in reading a blog post that focuses on comparing the old Selaco (or even Ominous, the name we used in our modding days) content with what we have today? This could encompass weapons, enemy designs, and environments. I believe it could be a fun retrospective.

Please let me know in the comments or in the Patreon Lounge channel on our Discord!

Schedule

We’re still in a busy period of the game’s development, but here is what is currently happening:

September 17 -> Admirals get an update for the Extended Demo Testing branch

September 25 -> Patreon Extended Demo goes live for all backers (Remember, keep an eye on your mail)

September 29 -> Plush Campaign goes live

September 30 -> Release Date Trailer on Realms Deep

After this, all focus shifts towards the full game!

What are we currently working on?

Lots of refining right now. I’m currently in the process of seamlessly stitching together all the Chapter 1 levels that we have so far so that we can conduct proper tests for the first chapter of the game (which, I cannot stress enough, is lengthy).

We’re also updating some very old UI elements that still use outdated systems, like pickup messages and location prompts.

The mall continues to be where most of our artists are spending their time right now, as a lot of branding assets are being created. Especially Borion, our voxel artist, who is still hard at work getting all the arcade machines ready for the Arcade.

What to expect from us at Realms Deep?

We will be launching a no-nonsense gameplay trailer that showcases a wide range of content we've never publicly revealed before, not even here with our backers!

After the trailer airs, I'll start a massive Twitter thread to discuss the game and explain what to expect when it launches. I will also be posting it on our Patreon blog.

There's quite a lot to unpack after the trailer is released, and some players may have questions about the mechanics shown in the video. Feel free to reach out to us and ask any burning questions when the time comes! Maybe we can do a Patreon Q&A.

Conclusion

These next 2 weeks are going to be insane and I cannot wait for this month to be over. Doesn’t mean I’m not excited of course, I really am, but it’s very daunting. A lot of the stuff is already done so it’s now just a matter of putting it out there. Remember that as a backer, I’ll be posting our Realms Deep trailer a little earlier than YouTube / Realms Deep!

I’m going to make the final few preparations for the Extended Demo, everyone else will continue working on the full game.

Very excited to hear everyone’s thoughts on what we have to show this month!

Wesley de Waart