Dereliction 2022 // Update v0.25

Hello everyone. This is _Salt.

I have been resting a bit from Steam Nextfest so I haven’t posted anything written in a while. I have a new update for the Demo, and at version 0.25, that’s me saying the demo is about 1/4th done. Yes I plan to have a whole lot more in the demo!

I would like to thank NinjaGuyX for interviewing me. I have never done anything like that before, and it was a little stressful, but a really awesome experience!

Here is the interview video:

// Update version 0.25

Combat changes:

I changed up the combat system a lot. All weapons have roughly doubled their magazine capacity, the reload is a lot faster, and fire rate has been adjusted. This makes the combat a lot faster.  There’s more enemies. I am still optimizing the enemies, their Ai, draw calls, etc. Fortunately I was able to fix a few things, and I was able to increase the maximum amount on screen. This works really well with the improvements to the weapons. Individually, the bugs are less lethal, but big swarms can get overwhelming. I was able to get them to group up better too. So they are less of a line, more of a cluster.

Vanth:

Vanth now has warning lights. She can tell the player if there are enemies incoming, or enemies targeting the player. This helps a lot. If the player is making too much noise or creating too much attention for themselves, they are now warned that. Hopefully there won’t be as many surprise attacks.

Control changes:

There is no throw weapon button - Picking up a third weapon will drop currently equipped weaponCall / send Vanth is now separate from use button - currently bound to Space bar, Right thumb stick button, and Dpad Up. Im testing out the options to find what works best.

Quick tips in loading screen:

To help cover some of the mechanics of the game easier, I added some tips to the loading screen. I know it’s not the perfect solution, but hopefully it will help until I improve the layout of the tutorial and starting area

Tutorial area:

I am trying really hard to keep the tutorial quick, easy, and skippable. If the player already knows what to do, it can be done in less than a minute. That’s for whatever reason they would have to do it again, for example if they lost all the settings, or its on a different system etc. There are more prompts for the player to go the the elevator. This is where the actual game is. And the entrance area is mostly there as a safe environment for the player to start in, figure out the controls

Hud and UI: 

Working on the hud and Ui has always been a pain. But, it is important. They now display what grenade is selected, and what one is next. Plus, it displays the amount of each type always.  If Vanth says something, it is displayed in to top left corner. So if the player misses it, it’s there. Same thing if the player picks up an item, or 5, it’s all displayed top left.  I will eventually be having bars for health and armor to display the percentages at a glance. But for now it’s just numbers.

Levels:

I’ve added back in vaultable ledges to the rooms. To the player can press use and climb up to escape the bugs. This was causing a lot of pathfinding issues, so they were disabled for a while.  There is now more reasons to explore. I have added upgrades throughout all the rooms. Well, there’s a good chance for them to appear in each room. So it pays to have breach charges and explore for useful upgrades.  I have also added a few more rooms to the mix for each level. Creating rooms are very tedious and time consuming. They are also prone to errors, and require a lot of testing and balancing, so it is a slow process to add even one room. I have added roughly 4. It’s a start. Hopefully there’s no issues with them.

New grenade type:

I have created a new grenade. It is the proximity grenade. I have wanted to add this one in for quite a while, but there has been a few issues keeping it on hold. The grenade will stick to objects and arm itself. If the player, enemies or bullets hit it, it will detonate. If the object it’s attached to is destroyed, it will separate and fall. If the player walks far away from it and comes back. It will still be there. It’s a lot easier to say all that than to write the code that makes it all work. I hope they help when running from a swarm, or defending the exit elevator.

That is update version 0.25 of the Dereliction 2022 demo:

The festival was great! I learned a lot and it has helped me connect with a lot of people. I have received a lot of feedback, which was why I joined the festival. All the feedback has really helped me improve the game all around!

I really hope everyone likes the changes and progress made on the game. Please consider trying the new update. Please let me know what you like, dislike, and what you would like to see in the future.  Thank you to everyone who tried out the demo!

The update is available on Steam, indie database, and itchio:

I will have more to share soon,

~SALT_