Trench Warfare

The Game!

Welcome Folks!

This is the beefiest update to date, which includes many new custom-made assets, features, health bars, mechanics, artificial intelligence, sounds, and bugfixes among other miscellaneous additions which will be discussed more extensively next up-

These changes were made based primarily off the recent testing session which took place and will include brief justifications for each implementation.

User Testing

That’s right, It’s the user testing BEFORE what’s new, that’s because this devlog is centered around testing feedback additions. Firstly, we shall summarize much of the feedback received from the session, which asked testers many questions including their view of the:

We will break down each row, the game, as of testing date, ranked decently with overall enjoyment, Aesthetic Quality, Sound Effects, and Adding Vehicles. Enjoyment scored an average of 4/5, aesthetic received ~60% decent (with ~30% beautiful), ~70%+ enjoyed the sound usage thus far, with ~60% seeking the addition of vehicles in the scene. This feedback let me know the current direction of the game was correct, and also helped me understand which specific assets were desired.

Open-ended suggestions were quite minimum, although offered some use. One responder suggesting ‘medkits’ to heal the player, this feature was implemented. Other open ended implementation suggestions include restricting the players visibility to the blue world borders, this was implemented with the use of boxes, barbed wire, and other collide-able world assets. More dynamic gun sounds were also recommended, with gun sounds now picking from an array.

Player experience of bugs included the player healthbar being interactable, this being a game-breaking bug was fixed immediately. There were also many reports of audio loops, primarily after an enemy – or player – was destroyed, which was deemed caused by a HP script that never terminated the component and was evidently repeating the destruction statement with every frame. This emersion ruining bug has now been fixed.

Game difficulty (or lack thereof) was a greater concern during the testing session, and understandably so, as players were able to both view and shoot the enemies around them without resistance. This has been improved by giving the AI a more realistic detection zone, the player should now face adequate difficulty while clearing the scene.

What’s new in this update?

To expand on the statements made in user testing above, this major update includes:

• Three unique supply box assets (Large, medium, and small)
• Consumable medkits
• Improved AI (More observant)
• Directional bullet prefabs (for each faction)
• Weapon reloading sound effects
• Weapon reloading Animations (MP40 and Luger)
• Knife attacking animation (and damage)
• Barbed wire – as a scene barrier – which does damage
• AI overhead healthbars
• Additional shooting sound effects
• Title screen and level button effects
• Text font update(s) / changes
• Ally spawn locations more cinematic
• Basic post processing effects (Color grading saturation + -temperature)

Almost all of these additions are visible within the screenshots / gifs that have been captioned below. Note – Sound effects are not displayable here unless video is embedded.

 This gif shows off the knife animation in full swing!

This gif showcases the damage taken from barbed wire and the use of player medkits to heal!

This gif displays the conventional terrain borders in the form of supply boxes, as-well as transport vehicles and AI pathing.

This gif shows the start of the scene, which features a cinematic division wide disembarkment off the trucks and into their patrol routes, in which the freshly spawned soldiers join their battle-hardened kamerads.

This is a static image, which aims to display the starting scene without any commotion. You are able to fully appreciate the  (somehow low resolution upload?) artwork from this static perspective.

This screenshot shows off the title screen which now has new button highlighting mechanics (not visible here) and a new font overhaul as seen from buttons and canvas text overlay.

Next on the horizon?

Assuming further development, the AI with likely be improved again, the player inventory will be expanded, equip able vehicles will be added, more battle scenes will be created, additional unique enemies will be generated (such as gunners / snipers etc), among other improvements implemented. These planned changes aim to address further elements of testing feedback that were requested and well received 

This will likely be the last major update for a while however, I sincerely thank you for playing and taking part in the early access development of Trench Warfare!

References

Tiny Worlds., 2021, 'Free Pixel Font - Thaleah', [Accessed 18th October 2021], Available at: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/fonts/free-pixel-font-thaleah-140059