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Messages - shysnake

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Thanks! We've come a long way since releasing that alpha :) Glad you like the results!

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It’s been an exciting few months here at Shy Snake. We are doing a lot of testing now to make sure the game runs smoothly for players. We made good progress, so let’s get to the specifics.

AI evaluates cover
We are continuing work on the NPC AI system in the game. They now evaluate cover and will take cover if they need to. The AI evaluates cover based on where the PCs are, and only PCs it knows about are considered. So if you have a hidden sniper, you may be able to drive an NPC into their field of fire. Now, once you spring the trap, the others may choose cover more wisely.


Screenshot of cover points. The size of the red dots shows how good the AI thinks a given cover is.

Gunsight
We made another set of revisions to the gunsight. We made it larger, because when it’s open the rest of the HUD and other game UI is inaccessible, so there’s no reason to keep the gunsight small. This also provided room to add the various attack modes we were planning. Not all of these are implemented yet, but you can see buttons to select the six different types of attacks. Changing an attack mode will change the controls on the right-hand side to reflect the options available in that attack mode. In some cases, this will also change the aim point shape.

For instance, selecting “aim” will remove the controls to select the number of shots and will only show the maximum aim time circle. “Aim” is useful in situations when you want to max out your chance to hit on a target and be able to quickly fire with that increased chance to hit at a later time. Example, your sniper is positioned and aiming. If things go bad, they would get a quick shot at max aim to open the conflict.


Screenshot of the updated gunsight view. The buttons on the left are: aim, hip shot, aimed shot, area fire, overwatch, and suppression fire

Player base changes
The base has been moved to a generated map. The building and everything the player interacts with remain unchanged. However, this allows us to split up the base map so each function is better served and most importantly, dramatically reduce load times.

Map layout improvement
Our generated maps have gone through some iterative refinements to improve how we place buildings. They are now better form more realistic groups. In addition the new code is much more robust when placing buildings on smaller maps. This lets us avoid generating extra large maps for missions that don’t require it. AKA, take place mostly indoors.

2D UI improvements
We have cleaned up a number of issues in the UI. The graphs for movement and weapons have been cleaned up and updated to match the rest of the UI style. In addition we have updated several of the UI assets for a more consistent UI feel.

3D UI changes
For markers in game we have switched from the old 3D meshes above a character’s head to using 2D sprites. We now clip the position of markers to the edge of the screen so you can see at a glance which way you would need to pan the screen if you want to look at the marked object.


Markers along edges of the screen show where the marked objects and characters are in relation to current camera view

Previously at Shy Snake...

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Both:

  • Working with freelancers on asset creation and voice acting
  • Transferring dialog into the game from the script for the missions to be included in Early Access
  • Working on code for procedural mission generation
  • And miscellaneous game engine improvements all over the place

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Now that we're through Steam Greenlight, we're working on the Early Access release, which will include more characters and missions.

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Yes, please! Any additional exposure would be super helpful. Gotta get those votes!

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So, we've just flipped the switch on our Greenlight page. I started a new thread for that, because that seemed like a big enough deal. I won't be making new threads until Early Access, and then later the Full release. Hope this is okay.

Here are our trailers:



We're already ten percent there, so every vote helps.

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Spy DNA, a tactical squad RPG that combines turn-based game mechanics with realistic combat simulation, is now on Steam Greenlight.


The game plays about 70 years in the future, and the player controls a squad of genetically-enhanced super-spies with unique talents.

When the genetic enhancement research is stolen from the lab, it is the player's task to recover it and prevent a rogue nation from creating an army of super-soldiers. In the course of the game, you will face a variety of opponents, such as endangered animal traffickers, unethical researchers, and rogue military organizations.

How we’re different
Our goal is to bring a new level of intensity to gameplay by creating a believable and realistic world. We started by creating a combat system that feels as much as real combat as possible.

Weapons behave like in the real world.
We’ve created a physics-based model of the weapons. The projectiles lose damage and armor penetration over distance as you would expect.

Accuracy.
The most important thing in a firefight is figuring out what you hit when you shoot. We built a virtual firing range for the developers to use to dial in the accuracy. We even dug up a bunch of shooting records and guidelines from the real world to use as benchmarks for our virtual weapons.

Armor works as it does in reality.
In real life armor is rated for the type of bullets it STOPS. Buy a piece of armor, get hit with a round it’s rated for, and you’ll end up with nothing worse than a (bad) bruise. However, if the bullet isn’t stopped, it’s still going to hurt, a lot.

Getting shot, stabbed, blown up, or set on fire are Really Bad Things™.
It’s far better to avoid them than to try to “tank” them.

What's next?
Shy Snake, the two-person team developing Spy DNA, are already working on the Early Access version, slated to release in Q2 2017. The team's immediate focus is on getting the game through Steam Greenlight to be ready to distribute the Early Access release.

The full release of Spy DNA is slated for Fall 2017 and will be localized into Russian and German.

Want to try it today? Download Alpha Demo of Spy DNA on IndieDB.

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"In an immersive, beautifully rendered setting" -- I'm blushing. Thank you!

And thank you for including us in the newsletter. We're super-invested in making this game as good as possible, so feedback is very important.

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Thank you for downloading and trying the demo Jubal!

First things first, we really appreciate your constructive and clear feedback! This is what makes our dev hearts all warm :)

Also glad you like the look-and-feel. Being a two-person team, we've had to buy a lot of off-the-shelf assets, and also make a few ourselves, and we did our best to make it all look consistent.

We understand that the game is not yet optimized, and we haven't yet built all the settings to help with performance yet. It is definitely on our to-do list, and soon!

We'll be putting newer versions of the demo into the same Google Drive folder, so if you like you can bookmark it :) We'll be including the packaging date in the name of the ZIP file.

  • Frame-rate issues will be helped if you turn off the body-cam (lower left corner of screen) -- Hit Ctrl+Tab for that
  • You can also set resolution and/or quality a bit lower in the "Settings" menu accessible from the main loading screen.
  • Pathfinding/nav: The demo uses UE4's native pathfinding, but we'll be improving on that over the next few weeks. This should help both with the nav building times, and with the characters running into things.
  • Windows task bar: While it's not obvious, the game is running in windowed mode. In the main menu (when you first load the game), click on "Settings" and make sure that "Fullscreen" is checked. Click "Apply" and that should resolve this. I will add this to the known issues list http://shysnake.boards.net/thread/5/demo-issues-read-before-reporting.

Camera controls, pause, and combat are fairly complex, so I made a video to show how they work:


We'll be working on making both the tutorial and the first missions more clear. In particular, we're already working on highlighting quest items and locations, so that you know where to go once you have completed your quest (if getting to a particular location is part of the mission). In Oxalana's map you're supposed to get her and yourself to the blue SUV.

Anyways, keep your feedback coming, so we can make Spy DNA into an awesome game!
Thank you,
Alex

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The free alpha demo is now available to download via https://rpgmaker.net/games/8985/

Spy DNA is a tactical squad RPG that combines turn-based game mechanics with realistic combat simulation.

The game plays about 70 years in the future, and the player controls a squad of genetically-enhanced superspies  with unique talents.

When the genetic enhancement research is stolen from the lab, it is your character's task to recover it and prevent a rogue nation from creating an army of super-soldiers. In the course of the game, you will face a variety of baddies, such as endangered animal traffickers, unethical researchers, and rogue military organizations.

We are greatly inspired by the great RPGs of the past that made the genre popular in the first place, such as XCOM and Jagged Alliance.

Please try our game and let us know what you think!

-- Alex and Jason



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