Trench Warfare

The Game!

Hey folks. Since the last update, the game has developed quite a bit. This update brings many new required features which will be discussed in detail in the coming headings, although is focussed heavily on enemies, interaction, and game-play mechanics.

What’s new in this update?

This update primarily features improved artificial intelligence pathfinding. More specifically, patrolling, as the enemies and allies do not currently interact with the player (to come in a later update!), but only patrol their destined routes.

These routes are given an offset and a random travel time between set values, this allows for a more natural and realistic movement approach, otherwise, it would appear far too blocky and artificial.

Examples of this patrolling are visible below!

This update also features both an inventory, weapons, and an extremely basic shooting mechanic. As expected, the shooting mechanic is only triggerable while a firearm (current only two) are equipped, with the knife and fists NOT activating the firing.

The firearm launches a rudimentary bullet projectile that will likely go through much change in subsequent updates and makes a ‘gunshot’ sound that was created manually for this occasion. It is my hope to add many different gun-sounding effects for the different firearms and to also add increased variance in the sound of the projectile as to not become repetitive, although this will likely not be a TOP priority on the horizon, however.

The inventory interaction, weapon switching, and gun discharge actions are visible in the GIFs below!

Additionally, this update features an overhaul of the template blocks, adding both soldiers of each faction and structured artillery to the scene. These current sprites may change partially going forward although the current result is rather pleasing!

These changes are visible below-

 Lastly, this update adds player movement sounds in the form of a basic walking audio clip. This will likely follow similar to the future changes made with gun sounds in the sense that additional clips may be added to increase variance and realism, especially through different terrain.

User Testing

User testing for this devlog post covered much of the new content, such as the new inventory mechanics and enemy patrols.

“Shooting mechanics are great, although need to be able to use a knife. The artwork looks amazing but you need to include interaction with the artillery structures.”

This feedback is extremely constructive and rewarding. The next updates absolutely plan to incorporate these features into construction. Further user testing and feedback will also aim to be collected to continue this positive cycle of game improvement.

Next on the horizon?

As discussed briefly above, further interaction with the limited structures in the scene would be an additional change made steadfastly. This combined with advanced inventory improvements and weapon animations, such as recoil and slashing/punching mechanics, would drastically increase player emersion.

The trenches will be overhauled with better / new artwork, hopefully custom-made. The enemies will be collide-able (primarily with bullets and weapons). Various sound changes are also on the drawing board, which was also discussed above. Sound intends to add vast variance to the moving and shooting effects.

                Friendly and enemy vocal sounds are also to be added, such as brief dialog and communication to add the look and feel of a WW1 soldier in his trench!

Advanced health mechanics and user interface elements will also be created although these may not be first on the list within version updates as more core functionality is still required before other elements may be practically considered.

                Drawing from the paragraph above, the main menus and additional GUI elements will see subtle changes coming from textures, buttons, sounds, and music over the next update or two.