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Container Ships, Large Targets, Intel Teams - Devlog 04/08

The Early Access launch was a big success, and I'm very happy with the amount of players we got and the reception that the game has had. Despite some fairly serious bugs and glitches, especially during the first few days of launch, the game has around a 91% positive review rating on Steam. I'm grateful to everyone who has supported the game in this early stage, and I'm really excited to see where things go during Early Access. I started working on new content recently, alongside continued bugfixes, and this update will cover what I've done so far.

New Level - Container Ship

I've been promising this for a while. A long while. After one of the original playtests I put a poll in discord asking if people wanting to burglarise a container ship. They said yes, of course. Well next update it will be possible.

The ship is pretty huge, possibly a little too huge. I have had to scale down the number of containers on board, because it would get pretty tedious rifling through 500 shipping containers. Reducing the number also allows me to create corridors in between containers which is fun for stealthing about. Each container is randomised, currently with around 20 different possibilities for what's inside. This should give you plenty of variation, and I plan to add even more in future.

It's not just containers, though, the ship also contains everything else you'd expect to see on board. From crew quarters, to mess halls, to engine rooms. So even if you're unlucky with the containers there should still be plenty to steal. And for those of you who prefer kidnapping, there will be crewmates on board too.

I'm still working on the new level on stream, so stop by to see how it's coming along!

Large Target Goal

The steal marked item mission goal has always been very varied. Since any stealable in the level could be chosen as the target, you could be stealing a coffee mug or a car, and be getting paid the same amount either way. It also does not take into account whether your getaway has a high enough weight limit to steal the target.

To resolve these issues, I will split the marked item goal into small and large variants. The small item goal will pay less, but should be much easier. Going for a large item will give you more cash, but you're going to have a hard time getting it out. Both goals will also only select targets which are light enough for your getaway vehicle.

Intel Teams

Another issue the game has had for a while is progression. Currently you can just dive straight into casino heists right out of the gate, and fill your bike basket with enough gold bars to buy whatever you want. To fix this, I'm adding Intel Teams. An intel team gives you intel on missions of a certain type. To start, you'll be getting your intel from Kev and his mates, and it will only include suburban houses and bungalows. In order to get access to malls and mechanic's levels, you'll have to purchase the next intel team. The casino and container ship will be locked behind a third intel team.

This should force some better progression, and ensure that players play through the easier levels a bit more first, before moving on to harder ones. I am still balancing the prices, because I don't want players to get bored of the suburban levels before unlocking the new ones. If you have any thoughts, comment below how much money you think it should cost to unlock the mall/mechanics. The teams can also have different profit cuts which should help reduce the amount of money you can get from the more advanced missions.

And that's all for now! Thank you to all of the new patrons who have subscribed since launch. It's great to have so much support, and I hope this page can become its own little community. 

Early Access and the Future of Patreon

Early access rapidly approaches, after two and a half years of development. Thank you to all of the extra-early patrons who have supported me during this development period.

I will be sending out keys to patrons once early access goes live. If you have not yet contributed the $15 for a copy at launch, you will still receive a code which will keep working while you are subscribed. This means people who have subscribed recently will still get a code so long as they stay subscribed for at least 3 months in total.

The Patreon page will be staying up, and I'm hoping it will become a more active hub for the game's development once early access is released. I will be making new tiers with new benefits, so please review those and decide if you would like to stay subscribed.

I am planning on doing more frequent patron polls, for example to decide on new getaway vehicles, as well as hosting monthly patron QA streams if there is interest. The sporadic patron dev logs will also continue, and the patron channel in discord will stay open.

Swag Bags, Attic Antics, and Character Customisation - Devlog 20/04

I've been frantically adding the final few touches which were needed for Early Access release over the past month, as well as getting things ready for Playtest 8, which is now announced! It will start on the 28th April, check the discord for details.

Swag Bags

Small stealables have long been the bane of any would-be completionist burglar. So far, you've only been able to carry up to two items at once, which means lots of runs back and forth to collect books, small electronics, and other annoying objects.

Thankfully, the developer has heard your cries. I added a swag bag, which lets you quickly bag up a bunch of small items and carry them out in one go. It's a very simple storage device, allowing you to put an item in, or take items out at random. In VR mode, you just have to drag the item to the mouth of the bag and release to add it. To remove items, you just hit the trigger while holding the bag. In non-VR, you can left-click items to bag them, or left-click empty space to unbag a random item.

Attic Spaces

Does anyone actually like the bungalow level? I always felt it was a bit lacking, being the smallest level with no real verticality to it. I originally wanted it to be simple because it was the first level I developed completely from scratch, but I figured it could use something new.

So I added this attic space, in place of the previous boring roof. You can get in either through the external attic windows, or the entry points inside the house, through the ceiling. Both of these are randomised though, so there's no guarantee you'll be able to reach the attic easily. This will also be added to the house level, which is still in progress. I also want to experiment with basement areas in both these levels, and in the mall.

Character Customisation

Another much-requested feature that I only just got around to is being able to customise your character's look. This is a simple one, but I think it's pretty important in multiplayer to be able to tell the difference between all your friends, which was impossible before due to randomised and non-synced skins.

I added a little changing nook in the corner, just between the main menu and the intel board, which allows you to select your character's clothing, skin, and hair, and it will now be synced properly in multiplayer. There aren't many options yet, and I plan to flesh this out a little more in future, but it will do for now.

That's all for now! I hope you can join the playtest, and I look forward to seeing your screenshots and challenge submissions!

Guards and Cameras, Tase Effects, Spectating - Devlog 21/03

With the game set to release in Early Access this Spring, I've been making a lot of bugfix and polish changes over the past couple months. When you're only playing the game for a weekend, it's easy to look past janky or unpolished mechanics, but for a released game these things become more important. I have been adding small new features here and there though, which this devlog will cover.

Guards and Cameras

The mall level has always been a little too easy compared to the other levels. There are a lot of very valuable items without much protection. To fix this, I've added both security cameras and guards, which can spawn in randomly. The cameras can also spawn occasionally in other levels.

If you're spotted by a camera, an alarm will sound, attracting any nearby residents, guards, or cops to the area. So getting spotted by a camera isn't an instant failure, but you'll probably need to go hide somewhere for a bit.

Guards act similarly to cops, but they're slower and not as accurate with their tasers. If you're spotted by one, they'll call the cops right away and try to catch and tase you. If you manage to escape, they'll return to their patrol and keep an eye out for you while they wait for the cops to arrive. If they tase you before the cops get there, you'll just be knocked out for a bit, and you'll have another chance to escape once you come around.

I think these additions will balance out the mall level a bit, and require players to plan more carefully if they want to target those high-value mall items.

New Tase Effects

Getting tased is never fun, but it can at least look cool. I also had to make it more obvious that you're getting tased, due to the guards being able to KO you with tasers. So I added these new electric zap effects, one on the camera, and one on your ragdolled body.

You'll leave your body temporarily while KOd, to prevent any horrendous camera jerking. During this time, you're essentially a spectator. you can run around as normal, but not interact with anything. There's a slight screen effect while spectating, but I might add more indicators later.

Spectating

Getting yourself knocked out by a guard isn't the only way to spectate! The police have been kind enough to provide bored captured burglars with some VR headsets to keep them entertained. By hitting the new "Spectate" button in the police van, you can run around the level freely and watch your friends get captured too.

I do still intend to give you the option to break your friends out of the van, but until then, this should alleviate some of the boredom from waiting around for your friends to finish the mission once you've been detained.

With these changes along with some other smaller fixes and polishes, I think the game is really shaping up ready for Early Access. I also recently made it necessary for you to actually get to your getaway vehicle when the mission ends, or you'll be left behind. You'll have to pay out a part of your cut in "legal fees" if this happens, so when the timer starts, remember to start running back!

Let me know in the comments if you think there's any other important features you'd like to be added in time for Early Access!

Rockets, KOs, Public Lobbies - Devlog 17/01

Yep, I'm still alive. I apologise for the shocking amount of time since the last dev update, for most of the end of last year I was head-down getting the last bits of multiplayer finished, and following the playtest I suddenly had a bunch more multiplayer stuff to fix. But the game seems to be in a better state now, so I've been working on some more exciting things which are worthy of an update. 

Rockets

The remote piston has been a staple of the game for some time now, and seems to be a well-loved piece of gear. It's also not really used in the way it was "intended" (I didn't have much of an intention when implementing it, to be fair). People use the fact that the piston recoil pushes it backwards to slowly scoot heavy stealables along the floor towards the van. It's not very effective.

Seeing this, I figured it was time to give players what they really want - a way to push heavy stuff around. So I have added this mini rocket booster.

The booster is activated through a detonator, just like the piston. But it will give you a few seconds of high-power thrust, instead of a meagre nudge. It's strong enough to move heavy objects like cars, trucks, and even the police van, but it will make a hell of a sound. You'll need to make sure you're far from any residents, or have a way to deal with them should they wander over to investigate...

Knockouts

...and what better way to deal with a pesky inquisitive resident than a swift blow to the head? Yes, I finally got around to adding resident knockouts. The resident's head is now a breakable, just like a TV or a window. Do enough damage to it, and you'll knock them out temporarily. A hit with a hammer or heavy object is enough to instantly knock them out, so pick your tools wisely.

The unlucky resident will ragdoll while knocked out, and is draggable. That means if you catch them right before they get away, you can drag them back into the house to buy yourself extra time. Be careful though, because once they get up they'll be running away for sure. And each subsequent knockout will last a shorter amount of time.

You can also combine knockouts with rockets to make breakdancing. Which is fun

Public Lobbies

Perhaps less exciting, but an important feature. I have gotten public lobbies working again with the new multiplayer system. It took a lot more effort this time around, because the new system doesn't give me much to work with on this front, but it's more customisable too. If all goes well in testing, the next playtest should have public lobbies enabled again.

Rewriting Everything, Keys, New Intel, Breaking Bad - Devlog 30/09

It's been a while since the last update, mostly because I've been focusing on re-writing most of the major game systems to work better. There's not much interesting to show off when you're just breaking everything and then fixing it to be slightly better than it was before.

State of the Game

At this point, these are the things I've re-written so far over the past month or so:

• Non VR movement
• Multiplayer character and animation syncing
• Level Loading System
• Mission Intel System
• Player Gear Loading
• Physics syncing in multiplayer

And this is what I have left to do before the next playtest can happen:

• AI rewrite
• Multiplayer toolbelt syncing
• Multiplayer menu UX
• Wearables Syncing
• Voice chat

Keys

I re-added locked doors and windows a little while ago, but recently I was finding it annoying to have to keep breaking them down whenever I play. Eventually I want some kind of lockpicking system, but for now I decided to add keys which can spawn in missions. Right now the same key can be used to unlock anything in that level, but that might change in future.

New Intel UI

I've also redesigned the intel UI, now that the mission photos have been removed. I wanted to still have some visual stuff on there, so I made some little icons to represent each mission and goal type. I also added support for refreshing missions in the lobby, so you don't have to go into a mission to get a new selection. I may also add support for scrolling through different options, instead of just having 3 at a time.

Refresh button icon still needs to be made, for now it's just a black void

Breaking Bad

Also I added the RV from breaking bad as a getaway vehicle on stream. Make of this what you will. I might make some super cringy tik tok videos with it.

Mission loading, locking up, stealing doors - Devlog 19/08

The main focus for this past week has been redesigning the level loading system. If you played the last playtest, you may have noticed that the mission preview images in the intel board mysteriously disappeared. I liked having those previews, but generating them for each level took way too long, so I experimented with removing them.

New mission loading

In the end, I decided it wasn't really worth having the mission preview images. The load times would be far too long once there are more levels in the game, and most people didn't really find them very useful. Instead, I'll implement a new system which will still give the player some insight into how profitable or risky a mission is, without having to load the entire mission.

The new system will generate a series of values for each mission, such as the profitability, security, etc., which will then be used to create the mission itself. This will be slightly less accurate, but allow us to generate missions near-instantly. It will also allow for mission refreshing, to give the players more options of missions to choose from before loading in.

Security?

While planning out this system with the three main mission properties - profit, security, and ease of entry - I realised that there still isn't any variability in the ease of entry area. Profit already varies based on which items spawn, security can be varied by spawning more NPCs. But all windows and doors were always unlocked.

So before I could start implementing this new mission loading system, I had to introduce a way to vary ease of access - by adding locked doors and windows. A lot of this work was already done a while back, but I disabled it because it made development annoying. Well, now it's reenabled, and applies to any windows and doors which can spawn. External doors are far more likely to be locked, though.

Now I remembered why I disabled locking

Immediately after adding locked doors back in, I remembered why I disabled it. It makes development quite annoying, because I have to run around the house to find a way in every time I want to test something.

To fix this, I decided to add a commonly requested feature - breaking doors off their hinges. You can now smash your way through any doors, including locked ones. A hammer will make this easier, as this clip shows.

And of course, once you've ripped the door off, you can steal it! Or use it as a ramp or something.

I'm taking a week or two off from development to clear my head a bit, so you won't be seeing another devlog update until I'm back. I might do a stream while I'm away, but I'm not sure yet. I'll be checking in with the discord every now and then though, so you can reach me there in the patron chat area!

Flatscreen Revamps, New Stores - Devlog 06/08

Last devlog I mentioned that there were a lot of changes and improvements coming to the flatscreen mode, and since then I've started the long process of swapping out the flatscreen character movement for a brand new system which should match VR player movement more closely. There's still a lot to be done on this, but I've got the main areas working to a basic level so I thought I'd show it off.

Quick Climb

The first issue with flatscreen climbing was when doing quick climbs up and over single objects, or vaults. In VR, this is quick and easy because you just grab the top of the obstacle, pull yourself up and you're over. But in the old flatscreen climbing, you had to carefully mouse-over the point you want to climb at, then move slowly up and over the object before pressing Q to stop climbing. This is finicky, and hard to do smoothly when running away, or when trying to latch on to a climb point when jumping.

To solve this, I've added a quick climb option to flatscreen. When walking into an obstacle, if you press space you will now do a quick climb over the obstacle, instead of jumping. This will put you up and over the object at around the same speed as a VR player could do, without having to accurately click on anything. Here's a demo to show the functionality. This jump-grab is possible in VR, and quite easy to land, but was previously next to impossible in flatscreen.

Leaping from the truck in the lobby to the gantry, and automatically latching onto the climbable barrier and climbing up. 

Auto Climb

I covered the reasons for auto climb in the previous dev log, essentially it should solve the issue of flatscreen players finding it difficult or annoying to do long climbs, grabbing multiple points in a path. This is especially prevalent in ladders, rope launchers, and roof gutters. Since the last post, I've tidied up the autoclimb a bit and made it smoother

Showing auto-climb working between multiple different climbables, making it as easy to get around by climbing in flatscreen as in VR. I didn't have to press E at all after starting climbing.

Note that the reticle still appears, meaning it's still possible to set your own climb points. I'll probably have an option to disable autoclimb for people who like a bit of suffering with their game sessions. I haven't fully checked the speed against VR mode, but this can be tweaked until they're roughly equivalent.

Most of the rest of my time has gone to just making the new flatscreen character work properly. The previous character is integrated quite heavily into the projects, so it's been a bit of effort to untangle functionality such as climbing and carrying so it works with the new one. But it should be worthwhile, since the new character is much simpler and easier for me to make changes to. I'm hoping I'll be able to fix the high-FPS hand jitter in flatscreen once I have the new controller working.

New Mall Shops

I've also been working on a bunch of new room varieties in the mall level on my twitch streams. There's now at least 2 possible varieties for each room, so you can't be sure of any particular room being there anymore. Here's a few of my favourites!

Bigger music store, with a centre-piece grand piano! A very heavy, but very expensive steal.

Small barbershop, with a few barber supplies to steal. Or just take the chairs.

A jewelry shop, finally! I'm still planning on having a bigger one of these as its own separate mission, but I thought I'd add a mini version to the mall. Lots of good stuff in here to steal.

I also added some high-value, hard-to-steal ATMs to one of the mall atrium varieties. They're heavy, and bolted down hard, but it's worth a lot if you can get it.

And that's all for this update! I'm now streaming twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays, so come by if you're around. Remember you can get a VIP role in chat for being an early patron, by messaging me your twitch name on here. Check discord for the event times!

Playtest 6 Post Mortem, Flatscreen Redesign - Devlog 27/07

Playtest 6 has finally ended, after a whole week of burgling! Hope you guys had a chance to play, let me know in the comments or discord if you have suggestions or questions about the latest build. In this post I'll go over how the test went, and then talk a bit about the new direction I'm taking with the non VR version of the game.

Playtest 6 - How did it go?

It went very well! Since the test was part of Steam's VR Fest, we got a lot of new eyes on the game from Steam itself, which is rare but appreciated. There were around 4.5k wishlists from the playtest in total, which is a huge number for a single event. Here's the wishlist graph from the playtest, which started with that large peak on July 18th. This is quite typical with the playtests, the first day is always the most busy no matter which day it launched on.

Daily wishlists during the past 30 days, covering the playtest period from 18th July to 25th July.

You can see the playtest in context here, with this cumulative graph. The 4.5k wishlists from this test represents around a 13% increase in current total wishlists.

The discord server also grew by around 1000 people, many of which were invited by friends already in the server to play together. So, all in all it was a very successful playtest! Based on feedback, it did also highlight a few major areas in which the game needs improvement. These areas are Networking, Flatscreen mode, and Performance. Now that I have a solid idea of the scope of the game, and what people want to see from it, it's time to rework a lot of the systems to be more robust and easy to use.

Flatscreen Overhaul

To start off this process, I've been thinking about new systems for movement in non VR. The movement has always felt clunky compared to VR mode, especially the climbing, and vaulting over short objects. To fix the climbing side of things, I've implemented an auto-climb feature, which means that flatscreen players no longer have to select each point they point their hands on. Instead, they'll just point where they want to go, and move there. Hands are placed automatically if there are valid nearby climbables. 

The first implementation of autoclimb in action. There is still a bit of hand jank which needs to be fixed.

The start of the climb is the same as before, and still needs to be made easier (there will be a larger hitbox for climbable so you don't need to accurately click on them). Notice how after starting the climb, the player doesn't need to click or press anything again. Hands are placed automatically on the rope line, and will seamlessly transition to grabbing the roof edge as well.

This system will hopefully bring the flatscreen climbing experience closer in line to VR mode, and make it less clunky to get around. I'm also intending on adding support for quick-climbing or vaulting, in cases where there is an obstacle of fence or waist height respectively. This will mimic how players can quickly climb over single obstacles in VR mode by grabbing and pulling themselves over. I'm interested in thoughts on these systems, so let me know in the comments!

Twitch

Also as a last note, I'm hoping to do more regular twitch dev streams going forward, on Mondays and Thursdays around 2PM Eastern. Remember if you send me your twitch username in patreon chat, I'll give you a VIP role in the chat for being an early supporter!

Covid, saving states, and playtest 6 - Devlog 18/07

It's been a cough-y couple weeks dealing with one of those new-fangled covid strains. Not the greatest timing, but I am at least mostly recovered in time for playtest 6 to go live and for me to do a week of hotfixing.

Saving the Game

One thing I did manage to get done in time for the test was saving the game. This is obviously something that's been requested for a while, but it wasn't all that important given how easy it was to rack up money and how little there was to spend it on. Now, with some expensive getaway vehicles and a bit of re-balancing, I felt the need to add saving. This will allow people to build up money throughout the playtest, and hopefully save up enough for the getaway van and new pickup.

The saving is all automatic, using quite a basic system for now. Your money, purchased gear, equipment, and getaway vehicles should all be saved and ready for when you next load up the game. The saving is all local for now, so it won't transfer between machines, but steam cloud saving is an option for later.

Playtest 6 Tweaks

Other than that, I've been tweaking the game balance a bit to make it work better in a short-term playtest. The prices for getaway vehicles has been reduced so that people can experience more than just a bike during the 7 day test, and I have increased some of the goal rewards. I think it will be quite a bit harder for most people to pull off huge hauls using the bike getaway vehicle, so this rebalancing reflects that. I'm sure some of you will haul a car away in your bike baskets, though.

Bikes, VR Jumping, New Mall Varieties - Devlog 03/07

It's been a slow couple weeks, hence no dev update for a little while. I've been planning a lot of marketing stuff to try and make the most of the next playtest, which should bring some extra publicity. I also took a week off to mentally prepare myself for the next test, which is coming a little sooner than usual. But there are a few additions worth talking about

Bicycle Getaway

As part of the new getaway system, I added an even cheaper vehicle than the pickup truck: the bike. This will probably be the starter-getaway, and features a no-frills BMX with a shopping basket jury-rigged to the front with tape. It doesn't give you much room the stack your stolen goods, so is more aimed at stealing small, high-value targets like electronics. 

I may make it so that multiple bikes spawn in if you're in multiplayer, to give you a bit more room when you're in a group. The gear will spawn in boxes by the side of the getaway, like with the pickup truck

VR Jumping

A long requested feature, which was removed a few playtests ago, has been added back into the game. I'm not sure why it took so long to get around to adding this, since it only took an hour to implement. I guess I expected it to be more of a hassle than it was. It's a simple implementation, without the crouch-based height mechanics which the last one had, but it's handy for getting around, and a great quality of life feature for VR players.

New Mall Varieties

I've also been working on adding some new mall room varieties on stream, to add a bit more replayability to the mall level. In the last test, there was no room randomisation, but I'm aiming to have at least 2 varieties for each room in the next test. Here's a sneak peek of some of the new rooms I've been working on.

small shoe store

fancy-floored laundromat

daves food store branch #2

Taking a cut, New Unity, Performance, and Daves - Devlog 19/06

Burglary is too profitable. It's been very easy to build up money in the game in the past, because you can get so much from one mission if you get the right items. This needs to change to add some sense of difficulty and progression to the game, so as the first step in this, I've generously given a cut of your profits to the intel team and the getaway driver.

Ignore the blank space, that's a separate bug on the to-do list

As part of this, I revamped the goal board a bit to make it cleaner and easier to read. These cuts will be adjustable in future, and will be dependent on the intel team and getaway vehicle you select. Some getaway vehicles like bicycles won't require a driver, so in future these will save you some money on your haul profits. If you alert the resident and the cops are called, the getaway driver is given a larger cut due to the extra danger. 

New Unity Version

This is probably not as exciting if you're not a developer, but this week I upgraded to the latest version of Unity, from the old 2019 version. This is always a big risk in Unity, because the people who make Unity love to ruin and break things. There were a bunch of weird issues to deal with as usual, but in general the upgrade was well worth it this time around. I now have much faster load times, and a bunch of great quality of life improvements

Performance

Continuing on the theme of boring topics, I've also being doing some performance work. Being much larger than the other levels, the mall level really put the game to the test performance-wise, and revealed some areas I need to work on further. Part of this work is improving the overall performance, and part of it is adding new options for players on lower-end devices to reduce the graphics and improve framerate. One major addition will be a view distance setting, which should give a big boost for players who need it.

Daves

And finally, we have Daves. I started working on some new room varieties for the mall level, since we don't have full randomisation. This is the first new room variation, Daves. It was suggested on stream by a presumably very hungry viewer, and features a bunch of delicious-but-not-particularly-valuable snacks. There may be some hidden cash inside though 👀

Dave leaves all of the food in-store overnight to save on staffing costs

If you haven't checked out the streams yet, do come by! I've been going live a couple times a week at twitch.tv/oliverjoshdev and taking suggestions on what to implement. I have some fresh VIP roles, which I'll give out to patrons who message me their twitch username here on Patreon. There are a limited amount so first come first serve! (I'm going live today at 2PM EDT, so swing by if you're around)

New Lobby, Getaways, and a cat - Devlog 10/06

I've been itching to add something new after spending a little while on mostly bugfixes, so I decided it was time to start working on different getaway vehicles. 

Lobby Extension

The lobby was feeling a little cramped though, so first I had to make a bit of room for the new getaway UX. Here's a sneak peek at the burglar HQ extension. The lighting still needs a bit of work, and I'm hoping to put some extra little details in over time

Plenty of space to check out that sweet new burglar van

The gantry way helps you get a view from above

Getaway Selection

I've also started work on implementing changeable getaway vehicles. I already had this in mind during development, so there wasn't a lot of work to make the getaway vehicle self-contained, with spawn points, gear slots, and stealable goal areas so it can be swapped out for another one.

For the first alternative getaway, I'm keeping it simple with this pickup truck. It comes with boxes for your gear, and a bit of space in the back to haul your stolen goods. This will likely be a cheaper option compared to the OG van, which you'll have to work towards in the full game.

I'm thinking of having an even smaller getaway which players start out with, maybe something like this? Let me know your thoughts in the comments or discord.

Every burglar has to start somewhere, right?

Here's an early look at the getaway selection UX. You'll be able to scroll through the different options, and purchase a new vehicle once you've built up enough illicit savings. There will also be a button below your equipped vehicle to take you to an upgrade screen, once that is implemented.

Work in progress, let me know what you think!

I'm thinking of just having two main properties for each getaway: capacity and stealth. Capacity will give you a quick idea of how much you can fit inside the getaway, not including roof space. Low-stealth getaways will make a lot of noise when you enter a mission, which will make the AI more cautious. This will feed in to the AI worry system that I've got planned

Cat

Lastly, here's a little look at the cat model I'll be using when I add NPC cats to the game. I'm not sure when I'll start working on this properly, but I wanted to check out this cat asset I'd bought a while back and see how it looked in-game

cat

Non VR Improvements, Streaming?, Playtest Post Mortem - Devlog 02/06

It's been a busy week, with the fifth playtest bugfixes taking up most of my time. I managed to get quite a lot fixed during the weekend, with plenty more bugs reported to look at over the next couple weeks. It looks like the major physics bugs which made stealing large heavy objects easy are resolved now, which sets the stage for new gear items to make it more of a fun challenge.

Non-VR improvements

I also got some of the long-needed quality-of-life improvements done for the non VR mode done this week. The biggest one being held object rotation, to make it less of a hassle to manoeuvre larger objects through doorways. This has been a much-anticipated improvement for PC mode, but finding a good way to do it has been tricky.

Some games use a keyboard modifier + mouse movement for this kind of thing, but I find that can be unintuitive and only allows for movement on 2 axes anyway. A full 3 axis keyboard option is probably easier to use, but more fiddly. For now, I've decided to only give PC players the ability to "roll" two handed objects using Q and E. I've found that even just this 1 axis of rotation makes it substantially easier to manipulate objects in non VR mode, while remaining easy to understand and use

hofse

The arms intersect a bit but it's good enough for now. I may make the hands reposition themselves on the object as it rotates in future. I'm interested in hearing people's thoughts on this system next playtest. I might need to implement an advanced mode or something if some players feel like they still need more control over objects, but we'll see how this works out.

I've also finally given non VR players the option to smash things with the hammer without throwing it, which should make "break $n" goals easier to achieve. Or just enable rampages of destruction. I've been working on improving the way breakables work too, after which I'm going to make a bunch more objects breakable.

Here's a sneak peek of a new gear item too 👀 The wrench can be used to detach stealables which are attached to the walls, roof, ceiling, etc. Just give the object a good whack and it'll come right off without damage.

Streaming?

I quite enjoyed the pre-playtest Q&A livestream I did last week, so I'm considering doing more dev streams every now and then. There are some game dev tasks like level creation and making breakables which can get a little boring to do all day, but I think they'd make for interesting streams to fans of the game.

It'd also make the process a little more enjoyable for me, and maybe chat feedback would help me come up with ideas for new room varieties or something. I'll probably try a stream on the weekend, so look out in the discord for info on that when it comes if you're interested!

Playtest 5 Post Mortem

It's kind of amazing that this was already the fifth playtest! I think the game has come a long way since the very first one last year, and hopefully the next test will be even better (and less buggy)

Steam is not feeling like giving me detailed stats today for some reason, so I can't go into the full metrics but in terms of numbers this test resulted in around 700 wishlists, and nearly 300 new discord members. I think we had a drop in players from the last playtest, mainly because there was no 800k views tik tok post this time around, but it's interesting to see how many players I can muster just from the discord. A lot of the new members came from people inviting friends which is great to see.

This playtest was a little buggier than I'd hoped, mostly due to the new level selection system changing a lot of the load logic and resulting in a few broken state black screen bugs. Robustness is something I'm hoping to improve for the next playtest.

Speaking of the next playtest, I have reason to believe it could be a very good one. There may be a lot of fresh eyes on the game, so hopefully we'll set a new record for number of players to beat playtest 4. I can't give the details just yet, but stay tuned 👀

Playtest 5 now Live!

The fifth alpha playtest for The Break-In is now open! The demo can now be downloaded from Steam and played until 31st May, 8:00AM US Eastern. 

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1397390/The_BreakIn/ 

Use the team-finder channel to find people to play with, and the discord voice channels for voice chat (in-game voice is coming soon)  If you encounter bugs, please report them to the bug-reports . Include screenshots and Player.log file (Press F6 in-game to open the logs folder) for quicker resolution  

The Challenges

As always, there are challenges to complete during this playtest! We have created the challenge-submissions channel for this test, please post all of your submissions there, including the name of the challenge and all participants. There are discord roles up for grabs for challenge winners!  

Tallest Tower

Stack up as many items as you can into the tallest tower! Towers will be judged primarily on height reached, but if there’s a tie the most impressive tower will win. You’ll get a rank of Expert Burglar role for your entire team.  

Empty Room Challenge

Empty out an entire room of all of its stealables for a chance to receive an Expert Burglar rank for every team member! Most impressive or challenging room emptied will win, so get ambitious!  

Most Valuable Haul 

The burglary team with the most valuable total haul for one mission will receive an Expert Burglar rank for the entire team. Be sure to post a screenshot of your haul board, along with the names of all of the players involved.  

Funniest Screenshot

This category is judged by myself and the server moderators. The screenshot which we find funniest will get an Expert Burglar rank for every team member! Captions will be taken into account, so be sure to include one in your submission

Funniest Video

This category is judged by myself and the server moderators. The video which we find funniest will get an Expert Burglar rank for every team member! Post a link to your video in the discord along with your names. (Contact a moderator if the site you are trying to link to is blocked)

VR Toolbelts, Boxes of Tech, Balls - Devlog 17/05

Toolbelts

I finally got around to implementing toolbelts in VR, which was a little more effort than anticipated, but I'm quite happy with the results. There are 4 slots on the physical toolbelt, which appears around the waist of the player model when using full-body IK. When not using fully body, the toolbelt will float in place. I might add an option to turn off the toolbelt visuals because it might be distracting for some people

There's some weirdness with the hands in this GIF, where they move away from the thing you're holding. It only shows up through the spectator camera view though, so you won't see it in-game

The toolbelt works by simply dragging gear items to the slots. When an item approaches the slot, a bubble will appear to show that it can be placed. When an item is released in the slot, it will stay there until you grab it and pull it out again. The code behind it is actually the same as with the head wearables like the lampshade and headlamp, so it should be familiar.

New Mall Shops

I've also been working on the mall level, getting the scenery around the level finalised as well as making the first room varieties for each shop. For the fifth playtest, there'll probably be only one variety per room so the randomisation will be minimal, but as with the other levels I'll add more varieties over time. Here are a few examples of some of the shops and new stealables which have been added already.

A modern tech store with boxed electrical goods. The boxed ones are worth much more than their second-hand counterparts!

A small used camera store. Some of the professional kit in here can be worth a good amount.

balls

A shot of the upper floor area of the mall and skylight. I'm planning on adding more windows here, with some larger varieties to make it look more commercial

An outdoor eating area. Both of the food stalls are stealable

I'm probably going to be focusing on bugfixing over the next week, but I'm hoping I can make some further improvements to the mall level before the playtest. Currently it's substantially easier than the other levels because the only NPC is stuck inside his office in one of the small outdoor shops. I'm hoping to add guards and maybe more employees to make it more challenging. Once security cameras and alarms are implemented, they will likely be the main threat in commercial levels like this. 

Accidentally Exploiting Steam, Rooftop Adventures - Devlog 30/04

Whoops

I noticed a strange uptick in my steam page views a few days ago, apparently from the home page. I was a little surprised by this, because steam doesn't typically push indie games until they release, so I checked my page settings. Turns out steam thought I was releasing on 29th April, so it put the game right to the top of "Popular Upcoming".

Steam requires you to give it a release date, even if you don't have one yet, so I just entered a random date a while into the future and forgot about it. Releasing always requires a manual button push, so no harm was done and I got them to change the date just fine, but I did benefit quite a bit from the extra exposure.

On this wishlist graph, red X is the spike from the latest reddit post, while blue Y is the spike I got from the upcoming page exposure. I think it would have been higher, but because my release time was set to the early morning and steam removes games from the list after the release time passes, it didn't spend as long up there as it could have. All in all I got about 1000 wishlists from it. Not bad.

Mall Progress

The mall level is coming along very well; most of my time this week has gone towards building the main indoor shopping area. I'm really excited to see people playing the new level, I think it takes a lot of things to the next level and there's a lot of verticality in the different rooftops of each building.

Here's a sneak peek at the mall building. On its own, it's already around twice the size of the house level, so with the other external buildings this is shaping up to be quite a big area. I still need to add some extra bits of trim and decor so it doesn't look so flat.

And here's my favourite part, the skylight. For when you want to enter the mall in style. There isn't currently a good way to get down into the mall from the skylight though, since the rope launcher can't fire directly down. I might add some new item to help with that, let me know if you have any ideas.

The indoor area has a bunch of space for stores, which I'm still yet to fill out. Eventually there will be a few randomised varieties for each store, but there may only be one each for the May test. Again the walls are still a little flat and need to be decorated.

And earlier in the week I also made this arcade room variety for one of the external stores. You can clean the room out fully, but a lot of the stealables are pretty weird shaped and take a bit of effort to get out.

Polish

Finally, I've been adding some general polish to the game. The non VR toolbelts have been improved to have a little animation when switching items, VR climbing axes have been made easier to use, and a bunch of bug fixes (including that hand-stealables no collide bug finally) to prepare for the next test. There will be an announcement coming soon with the date! 

A Mall is Born - Devlog 22/04

Or it's in the process of being born. The waters have broken so to speak, and I've started working on the new mall level, as voted for by yourselves. It's been a slow week-and-a-bit since I took some time to visit family over Easter, but I'm back at it now.

Here's a quick sneak peek at the first shops in the shopping area. Roof access will be a big thing in this level, and there will be back-room office areas like this one as well as the main shop parts.

I'm planning on having an outdoor strip-mall style area next to the car park, as well as a small indoor mall with a few more shops contained within.

I'm working on getting a vertical slice of this level, with these two shops fully playable before making the rest of the level. That way I can test out some performance things before going all-out, and work out any issues early on.

This level will be the biggest so far by some margin, so it may need some extra performance improvements, but it'll be a good test of the game's systems.

I also spent the first of this patreon money to get a couple of new model packs. One contains farm-related things, and the other is a large pack with a lot of new cars, motorbikes, and workshop-related models, some of which might show up in the next playtest. It also has some of the models needed for the eventual container ship level. 

Non VR Toolbelts and Axes - Devlog 07/04

Toolbelts were on of the most asked-about and suggested features from the last playtest, and for good reason. Many of the gear items have now started to actually become useful, and in the next test players will need a way to easily carry multiple items into the mission target.

Toolbelts in VR are very easy. They're just areas attached to the player's body which gear items can be dropped onto to attach them there. The non-VR mode presents a challenge, however, because players can't simply move a held item to their belt like they can in VR. That's why I decided to work on non VR first.

Instead, I've implemented non VR toolbelts as a hotbar, just like in many other flatscreen games. Players can scroll along it to select different items in their main hand, and there is a space to represent the off-hand item as well. I'm taking some inspiration from the minecraft system here, and will probably add a 'switch hands' feature too.

Challenges

This kind of feature is also quite easy in most games. The held item is just switched out as the player scrolls through their hotbar. In the Break-In, however, it's a little more complicated. Held items don't strictly follow the player as they move like they would in most games. 

In order to make the non VR and VR modes as similar as possible, items instead follow a physics relationship with the player's hands, just like they do in VR. The difference is that in non VR, the hands are set to follow the player's body at a set position. But heavy objects will still weigh the hands down slightly, and you can feel that weight when turning or running, because the held object will lag behind slightly.

This means that, in order to switch one item out for another, that physics relationship needs to be properly broken, and then re-created. The hand also needs to be moved into position and the fingers need to be bent around the object. This can take some time, meaning the switch can't be instantaneous. 

All of this caused a lot of issues when switching items, which I've had to work through over the past few days. But the system is at a fairly robust point now. I'm hoping to improve it still, by adding set hand poses for all gear items so that the hands automatically go to the handle when grabbed instead of intersecting the item, as well as speeding up the grab process

Non-Toolbeltables

Only certain items can be attached to a toolbelt. It's limited to one-handed gear items, so you won't be able to walk around with a rope launcher tied to your belt. You also can't use it to store stealables, since they'd have no mechanism to clip on. I'm working on bags as a way to carry those around though

Instead, when you pick up something which can't be toolbelted, you'll see the generic icon. When you try to scroll or change item with the number keys, the item will just be dropped in place

Climbing Axes in Non VR 

Last devlog I showed the new climbing axes working in VR mode. Well, this week I added non VR support to these. There's still a little jank around the green placement objects, but the main functionality is there.

Poll Results

The first patron poll has now come to an end, and it looks like the new level will be a small mall! I'm still not 100% sure what this will look like, but I'm considering some kind of strip-mall with a few different shop varieties. There should be some fun opportunities for rooftop entry, and it will be a good way to see how far I can push level size before performance constraints kick in.

Let me know if you have any ideas for new level features below!

Windows, Axes, and Suspicious Toasters - Devlog 31/03

It's been a little while since the last devlog; I had to spend an ungodly amount of time updating assets and recording a new trailer / reddit video over the past couple weeks.

So this week I decided to have some fun with a few of the easy features I've wanted to add for a while. First up is a bunch of new window varieties for the suburban levels.

Windows

I've always wanted multiple types of window, since the typical sliding window gets a little boring and doesn't offer much variety. Any windows in a level can now randomly generate one of 4 types, as you can see below. 

I think the differing size and open-ability of the windows will make for some interested gameplay: you'll have to take them into account when planning your burglary. 

Big Swinger

Big Non-Open

Letterbox

Traditional Slider

Climbing Axes

You may have noticed the blacked-out "coming soon" climbing axes in the gear menu last playtest. It turns out soon is sooner than expected, because I have them working now.

You can use them to climb up sheer walls which might otherwise prove difficult. They don't require as much set up as a ladder, but they're quite expensive. Useful for single-person infiltration or reaching areas too high for ladders or rope launchers.

Toasters

This suggestion came from the discord, and seemed a little weird at first. But I figured we already have lampshade stealth technology so it makes sense. All toasters can now be activated when held to fire toast at great speed.

Toast will dissipate on impact, and make a noise which may cause the resident to investigate. It's pretty useful having an instant noise making device like this, in contrast to the delayed fuse of the firecrackers, and I'll probably add a gear item which does something similar.

I do want to have some more items like this, which only spawn in the level but can be useful for opportunistic burglars. Any ideas? 

Patron Poll! Next Level to be Added

Help decide which level I'll work on next. This level will be playable during the next playtest, so choose wisely!

I want to save the more advanced levels like bank vaults and museums for later, when more gear and features have been added

There will be another dev log out soon, I've been busy finishing up the level selection and working on a shiny new trailer / marketing videos 👀

Level Selection and New Intel - Devlog 12/03

Most of my time since the last update has been spent on managing the playtest, fixing bugs and putting out hotfixes to some of the major issues people encountered.

Playtest Post-Mortem

The fourth playtest has been the most successful so far, even overtaking the October Steam Next Fest demo in terms of players, wishlists and new discord members. Over 2000 people joined the discord server during the test, and we're quickly approaching the big 10k members milestone!

Steam wishlists have also seen a healthy increase, here's a graph for those interested in metrics. The largest spike actually occurred right after the playtest ended, mostly driven by a tik tok video made by a VR creator which went viral.

Level Selection

The level selection system has been in a demo form for a long time now, only giving the player the option to select between "House" and "Bungalow", without showing what the level looks like until the player actually loads into it.

This week I finally started on a proper level selection system, redesigning the intel board completely. It's still in a proof-of-concept phase, but let me know what you think of the new design.

Three missions will be generated and displayed on the board, with some information about the potential profits, risk, and ease of entry, as well as some hints on possible high value targets and things to look out for. 

Pictures will also be provided, so players can make their own decisions on which mission to tackle next. You can zoom in on the mission packs and photos to get a closer look at them. The pictures in this gif have been automatically generated from the level, but the text is all placeholder for now.

Some of the provided pictures will be slightly useless of course, but that just adds a whole new layer to the game in trying to plan a heist based on fuzzy, hastily taken photographs.

I am considering adding the ability to upgrade the intel team in future, so that higher quality - or even night-vision - photographs will be given instead to give players a better idea of what they're doing. More photos will probably be needed if larger missions are added.

This new level selection UX will be vital in the next playtest, where there will be at least 3 levels to choose from. Look out for a patron poll soon to decide on the next level to be added!

Breaking Computers, Fixing Multiplayer - Devlog 04/03

I'll be giving weekly (ish) updates here on patron for early supporters, so you get a behind-the-scenes look at how development is going and the kind of things I'm working on right now

Breakables

I've been working on making more objects breakable this week, as well as making better workflows to speed up the breakable-making process

I've seen some games using fully automatic breakable generation, splitting an object into chunks at runtime when they're hit to make it look like they're falling apart, but I think the effect is a little unrealistic for some objects

I will use an automatic process to initially split most objects, like the glass bottle below, but then I'll manually alter some of them to fit better.

It looks a little weird for now because the bottle is not hollow, but that can come later. This kind of chunk-based breaking can work well for brittle objects made up of one material, like a bottle, or the ceramic bird-bath.

But for more interesting stealables, like PC towers, it would look very weird. For these kinds of items, I'll have to use a more manual process.

I've made the PC cases with glass or plastic sides shatter open when hit, while for other cases the side will just come off. Some of the components, like GPUs, RAM sticks, and power supplies will fly out once the PC is broken, and you can steal those too.

Overall it will be worth less, though, and the case is of course damaged.

Improved VR Multiplayer Experience

If you played in the previous tests (or watched any footage) you'll know that the VR multiplayer syncing was a little janky.

The stealable movement syncing works by adding an artificial delay of about half a second onto any movement, which smooths out any real lag caused by network issues. That means the stealables won't jitter and jump around due to lag.

But previously, the players were not delayed in the same way. That meant when you moved in VR, it took half a second for the hammer you're holding to catch up.

I rewrote the VR multiplayer syncing this week, so it uses the same smoother system as the stealables. I think the result is much better and more realistic when players are moving around holding items.

Anyway here's me throwing a hammer at myself

4th Playtest Prep

I've also been fixing up minor bugs and making sure everything works in time for the 4th playtest, which has now already started. It runs from 4th-8th of March, so make sure you check the announcement post to see if it's still running, and get in while you can! 

Fourth Public Alpha Playtest!

The fourth alpha playtest for The Break-In is now open! The demo can now be downloaded from Steam and played until 8th March, 8:00AM EST. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1397390/The_BreakIn/ 

Use the team-finder channel in the discord to find people to play with, and the discord voice channels for voice chat (in-game voice is coming soon)  If you encounter bugs, please report them to bug-reports. Include screenshots and Player.log file (Press F6 in-game to open the logs folder) for quicker resolution 

The Challenges

As always, there are a few active challenges during this playtest! Post your submissions in game-pics-and-clips for a chance to get exclusive discord roles 

Most Destruction Caused

This playtest features breakable objects for the first time, so get breaking! The screenshot which shows the most destruction will get exclusive Expert Burglar discord roles for the entire team. (Not everything is breakable yet) 

Most Bamboozled Resident

This playtest also adds an extra layer to the resident AI, allowing you to distract them by smashing glass or using firecrackers. Use this to your advantage to bamboozle a resident, and capture a screenshot to get exclusive Expert Burglar discord roles for the entire team.  

Most Valuable Haul

The burglary team with the most valuable total haul for one mission will get exclusive Expert Burglar discord roles for the entire team. Be sure to post a screenshot of your haul board to the discord server, along with the names of all of the players involved. 

Roof Party Award

Use the items and furniture you steal from your target to create the best roof party scene. Any roof will count, but extra points are given to more difficult or ambitious locations. The screenshot showing the best roof party will get exclusive Expert Burglar discord roles for the entire team.  

Funniest Screenshot or Video Award

Post your funniest screenshots or game clips, and you might get exclusive Expert Burglar roles for your entire team. Keep it PG!

A team can only get a maximum of one award, and Expert Burglar ranks will be given additively, so if you already have Expert Burglar I, you'll move up to Expert Burglar II 

Thank you to everyone taking part in this playtest! I'm looking forward to seeing things break, and residents bamboozled