Crisis Point: Extinction - Lewd Metroidvania (2019 Public Demo now available!)

[Anon_42]

(The following is (mostly) a copy-paste from our bi-weekly public update post on Patreon! If you like what you see, you can try a free demo of the game on our itch.io by clicking here! If you enjoy the game, please consider supporting us on Patreon! We couldn't make this game without our supporters!)

 

 

Hey everyone, time for another CPE progress update! Just like last week, this will be a quick overview of what we've been doing - we've already talked at length about everything that's going to be in v0.46, so all I really have to update you guys on is how far along we are.

 

My goal at the moment is just to get this update out before the year ends, and I'm still hopeful we can pull that off, but in the interest of transparency I am getting a little worried about the time crunch. All of the things we're working on for this update are all-or-nothing, so if they aren't done there's nothing I can do to really push the update out faster. I just want to warn you all of that ahead of time so you're aware of it; we're going to continue doing 3-4 streams every week until the update is done, and I'll keep you all updated every step of the way, but it's possible the update might end up being pushed a week or two into 2023. I'm confident we'll have it done very soon, so don't worry about there being a big delay or anything like that, I just don't want to rush out a crappy update with lots of issues if we end up needing just a little bit more time.

 

 

With that out of the way, here's the progress report on the 4 major parts of this update:

• The 360 aiming update is around ~85% complete. Mouse support is pretty much functionally complete at this point, with only a handful of animation-related things left, and I started gamepad testing recently. The added complexity of supporting both gamepad AND mouse is making things more difficult than I expected, since the two control schemes work VERY differently (as opposed to keyboard and gamepad, which are both just 'buttons' so they're nearly identical code-wise), but progress is going very well nonetheless.
   
• The lighting update is basically finished at this point, probably 98%. I didn't work on it too much the last two weeks because there's not much left to do, and because this is the only part of the update that doesn't cause huge issues if it's slightly unfinished; all of the important light sources have been updated, and now it's more a matter of adding NEW light sources and taking advantage of the new features, so this part is close enough to call it pretty much complete.
   
• The screen size update is at around ~95%. I've done a playtest of the full game, and there are only two major things left to fix: first is some visual issues with fullscreen mode, and second is that some cutscenes have animation problems - mostly, NPCs that are supposed to walk in from offscreen (or walk offscreen) are now spawning/despawning in view of the camera, since there's a lot more horizontal screen space now. None of that will be hard to fix, thankfully, and aside from them, the only other thing is that the menus are all completely broken - but I'm not going to bother fixing that, because..
   
• The UI rework. This is my next major project, and I'll be starting on it during tomorrow's stream. This is the biggest question mark left for me right now, and the only thing making me uncertain if the update will be done in time; everything else is nearing completion, and would certainly be done by our next biweekly update, but since I haven't started on the UI rework yet it's hard to say how much work this is going to take.

I did consider just fixing the old UI temporarily to get this update out in time, but because of how broken the screen size update made it, it would still be a LOT of work to make the old UI functional again - and it would look like crap with the extra screen space going unused - so it's not really worth fixing that up instead of just biting the bullet and doing the whole rework.
 

If it was just a simple job of replacing the UI, it might not be too difficult, but this is also an opportunity for me to address some of the serious technical issues the game's menus have. I won't get into the details, it'd be rather boring, but here's one quick example: the Options menu from the Main Menu, and the Options menu accessed from the pause screen while ingame, only share some code despite being functionally identical - they each have a lot of unique code, purely because there were issues I couldn't figure out a more elegant solution for at the time, so whenever the Options menu is updated or changed, there's a good chance I'll have to do testing and fixes on each version of the menu separately. Suffice it to say that there's a lot of old code from my early days that have been causing problems for a long time, due to my inexperience as a programmer back when I started CPE, so there's a lot of underlying tech debt that needs to be addressed and now is the most logical time to do it.

 

 

So, all that is to say that I'm really not sure when this update is coming out. It will depend ENTIRELY on how difficult this UI rework ends up being. I still have almost a full month to get it done, so I think there's still a very good chance v0.46 will be out by the end of the year, but I should have a better idea of our chances by the next biweekly update.

 

And that's it for me today! Seriously, thank you so much for how patient you've all been. I know v0.46 is a lot later than anyone was expecting, but thanks to all the work I've done on myself this year, I'm in a healthier mental place than I've EVER been before, I'm genuinely enjoying working on CPE again for the first time in a long time, and I am beyond excited to finally get this update in your hands. This is the single biggest gameplay update CPE has ever had, and during my playtests I'm having so much more fun playing it than ever before, so I can't wait to see what you all think of it!
 

Thank you for reading! If you want to follow our progress on v0.46 more closely, don't forget to come hang out at the streams (https://picarto.tv/Anon42), and we'll see you again in another two weeks for the next biweekly update!

[Anon_42]

(The following is (mostly) a copy-paste from our bi-weekly public update post on Patreon! If you like what you see, you can try a free demo of the game on our itch.io by clicking here! If you enjoy the game, please consider supporting us on Patreon! We couldn't make this game without our supporters!)

 

 

 

Hey everyone. So, we've officially entered 2023, and the update isn't out yet. The closer we got, the more certain I was we were going to miss the date; to be honest, we still have quite a bit more to do before it's ready for a release, and if I had forced the update out it definitely would've been rushed, so as bummed as I am about missing the 2022 release window, I'm a little relieved that the pressure to do it is gone now. Everyone has been waiting so long for this update, I don't want it to have loads of issues when it finally does, if I can avoid it.

 

So, like I said in the last biweekly update, now that we've entered 2023 with no update release, I'll be posting weekly updates instead of biweekly until the update comes out. I'm going to keep them simpler, so they don't take up much of my time compared to usual, and I can focus more on getting the update itself out, so let's get right into it.

 

 

The main things left to do are testing, and the UI. With testing, this update has SO many radical changes to the game that odds are, there are tons of issues I haven't run into yet. It'll be hard to find all of them before releasing the update, so I'm probably going to save testing until everything else is done, and then get some close friends to help me test the game as thoroughly as possible. I'll let you know when we get to that phase, since it'll hopefully be right before the update comes out for everyone.

 

For the UI, progress is going very well. The Blaster and Skills menus are both complete, and I've started on the Options menu as well, which is the most complex menu but also the last major one. There's a few smaller menus that also need an update, like the difficulty selection menu when you hit New Game, and the Warp menu, but those are extremely simple and should only take a few hours of work each. There's also the Database menu, which I haven't started yet, but the good news is the Database menu isn't a very interactive menu, unlike the other ones - it's just a menu to display information and lore, so it will be more complicated than the super small ones like the Warp menu, but much simpler than any of the main ones like the Options or Skills menus, so it shouldn't take too long to complete.

 

There's still a bit of work that needs to be done for 360 aiming, but Orexius is still working on the animations for that, so I can't finish it up on my own. I've been adding animations as he finishes them though, and almost all of the most important stuff is finished, so it won't be much longer til 360 aiming is done enough for a release.

 

 

So that's where things stand right now. I'm sorry we missed the 2022 window, but we're going to continue streaming ~4 times a week and posting weekly updates until it's out, so you'll all be updated every step of the way. Thank you all for being patient with us while we finish this up! This is the biggest update CPE has ever received, despite the lack of new content - playing it is like playing a completely new game and I'm so excited to get it in your hands, I'm positive it's going to be worth the wait! Thank you for sticking with us, and I hope all of you had a fantastic holiday season and brought in the new year with style. We'll see you during this week's streams, and next weekend with the next update!

[Anon_42]

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(The following is (mostly) a copy-paste from our bi-weekly public update post on Patreon! If you like what you see, you can try a free demo of the game on our itch.io by clicking here! If you enjoy the game, please consider supporting us on Patreon! We couldn't make this game without our supporters!)

 

 

Hey everyone, weekly update time! Like last week, this will be a quick rundown of how v0.46 is coming along. I don't want to spend too much time on these updates, so I can put more time into finishing the update itself, so let's get straight into it!

 

 

The Options menu was basically completed last week, only missing a few small functions that won't take long. The Controls menu took a bit more effort than I expected (and I already expected it to be the toughest menu in general), so I wasn't able to get to the other small things like the Warp and difficulty selection menus yet. That being said, the Gamepad Selection menu I implemented this week is nearly identical to how the warp and difficulty selection menus will function, so I'll be able to reuse most of the code and those ones will be even faster to implement. Fingers crossed, the UI rework should be done by the end of the week, unless I'm forgetting something major!

 

For 360 aiming, all of the truly essential animations are finished, so we can call it complete enough for release now. Orex will still be working on more animations for it, there's plenty of room for more polish, but from here on it's non-essentials!

 

 

The menus and 360 aiming were the only two major things left before this update is ready to come out, and now that one of those is done and the other is nearly done, we're finally approaching the finish line! I still need time to do bug testing/QA, so I don't think the update will come out before next weekly update, but I think the major work will be done by that point. Then it's just a matter of polishing and bug testing, and we should finally be able to deliver the update to you by the end of January.

 

 

And that's it for this update! I hope you're all excited to finally play this thing, I know I am - 360 aiming has been such a massive gamechanger, CPE feels better than ever. As usual, we'll be streaming a bunch this week to try and get the update finished, so come hang out on Picarto (https://picarto.tv/Anon42) if you're interested in watching us work. Thanks for reading, see you again at the next update!

[Anon_42]

(The following is (mostly) a copy-paste from our bi-weekly public update post on Patreon! If you like what you see, you can try a free demo of the game on our itch.io by clicking here! If you enjoy the game, please consider supporting us on Patreon! We couldn't make this game without our supporters!)

 

Hey everyone, and welcome to what will hopefully be the last weekly update before v0.46 is in your hands!

 

Things are going to be a bit different this week, compared to the last few. As you all know, we've been streaming 3-4 times a week to try and get this update finished, and now we're finally just about at the finish line. There are a lot of logistical things involved in an update release, and I can't really stream that work, so we might not be streaming at all this week; we're definitely not streaming today, and the rest of the week will largely depend on how playtesting goes, which I'm going to be starting in earnest today. If I run into any major issues that could take a few hours to fix, then I might stream that work, but otherwise I'm going to be focused on the things that I need to do in order to release this update - preparing the trailer and marketing materials, fixing smaller bugs, playtesting the crap out of it, and so on - so don't expect any streams from us.

 

I guess that whole paragraph covers most of the important info, namely the fact that v0.46 is entering final testing now. The only things still strictly missing are the Database menu, where you access the bestiary, and the Gallery on the main menu, which is only used to rewatch the Lucas+Verreda scene at the moment. Since those two menus aren't strictly necessary, I decided to hold off on them for now, so we can get this update out before the heat death of the universe - they'll either be readded in a hotfix to v0.46, or in v0.47, depending on how badly folks want them back (and if v0.46 is stable enough that I don't have to spend all my time releasing hotfixes for more important issues).

 

Well, that's about all I have to say for today. We're finally at the finish line, so bear with us while we make this last push to finish things up, and get you all the update you've been waiting for so patiently! See you again soon, hopefully with that update release post!

[Anon_42]

(The following is (mostly) a copy-paste from our major playable update post on Patreon! If you like what you see, you can try a free demo of the game on our itch.io by clicking here! If you enjoy the game, please consider supporting us on Patreon! We couldn't make this game without our supporters!)

 

 

 

I almost can't believe I'm finally writing these words, but.. Crisis Point: Extinction v0.46 is finally here, and ready for all of our $10 patrons to play!

 

You can watch the trailer above for the main highlights, though the NSFW stuff has to be censored due to this being a public post. For those of you who prefer reading, here's a list of all the major things added and changed in this update:

 

 

v0.46 MAJOR CHANGES AND FEATURES

• Complete gameplay overhaul; aiming the blaster is now handled with the mouse (or right analog stick, on gamepads), and Alicia can aim freely in ANY direction, rather than being locked to 8 angles. This also means that aiming and movement are now completely seperate, and you can move in one direction while shooting behind you, instead of always shooting forward - shooting backwards will make Alicia move a bit slower than normal, but if you stop shooting for a brief period she'll go back to moving full speed.
   
• The size of the game window has been increased from 640x480 to 960x540, giving you WAY more visible screen space. Please note that some levels in the game were designed at a size of 640x480; because of that, rooms that are too small to fill the full screen space will have black borders on the edges. Additionally, many of the game's cutscenes have minor visual errors, such as characters appearing/disappearing near the edges of the screen; this will be fixed in the near future.
   
• The lighting engine has been reworked from the ground up, and now supports animated lights, colored lighting, and a variety of lighting shapes. More work will be done with the lighting in the future to take advantage of all these new features.
   
• Due to the screen size being increased, all of the menus and UI have been reworked completely to take advantage of the extra space. Please note that the cutscene gallery from the main menu, and the ingame Database menu, are not implemented yet; because they don't contain any gameplay-crucial functions, we decided to hold off on them a little longer to get this update out sooner. They will be re-added by the next major update, if not sooner.
   
• A new BE H-scene was added to the Poison Alraune, which can be accessed both during gameplay and from the ingame gallery. Additionally, the BE Vines injection animation has been redone and majorly upgraded, the normal Slime Duo H-scene has been improved, and xrays have been added to all Slime H-scenes.

 

So those are the major bullet points. In addition to all that, there's definitely some more stuff that was added or improved in this update, but to be honest I'm not entirely sure what they are - this update was in development for so long, and because I was grappling with my mental health issues during it, I didn't keep a very thorough record of changes. There is no new additional story content, though, so I HIGHLY recommend starting a new playthrough with this update! The changes are so dramatic that Crisis Point feels like a brand new game, and I really hope you guys enjoy these updates as much as I do.

 

 

Normally at this point in the post, I would detail what's being added in the next major update, v0.47, but I'm going to be doing things a little differently this time. Rushing to finally get this update out has taken a lot out of me these past few weeks, so I need a short break. I also plan on releasing an update to our free public demo with the new features (same content as before though, ending at the second boss fight), and due to an upcoming deadline for an event, I'll be focusing on getting that done ASAP. Once I've finished the public demo update and refreshed myself a bit, I'll write up the plan for v0.47 in another update post. I don't think we'll be going back to bi-monthly playable releases just yet, there's still some behind-the-scenes stuff I want to finish (like that custom level editor) that will make the rest of development smoother and easier, but like always I'll keep you guys up to date on what's going on with the CPE team.

 

One other thing to note, about the standalone Gallery at the $5 tier - because of all the changes added in v0.46, the Gallery will need to be redone AGAIN, and I just don't have the energy to do that along with this update release. I will be updating the gallery at some point during February, but it will take a bit longer, sorry!

 

 

As always, the download link for v0.46 will be in a Patron-only post right after this one, and I'll also be sending the link in a DM to everyone who pledged at the $10+ tier at least once since the last update came out.. so, the entirety of 2022 and January of 2023. The good news is, Patreon has had some feature updates during that time, so I should only have to DM everyone once rather than sending a DM for every month, so no DM spam this time for those of you who have been around for a while!

 

Before ending the post, it's time for a super mega gargantuan omega thank you to ALL of our patrons who supported us during these extremely long release drought, and an even MORE special thanks to our top patrons:

 

SeraphStarliege
Katsune Teku
Leon Kiske
Pedro Fraga
Bombastic Black
patricio cancino
Thomas Kleis
Zero the 1st
Joseph J Hall
Zackery Shivers
Ingrid Blackflame Discordia
Dakota
Lars Alexzanderson
MC KiraY4U
Slightly_Dark
King
Sniperrihno
Nicholas Ziccardi
John Wilson
kenyama
Cole Brandon
Kong Wick
ManuTheBloodedge
Mortec
Angel Tinkerer
John hamby
Shadow-DK
VinGareth

 

I don't know how I can possibly convey how grateful I am to each and every one of you. You guys are literally the reason CPE exists, and why I was able to finally get help for my mental and physical health problems. Thank you all so much. It's easy to get wrapped up in my own day to day struggles, but even if I don't always respond to them, I see every one of your comments, and they genuinely mean the world to me. The fact that you all enjoy the stuff we create so much that you'll keep supporting us and cheering us on, even during times like 2022.. there really are no words for it. I'm so glad that Crisis Point has resonated with so many of you, and I hope you enjoy this update, easily the biggest one the game has ever had! Go forth, my friends, and enjoy v0.46! -A42

[Anon_42]

(The following is (mostly) a copy-paste from our bi-weekly public update post on Patreon! If you like what you see, you can try a free demo of the game on our itch.io by clicking here! If you enjoy the game, please consider supporting us on Patreon! We couldn't make this game without our supporters!)
 

Hey everyone! Hope you're all doing well. February kinda disappeared right out from under me, and I didn't even realize how late it was getting! Before the month comes to a close, I wanted to put out one last hotfix for v0.46. This one has a LOT more fixes than the previous ones (thanks to everybody who reported bugs!), and also one relatively large feature, so here's the list:

• Added ingame support for using high-resolution CGs from the CG pack
• Readded the Bestiary menu
• Fixed an issue causing the mouse cursor to not scale properly with screen resolution, causing it to become extremely small on large monitors
• Fixed a crash in the gallery when changing animations mid-climax
• Fixed being unable to type the letter "v" in map notes
• Fixed an issue where several menu options would not save and load properly, causing them to reset between sessions
• Fixed an issue where, if talked to at a very specific point early in the game, Rodriguez's advice would refer to the first boss fight as if you had beaten it already, before you ever encounter it
• Fixed an issue where the HUD didn't come back after leaving the "End of Demo" menu screen
• Fixed an issue where the Auto Shot couldn't properly target Tentacle enemies
• Attempted another fix for Alicia's shooting arm getting stuck in a direction, when using the Wire Shot in certain circumstances
• Fixed an issue where the Azulisk would slide off into the sunset when hit by a melee attack
• Fixed an issue where, in the map screen, any map note located at the cursor's default position would not be read until the player manually highlighted it
• Fixed an issue where the pause menu is not centered properly while in fullscreen, on monitors with non-standard aspect ratios
• Added a prompt after toggling Fullscreen or Vsync that asks the player if they want to keep the new setting. If no answer is selected, the screen will auto-revert to the previous setting after 10 seconds.
• Fixed an issue where double clicking with the mouse on any part of the screen would cause you to start writing a map note; now, it only triggers if you double click within the map itself
• Fixed a crash that occurs when some environment traps hit you during certain animations
• Fixed an issue with the Lurker CG that caused it to display the wrong images sometimes

Like always, you can download this hotfix from the same link as before. It will read "v0.46.5" on the main menu if you have the latest version.

 

So, aside from the numerous bugfixes, and the bestiary menu being readded, the main headline here is that the game now supports external high-res CGs! Large images like those have huge filesizes (the CGs alone are over double the entire game's filesize), so the game comes with CGs at around 640x480 by default. In v0.46.5 and onward, though, you can now use the High-Res CG Pack that's available for all $10 patrons, and have them actually show up ingame. The instructions for making that work are included in the CG pack download, which I'll be putting up for download as soon as I'm done writing this post! Using them is completely optional, but it's there for anyone who wants it.

 

Aside from that, since I haven't made any major posts since v0.46 came out, I wanted to give a quick update on what's going on with us.

I took an extended break after v0.46 came out, but I got back to work about a week and a half ago, and that time has been spent on story plans and this hotfix. There were a lot of issues to fix, and the whole high-res CG thing required a lot of learning on my part, since I've never dealt with loading external files like this.

Now that this hotfix is out, I'm going to be focusing on an updated public demo; I mentioned it briefly before, but there's an adult games event happening soon, and I want to have a free demo update available before then, so anybody who's seeing CPE for the first time can play a version with 360 aiming and all that. Since it'll be a free demo, it'll still have the same content as our 2019 demo did (ending after the second boss fight), just with all of the new features in v0.46.

Once that public demo update is done (which shouldn't take too long), I'll get the v0.46 gallery finished and released as soon as possible (sorry to make you all wait so long for it), and then we'll figure out where to go from there. I'm not sure if we're going to start v0.47 development immediately, or wait a little longer; I really want to have our story plans finalized and have that custom level design tool ready to go, before we get back to making content on a regular schedule, but I also don't want to make you guys wait too long, so we'll see what happens and how we're all feeling once the immediate deadlines have been taken care of.

 

Alright, that's it from me today! We'll probably be starting up streams again soon, now that a lot of my more boring work has been taken care of, so keep an eye out for those. Thanks for reading, everyone - see you again soon with that gallery, and our plans for the near future!

[Anon_42]

Hey everyone, really sorry updates haven't been posted on here for a while. Life has been busy and stressful, and my wife (who usually handles reposting updates everywhere that isn't Patreon) was out of town for a while, and I completely forgot to do them myself. Work has been getting done, so this is going to be a long post to dump all the update posts that haven't been posted here yet. Sorry again for the mix up!

(The following update posts are (mostly) a copy-paste from these updates posts on Patreon: Biweekly Update 3-21-2023, Biweekly Update 4-9-2023, Biweekly Update 4-30-2023, and Biweekly Update 5-21-2023. If you like what you see, you can try a free demo of the game on our itch.io by clicking here! If you enjoy the game, please consider supporting us on Patreon! We couldn't make this game without our supporters!)

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Status update - 3-21-2023

Hey everyone. So first off, big apologies for how quiet things have been since v0.46 came out. I'm going through a pretty big funk right now to be honest, and I'm trying to break myself out of it, but it's been a struggle. If you don't care about the personal life stuff, feel free to skip to the end of this post, I'll put all the work-related stuff there.

The flow of time has felt really strange the past few months, it's like the days are just melting away and I feel like I can't keep up. A huge part of the struggle is because I started a diet a few weeks ago - and don't worry, it's not some stupid fad diet that does more harm than good. I'm working with a professional dietician to try and get my weight under control, which has been a huge struggle for me my entire life. I haven't been a healthy weight since I was a literal child, and I'm nearly 30 now, so.. almost my entire lifetime of unhealthy eating has led to a looooot of baggage and bad habits. For one, I'm pretty sure I have a food addiction and just never realized it - we started with a very strict diet where all my meals were replaced by a nutritionally-complete bar or shake, and I only made it 4 days on that before needing to get an early appointment to change it. Hell, I didn't even make it to the end of day 1 before getting horrible food withdrawals, 4 days was just my absolute limit - but for that entire 4 day period, I wasn't sleeping well, I couldn't focus on anything, it was just misery all day. It's not a willpower thing either, I haven't cheated on my diet even once since starting it - my stubbornness comes in handy sometimes - but the emotional/mental ramifications of dieting have been just.. unbelievably brutal.

So, needless to say I'm glad I'm seeing a dietician and therapist, so I can work through that addiction with people who are qualified to help with it. The dietician got me on a plan that works a lot better for me, but dieting in general is still one of the most difficult things I've ever done. I'm losing weight consistently, which is more than I can say for all of my previous attempts at getting healthy, so I take that as a win - it's just been very difficult for me to focus on other aspects of my life while dealing with this dietary shift. That's one of my biggest struggles in general, honestly, making healthy changes in my life without those changes consuming all of my focus. I can make genuine improvements in some areas, but it always seems to come at the cost of others. That's something I really want to get better at, and I'm sorry that it's impacted all of you and my ability to work on CPE.

My therapist is also seriously considering the diagnosis of OCD, which makes sense because my mother had OCD and it's a genetic disorder.. which would mean I have this lovely little combo of ADHD and OCD, two things that sound like complete opposites, but they totally can exist together, and it's a brutal combo. It would explain why ADHD medication on its own has never really felt like it "fixed" my brain, like it does for most ADHD people. I'm still trying to figure my own brain out, the manager does a terrible job of keeping things tidy so it's a bit of a mess


With all of that being said, my therapist tells me one of the best ways to combat OCD tendencies is to just force yourself to break out of them, so that's what I'm going to do. The gallery update is finally out now, so I'm going to start streaming again like we were before v0.46 came out - starting next Sunday, we'll be trying to stream every day from Sunday to Wednesday, unless something comes up that prevents me from doing it. No specific time of day, I have appointments on some of those days sometimes so we might end up streaming early one day and late the next, but if not having a consistent streaming schedule ends up being a problem, then we'll figure that out when we get to it.

We aren't going to be starting on v0.47 proper just yet - my #1 focus right now is going to be creating that custom level design tool, to make the rest of CPE's development SO much easier, and I'm also going to focus on finishing the story rewrites so that we can actually implement those. We have a LOT of it planned out already, we just need to nail down a few more details before we can start working on assets, to make sure we aren't wasting development time. I'm also going to make a better effort to not skip update posts on here anymore; I never intended to skip any, time honestly just got away from me and before I knew it, nearly a month had passed. Again, I'm really sorry for the lack of communication there!

That's all I have to talk about today. Whether you care about the personal stuff or not, thank you all for always being so understanding and supportive of myself and the rest of our team! We have some really exciting plans for 2023, and I can't wait to share some of them with y'all. Thanks for reading, and I hope to see some of you at the streams next week!

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Biweekly Update - 4-9-2023 (Story rewrite and level designer progress)

Hey everyone, hope this update finds you well! We're back to our regular update post schedule now, so it's time for another biweekly update.

There's not a huge amount to talk about today, so let's get right into it. Our focus right now is mostly split between two things: the story rewrites, and my level design tool for CPE. I made some huge strides with the story rewrite these past two weeks, and nailed down some important story beats that make up the core of CPE's plot. I wish I could talk about this stuff in depth, but I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll try to be vague and focus more on what we're trying to achieve with the rewrites, rather than anything specific. The main goals with the story rewrite are:

 

• Give certain characters more history and screentime, the most obvious example being Kara, who comes out of nowhere in the current story
• Flesh out each character's personality a bit more (e.g. giving them flaws so they feel more like real people)
• Improve the pacing of the story by making the beginning of the game less exposition-heavy, so you can get into gameplay faster
• Update some of the lore and dialogue to accommodate the ways the story has changed since those early conversations were written

For the most part, you can expect the first chunk of the game to not change too much, mostly just some altered dialogue and cutscenes. It's when Alicia reaches the Deep Soil that things will start to change pretty heavily. The most important part of this story rewrite is preparing for future content, though - we had reached a point where the game was missing story things that are necessary for creating more content, which is part of why we haven't been working on strictly new content for a bit now. Once this rewrite (and the level design tool) are complete, we'll be in a MUCH better place to focus on new content. In the meantime, I really want to thank you all for being so patient with us about this stuff - I know reworks and rewrites aren't nearly as exciting as new content, but CPE has grown a lot since we started making it, and I've been really feeling the need to overhaul some of this stuff for a while now.

As far as the level design tool is concerned, progress is going very well! I've said this before, but just to clarify again, this level editor tool is ONLY for internal use by me - it's not something I can give out to players, unfortunately, because the method I'm using to inject the levels into the game requires me to manually edit project files, so it would be impossible for anyone else to use it.

Anyway, it's still a ways off from being usable, but it's getting closer every day! I managed to solve a few important technical challenges this week, and other than that the focus has been on designing the UI, laying down the groundwork for all of the features I want it to have, and doing data entry (basically filling out the list of placeable objects with the ones from the game itself, so I can actually put together levels).

I'm getting to a point now where I think the level editor is going to start progressing very quickly; I put a major focus on early optimization, since the main reason I'm making this tool in the first place is because the built-in level editor in my engine runs like shiiiiit. Because of that, the early parts of working on it have taken quite some time, but it will start paying dividends soon by making it much easier for me to add in new features without needing to worry about how optimized they are. I'm super excited to be working on this; not only will it be ridiculously useful and allow me to make much detailed levels much more easily, but it's also just kinda fun to make my own development tool! It's been a fun change of pace from the content grind.


Anyway, that's it for me today. It's still going to be a bit before we get back to regular content development, but once these two things are done, we'll be in a much better position to get new stuff out. Thanks for sticking with us while we prep for the future, I can't wait to show you what we have in store for the game! Thanks for reading, see you at the next biweekly update!

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Biweekly Update - 4-30-2023 (Story rewrite nearly finished!)

Hey everyone! Sorry I missed last week's update; 2023 feels like it's disappearing out from under me, with how quickly time is passing, and I honestly thought today was the 2 week mark. Oops. Nonetheless, we're here with an update now!


There's not too much I can talk about this week, because my main focus has been on Crisis Point's story rewrite, and I don't want to spoil everything for y'all. That's also why I haven't been streaming; I don't like writing in front of people, so.. yeah. Here's the exciting, non-spoilery news, though: the story overview rewrite is finished! I'm still in the process of rewriting individual scripts for cutscenes and dialogue, but the overall story, what order events take place, etc., is all fully planned out now.

I was never happy with the latter parts of the game's original story, and the ending never really came together how I wanted it to, so I'm THRILLED to finally have a version of the Crisis Point story that I'm completely satisfied with! To be clear, the story as a whole (especially the parts you guys have seen) is still pretty similar to how it currently is - there's a few major changes, like (trying to be as nonspoilery as possible) we'll be introducing a certain character much earlier in the game, so you get to know them before a certain story event happens. There's also a LOT of small details that have been changed, and the script for a lot of early cutscenes is being rewritten to reference those new details (and also try to be a bit less verbose), but the biggest change by far is that the later parts of the game have changed completely. That's why I wanted to take the time to sit and do this rewrite now and not later; if we continued with the original story plan, we would've basically had to throw ALL of it out when we did this rewrite, which would be a huge waste of development time and resources, so now was the perfect time for it.

I'm not sure how quickly all of these story changes will make their way into the game itself - some of them will be very quick changes, like recording a few new lines of dialogue, while others will require a lot of animation work and such, so they might take longer. As one example, we plan on changing the cutscene that happens early on where one of the giant worms attacks the human camp and Birch captures it; currently, that cutscene happens totally off-screen, with Alicia just standing around while you hear the sounds of battle over the communicator. Now though, we're going to rework it to have Alicia teleport back and see the capture happening, which is a lot more animation work, but about a million times more engaging. In general, we're trying to add more life into the game's cutscenes, with more camera movement, more character animations, and more exciting things happening. I'm really excited to see the new story come together, I know you guys are gonna love it!


So that's what I've been focused on these past few weeks. Now that the outline of the story is there, we have the answers to a lot of questions I've been asking myself for years, and putting together the actual script rewrites is coming pretty easily! I expect to have the game's current cutscenes fully rewritten (or at least close to it) by the next biweekly update. Then, Orex's focus will be doing all of the new animations the story rework requires, while our voice actors works their magic bringing the CPE cast to life. I'll be switching back to focusing on the level design tool, so once the story rewrite is done you can expect our development streams to return in full force! Sorry to everyone who looks forward to them, but some of my work just isn't conducive to streams.

Anyway, that's about all I have to talk about this update. I really wish I could get into more of the details, but since Crisis Point's story is rather ~mysterious~ by nature, talking about it too much would ruin the fun, and I don't want that. So for the time being, I'll just say THANK YOU to all of you for being so patient! I know development continues to be a bit on the slow side right now, but once this is all done, we'll be in the perfect place for content to come out hot and fast. I hope you're all looking forward to it, and we'll see you again in the next biweekly update!

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Biweekly Update - 5-21-2023

Hey everyone, time for another biweekly update. To be honest, I don't have a very good one here, and I'm sorry about that - things have been stressful in my personal life, and my depression has been flaring up again because of it, so I've been really struggling to keep my work output up.


I've still been picking away at the script rewrites, which didn't go quite as smoothly as I had hoped, but they're making good progress. Since I've been struggling to focus on script writing more than I hoped, I plan on getting back to streams this week, and splitting my time between scriptwriting when the mood strikes me, and working on the level editor when it doesn't. Because of that, I don't plan on having an exact streaming schedule, but you can probably expect streams to start at around 1-2pm Alaska Time.

Aside from me, Orexius has been hard at work doing more cutscene animations. I think I've talked about it before, but as part of the script rewrites, we want to make cutscenes more visually exciting by adding more character animation; even though the rewrite isn't finished yet, we have enough information for him to get started on some of the more important ones, so that's what he's been doing.


Again, I'm really sorry I don't have a better update for y'all. I'm trying to get my depression back under control as fast as I can, and I think streams will help with that - whenever I'm struggling to get work done I always start to feel really useless, and streams/community interaction usually help with that, so fingers crossed that after some work streams, I'll have a much better biweekly update for you next time.

I know I've said it many times before, but it bears repeating how much I appreciate how patient you guys are with us. Slow periods in development always suck, but it means the world to me that you continue to stick with us during them, and it really does brighten my days to know just how much people are looking forward to this game. That's it for me today, thanks for reading, everyone - and here's to a better update next time.

[Anon_42]

Hi everyone, apologies for not posting an update in a while. This is Puffernutter, Anon's wife. I am the one usually posting the Patreon updates on forums. However, my anxiety has been at an all-time high which led to depressive episodes. I'm starting new medications so hopefully that will improve. One of my big stressors has also been alleviated (my mom was diagnosed with cancer about 10 months ago and the lab results she got back last week show that she is now in remission). So I should be able to stay on top of updating forums from now on. Thank you for your patience with us!

 

(The following update posts are (mostly) a copy-paste from these updates posts on Patreon: Biweekly Update 6-11-2023, Biweekly Update 7-2-2023, Biweekly Update 7-23-2023, Biweekly Update 8-7-23, and Biweekly Update 8-27-2023. If you like what you see, you can try a free demo of the game on our itch.io by clicking here! If you enjoy the game, please consider supporting us on Patreon! We couldn't make this game without our supporters!)

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Biweekly Update - 6-11-2023 (Personal stuff, high-res pixel art, and starting development on v0.47)

Hey everyone. So, without beating around the bush, the last few weeks didn't go quite like I hoped they would - we only ended up streaming once, and I've still been struggling to get myself back to full working capacity. I'm not going to try and BS you with this post to make it seem better than it is - things are slow right now, and I'm trying my best to get over this funk, but life keeps finding new and exciting ways to make that difficult.

 

I won't be talking about this beyond what I'm writing now right now, because it's a very serious and personal thing that I'm not comfortable being open about, but one of my close friends recently admitted to being suicidal. They're okay for now, but I probably don't even need to explain how the situation has been affecting me. I hate to have to ask you all for even more patience, when you've already been so patient with me and the CPE team, but it's all I can really ask for right now while we try to navigate this.

 

 

With all that being said, I don't want to make it sound like we're not getting *anything* done, because that's also not true. Our musician is back at it, working on some of the new music tracks we need for the story rewrite, and I've still been picking away at the game's scripts to alter them for the new story. In particular, I finally figured out an answer to one of the remaining uncertainties about Alicia's backstory, so I'm really happy about that, it'll help a lot with writing certain cutscenes.

 

Aside from me, Orexius has been working really hard, both on cutscene animations, and on something new we're experimenting with.

 

 

Pixelated cutscene illustrations! This is obviously still extremely WIP, so parts of it are either unfinished or just need some more work. As part of the story rework, there will be a lot of new and/or altered cutscenes, and we wanted to experiment with illustrations to help add more life to them. Aside from CGs (which only Alicia is present in), there aren't any moments in the game where you get to see the characters in higher resolution, so we don't have much chance to show them in detail. Illustrations will help get around that problem, and I'm hoping they'll allow everyone to get even more attached to the cast. Orex previously had very little experience with higher-resolution art, but he's been really improving lately, and being able to have someone on the team handle illustrations instead of outsourcing makes it a lot more feasible for us to have them.

 

And here's another, more NSFW piece - this one is just for fun and practice, not actually going to be ingame, so enjoy it here:

 

 

One last thing before this post is over, just want to update everyone on what our near-future plans are. It's been a bit since the last playable update came out, and I don't want there to be another year between major updates, so after deliberating on it for a while, the team has made the decision to start work on v0.47 now. We're at a pretty lucky point in the game's story right now - without any spoilers, the events that come next aren't really changing at all from the rewrite, so we can make a bit more content now without worrying about needing to replace it later when the story changes.

 

Our development priorities won't change too much in the short term, I'll still be working on the level design tool, but now the focus will be to get it to a usable enough state to start making new levels ASAP. I figure it'll be easier to develop it that way, anyway - make it usable but basic, then steadily upgrade it with new features as I figure out what I want from the tool. It's still going to take us a while to get v0.47 out - there's a new biome included (and possibly a new boss fight), so there's a lot that needs to be done to make it happen.

Spoilers for a late-game ability in v0.46 in the next paragraph, so skip over it if you haven't gotten there yet and don't want spoilers: I'm also going to be experimenting with a completely changed version of the Hoverjets powerup. Currently, the Hoverjets have two functions: holding Jump in midair to slow your descent, and extending a grounded dash indefinitely. I have no issues with the first part, but I've realized that I really don't like the way the "infinite grounded dash" function affects movement; it's such an accessible, powerful, and fast form of movement that the moment you unlock it, horizontal travel is "solved" for the rest of the game. I'm thinking about this mostly from a speedrunning perspective, and it feels like movement in the second half of the game will be really boring to watch, and also not that exciting to play. An ability like the Hoverjets extended ground dash makes more sense for near the end of the game, I think. I have an idea for a completely new ability that also fits the Hoverjets name, so I'm going to be experimenting with that ingame, and I'll share more about it when I have more concrete info. Some of the lategame level design will need to be altered, of course, so if the Hoverjets rework goes well, the new version of it + altered level design will also be in v0.47.

 

Alright, I think that's about it for me today. Again, thank you all SO much for being so understanding even though things are slow right now. We're doing our best, and with the focus on v0.47, I fully expect to have some good stuff to show off in the next few weeks. I still fully intend on getting back into streaming, even if it's not as usual as often right now, so keep an eye out for those. Thanks for reading everyone - hope to see you at the streams, and if not, we'll see you again in the next update.

 

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"Biweekly" Update - 7-2-2023 (Reworked (upgrade name redacted) preview, lots more background art incoming!)

Hey everyone. So, the past few weeks may not have been quite as productive as I'd like, but despite not really doing any streams, things have been steadily improving! I managed to get some good work done on the (upgrade name redacted) rework I mentioned recently, and I also have some great news for the near-future of CPE that we'll get into in a bit. First off, the ability rework!

 

Spoiler for a late-game ability in v0.46 ahead, so skip the next few paragraphs and gifs if you don't want to see that!

Spoiler

Like I mentioned in the last update, I've been considering reworking the Hoverjets ability that you acquire late in the game. The old Hoverjets has two functions: first, holding Jump in midair allows Alicia to fall much slower. Second, doing a grounded dash and continuing to hold the Dash key will allow you to dash indefinitely, until you stop holding it or get hit. The main goal in reworking it was to keep the same general utility, but make it more interesting than "hold a button to dash forever". Now, keep in mind this is VERY EARLY FOOTAGE; all of this is subject to change, and none of the proper animations are in place. The current animations are just repurposed from other parts of the game, so focus more on the way it functions rather than the way it looks for now:

 

 

The new Hoverjets has two major functions. First, while Alicia is in midair, she can press and hold Jump to start charging up the Hoverjets. While she's charging up, her falling speed is DRAMATICALLY reduced, but her horizontal speed remains unchanged, allowing her to hover over wide gaps with ease. However, Alicia can only stay in this charged state for a short period of time, and if you stay in it too long, the charge will be canceled and Alicia will start falling again at full speed. This works fairly similarly to the original Hoverjets midair function, with the two main differences being that it reduces your falling speed even more than before, but now has a limited duration.

 

Of course, if that's all there was, this would be a pretty lame rework, but that's only the first half of the new Hoverjets. The more interesting half is this:

 

 

After charging up in midair, if you hold any movement direction and press the Dash key, Alicia will use that built-up energy to rocket in whichever direction you're holding; it may not be super easy to tell from the gif above, but you have full control over the direction you burst in - you can even go downward. This can only be done once per jump, though certain actions (like walljumping, or bouncing off an enemy with the Weighted Boots slam attack) will refresh your ability to use it, allowing skilled players to chain some truly ridiculous platforming tricks together. I've played around with it for a while, and I love how it changes the way you move around the world; I'm STOKED to see how y'all can use this to break the game wide open ?

 

Spoilers end here!

 

So aside from that upgrade rework, I have one really huge life update that will heavily affect CPE.. but for once, this time it's in a good way! As you probably know, Puffernutter (my wife) has worked with us on Crisis Point on and off. She's been in charge of improving our background art - if you remember some of the really nice concept stuff we've shown off in the past, she was responsible for those. If you've been wondering why none of those nice backgrounds have made it into the game yet, it's because she just hasn't had the free time for it. Her main job has been freelance graphic design, and her clients usually keep her very busy, so she unfortunately doesn't often have time to work on CPE.

 

However, due to burnout from working for big corporations (as well as issues getting them to pay her on time), she finally made the decision to cut ties with her primary client this past week, leaving her with a LOT more free time, a large amount of which is now going to be dedicated exclusively to Crisis Point! She's not going COMPLETELY full time with us; our income on Patreon isn't quite enough to cover all of our bills comfortably, so she's planning on pursuing other work at the same time, but it's going to be a night and day difference compared to before. I'm also hoping that getting to work with her more often will help me stay motivated, too, so with any luck this will be a hugely positive change for everyone on the CPE team!

 

 

So that's all of the major stuff. Orex has still been plugging away at the animations needed for the new cutscenes (there's a lot), and he'll be starting on animations for the aforementioned upgrade rework soon, but that's about all we have to show off/talk about for today.

 

CPE development has been slow lately, and I'm really sorry for that, but with Puffernutter taking on a much more active role in the game, I think we're about to see a really big change in CPE's development speed, and I'm super excited to see what comes next. Thank you all so much for sticking around, and continuing to be excited for Crisis Point! Hopefully we'll see you at the streams (I swear we'll do them regularly again eventually), but if not, we'll see you again in the next development update!
 

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"Biweekly" Update - 7-23-2023 (Tilesets and depression)

Hey everyone. So, in the interest of full transparency here, I don't have much CPE stuff to talk about in this update, so it's going to be mostly personal stuff. That's not to say we don't have ANY CPE work to talk about, though, and we'll get into that after the personal stuff.

 

 

My depression has been flaring up pretty badly the past few months, and I've been really struggling to pick myself up out of it. The doctor that handles my medications apparently had too much work on her plate, so she stopped seeing me a while ago, and I haven't found a replacement doctor yet, so my medication situation.. isn't great. I'm still able to get most of my prescriptions thankfully, but my ADHD medication requires seeing a doctor in person to keep the prescription going, so I've been off that for a while now - and unfortunately, I think my antidepressant isn't really doing the trick anymore, and it hasn't been for a while. I really want to try out some new kinds, or even just a higher dosage of my current one, but I need to find a new doctor to make that happen, which.. is much harder to do when you're depressed. I'm sure any of you who have ever dealt with depression know exactly how this cyclical song and dance goes. The GOOD news, though, is that the process is in motion now; last time I saw my therapist, I talked to him about all of this, and how I've been struggling to even get help with the medication issues. He told me their office also has medication management staff on hand, so he's writing me a referral to one of those people and I'll be able to start handling medications at the same place I have therapy. With any luck, I'll have a new medicine doctor very soon, and I can get back on ADHD medication and start trying out new antidepressants to get my mental health under control again.

 

I know I've mentioned before that my therapist thinks I might have OCD too, and if that is true, then new medication should help a lot - right now my antidepressant is Wellbutrin, which we started with because it often helps people with depression and ADHD, but it has no impact at all on OCD, so if OCD is a thing I'm dealing with then it's currently totally unmedicated. Could certainly explain a lot.

 

In any case, I'm really sorry that my mental health issues keep impacting CPE so heavily. This has been a life-long issue for me, and I wish I could just work through it, but.. well, that's not how mental health works. Still, I promise that I'm doing my best to figure it out, even if my best isn't very good sometimes. I can't overstate how grateful I am that you've all stuck by us - and especially me - even when this keeps happening. I feel terrible about it every time, but I'm trying to let that guilt go and just focus on making things better for tomorrow, so I can repay all of the patience and kindness you've all shown me.

 

 

Not everything is doom and gloom, though. CPE work is still getting done, just not nearly as fast as I'd like. These past few weeks I continued working on the level designing tool - specifically, I started on one of the biggest reasons I wanted to make the tool in the first place, which is an auto-tiling system. It's been a while since I streamed any level design work, but if you've ever seen me working on one of those, you might know that tiling a single level with GMS's built-in level editor can take literal HOURS. It's always been a huge pain point for me, especially in the context of making a Metroidvania, which naturally requires a lot of areas to explore. I did some research on auto-tiling algorithms and decided to utilize bitmasking; I won't go in-depth on the technical side of things, but it's essentially a way of auto-generating numbers for specific tiles based on how it should connect to nearby tiles, while ensuring there's never any overlap. It also happens to be the system Godot uses for auto-tiling, and since I plan on moving to Godot after Crisis Point is finished, it makes a lot of sense to learn how to use them now. Anyway, the auto-tiling implementation is near finished, now it's mostly just a matter of updating our tilesets to have all of the tiles required for bitmasking; it's a total of 255 tiles, which is a lot, but thankfully the vast majority of those tiles are just combinations of existing tiles, so it won't be too hard to do - and once it's done, designing levels will be SO much quicker it's not even funny.

 

 

Aside from me, Orex is continuing work on cutscene animations, and we also have an update on Puffernutter's work situation. The company she was working with contacted her again to try and convince her to come back, and after contemplating it for a while, she decided to say yes - but with some MAJOR changes to their work contract. For starters, they're going to be using a retainer instead of per-project payments, which means she'll be getting a consistent amount of income on a consistent schedule, which will totally fix the payment issues that made her quit in the first place. Additionally, the retainer is only for 30 hours a month, which severely limits the amount of time she needs to spend on them, and should help her avoid the burnout she's been dealing with. It's less than a week of full-time work, which leaves her with WAY more free time than before, which can go towards other things - like Crisis Point! So even though she's decided to work with them again, all of the things I talked about in the last update are still true, and you can expect to see a lot more CPE work coming from Puffernutter in future updates.

 

 

I think that about does it for this update. Again, I'm sorry I don't have a better one, but at the very least I'll keep everyone up to date on how things are going with me - and I can promise that I'm doing the best I can to get my mental health under control again. I know my posting schedule has been really inconsistent lately too, with mostly updates every 3 weeks instead of every 2 weeks, and I'll be making a concerted effort to stop doing that, even when I don't have much to write about - you all deserve that, at the very least.

Thank you all for reading, and for continuing to support us, even through all of my depression and inconsistency. It means the world to us, and especially to me personally. We'll see you again in the next biweekly update.

 

                                                                           

Biweekly Update - 8-7-2023 (Building momentum; streams and medication)

Hey everyone, time for another biweekly update! Sorry this post is a day late, buuuut it's better than a week at least, right?

 

So, things obviously haven't been going well with development the past few months, due to all the reasons I talked about in the last update. I can't say these last two weeks were a dramatic improvement, but they ARE getting better! We held our first dev stream in a while on Saturday, and it went pretty well. I continued working on the bitmask auto-tiling I talked about recently (it's now being properly implemented into the level editor itself, rather than just a test project), and I also worked on the ability to undo/redo in the editor, which.. works properly *sometimes*! It just has a lot more issues to work out before it's usable. Still, it was good progress for a rusty dev stream, and I'm feeling good about it.

Since I finally got the ball rolling again on streams, I plan on keeping that momentum and doing a lot more over the next two weeks. We'll probably aim for 4 streams a week right now, though the timing will be inconsistent - I'm trying to move my sleeping schedule around, which is always a difficult process for me because of my insomnia. In the meantime, we'll be streaming at whatever time works for both me and Orex, but eventually I'd like to start holding our streams MUCH earlier in the day, something like 9AM Alaska time. If you're intested in watching us stream dev work, but that timing doesn't work for you, then please let me know in the comments! The streams are really helpful for me when it comes to working consistently, but they don't work as well if nobody is around to hang out, so I want to make sure the timing will work for everybody.

 

Aside from work-related stuff, I'm also working on trying to get my health under control again, both mental and physical. I haven't mentioned it in a while, but I'm still dieting right now, and I've lost a good 35 pounds so far! It's slow but steady progress, and I think it's the largest amount I've ever lost while actively trying to diet, which feels great. I still have another ~100 pounds to go to reach my target weight, but the dietitian we're working with has us make smaller goals to help stay motivated during the process, and it definitely helps a lot. Food has always had a lot of control over me, and to be honest it absolutely still does, but it's nice to feel like I'm regaining some of that control. I also finally stopped beating around the bush with exercise, and I pulled out our old rowing machine. I've been having some knee problems the past few months that are thankfully mild enough to not really impede my mobility, but it's painful enough that I have to be careful with it, so hopefully some low-impact exercise like this will help fix me up, while also improving my mental health bit by bit.

 

There's also my medications, which I'm going to have a wait a while longer for, but the ball is rolling on that front too. I have a medication doctor picked out, and appointments scheduled with them. They're on vacation right now, so I won't have anything to share about it for the next biweekly update, but once they return I'll be able to get back on ADHD medication and start trying other antidepressants. With any luck, it won't be long before I can get my mental health back under control, at least a little bit. Incremental progress is a lot better than no progress at all.

 

 

And that's all I have to talk about this week. Before I wrap up, I'm going to make the statement right now: this will be the last disappointing biweekly update. We ARE going to stream regularly these next two weeks, and I WILL have more to talk about in the next update because of it. I'm tired of feeling guilty and hating myself for not being able to get my work done, and this is the end of it, I refuse to keep spiraling down this cycle of depression and self-hatred.

Thanks for reading, everyone. You've been so patient and understanding with me, it's time to get shit done so I can at least *start* trying to make it up to all of you. If you're interested in checking out the streams, you can follow me on https://picarto.tv/Anon42 - hope to see you there, and if not, we'll see you again at the next biweekly update!

 

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Biweekly Update - 8-27-2023 (Blaster effects, new environment WIP, level editor simplification)

Hey everyone, and welcome to another CPE biweekly update! Sorry this one is late; I lost a small chunk of time these past few weeks trying to transition my sleeping schedule, so I can stop being a night owl. I've mostly settled into the new schedule, but thanks to my sleep issues, it led to a solid few days where I was too tired to do much. That being said, this post isn't about excuses, because we have some good stuff to show off this week!

 

 

To start with, this is what I spent a good chunk of my time on: a new shader-based effect for Alicia's blaster.

 

 

Shaders are difficult to wrap my head around (especially in GMS where you have to write the code from scratch, unlike most modern engines that have a visual shader editor), so it may not seem like much, but it took me a while to program this. I managed to figure out a few important shader things this week, which I used to create an effect to make Alicia's blaster disappear when she stops shooting, rather than having her keep it in her hand. This has a few major benefits: for one, we no longer have to worry about where Alicia's gun is during non-shooting animations (such as a ledge grab), which simplifies Orex's work a bit. The other benefit is going to be a lot more fun, though: because of this change, the only animations in the game that have Alicia's gun in them are her arm's shooting animations, which are on a separate layer from her body, so we can reuse the arm animations across many of Alicia's body animations (like running or jumping). Because the total amount of arm animations is so small, it's now feasible for us to give Alicia's gun a bit more flair, in the form of new gun designs!

 

We don't have any visuals to show off yet, and nothing is set in stone, but my current idea is to have each bullet chip affect the shape or color of the blaster; Trigger chips will change the shape, while Shot chips will change the color. This whole system honestly shouldn't be very hard to implement, so you can expect to see it in v0.47! I'll show off some more shots of this in future updates, once we've had time to design the new blaster shapes and color schemes.

 

 

Aside from that, we also have a small preview for you of an upcoming environment:

 

 

This is early concept art from Puffernutter of an area that's going to appear in v0.47. I can't say too much about it without veering into heavy spoiler territory, but it certainly is unlike anything we've seen in the game so far, isn't it?

 

 

Lastly, I also decided this past week that I'm going to simplify my plans for the level editor. Designing a full level design tool is taking longer than I'd like, especially for something that's internal only, just for this project, and not planned for public release, so I'm trimming a large part of the planned features and instead making it into a tileset tool. I'll still design the collision geometry, place enemies, and so on using GMS's built-in tools, but the tileset work (by far the longest part of the level design process) will be handled using the editor, with features like auto-tiling that GMS doesn't have. I should be able to finish the editor a lot quicker with the reduction in scope, and it'll take care of by far the biggest timesink I have when making levels for CPE.

 

 

And that's it for this week. It's not a ton, but for once I'm glad to finally have some good work to show! I'm not up to my full speed yet, but I've been trying really hard to get my shit together this past month, and it's nice to have something to show for it. We're finally back to streaming regularly (with a goal of 3-4 streams a week), which has helped a lot with keeping me on track, and I just started seeing my new medicine doctor, so I'll be able to get back on ADHD medication within the next few weeks. Things are finally starting to look up for me and the CPE team, and I can't thank you guys enough for sticking with us through thick and thin.

 

We have a lot more fun stuff in the works, and I can't wait to share more of it with you. Make sure to keep an eye out for streams, if you like the idea of watching us work; in the meantime, thanks for reading, and we'll see you again in the next biweekly update!

[zenssu]

Is there a possibility in the future to play on android handheld gaming like Odin2, RP3+?

[ClosetOfDoom]

Wonder if this ever went anywhere.

[SingleForLife]

6 hours ago, ClosetOfDoom said:

Wonder if this ever went anywhere.

Well, according to the thread on f95, development is still happening but very slow.

It seems small updates are posted on the developer's discord but I'm not on there.

[ClosetOfDoom]

36 minutes ago, SingleForLife said:

Well, according to the thread on f95, development is still happening but very slow.

It seems small updates are posted on the developer's discord but I'm not on there.

I checked Patreon, it's happening. Saw an update from like 5 days ago.