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Instruments of Destruction Patch Notes & News

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Instruments of Destruction Patch Notes & News | SteamScope

1.14 - Balance and Bug Fix Update

Radiangamessteam_community_announcementspatchnotes

346d ago

A long list of stuff, though much of it gamepad-related in preparation for console release, improved playability of some of the more annoying missions, and made 60hz physics more fair: Fixed Remap Controls shows controller buttons, and they are a bit blurry (only fix if it's easy) Fixed "DO NOT DESTROY" objective text is not translated (m9-4) Fixed text in multiple areas of Build & Destroy are not translated to its supported languages. Fixed gamepad icons during the build section text width Fixed B key glyph rather than the B button controller glyph showing on custom vehicles Made Flip/Swap Vehicle prompts flash when you push the corresponding input Fixed pause menu default gamepad selection being incorrect Updated options menu to show LB/RB and LT/RT for swapping menus and scrolling respectively Fixed issue with B&D Reset All Instructions not working for gamepad Added potential null-crash fix for EntityOutline crash (m4-4 killing outlined car corpses) Made plants kill themselves a lot faster in player collisions, and they also have 50% less mass. Fixed “Show Controls” option still showing text for the controls Fixed Build Mode Settings buttons being all messed up with gamepad Fixed holding A toggling/repeating presses in the options menu Fixed dialogue box saying “Press X to continue” but not really working that way Fixed not being able to reset instructions for building with a gamepad Fixed BnD mission 3-3 boxes not returning to their home when they went in the water Fixed bridge-heavy levels not appearing to count destruction for a bit Added a bit of HUD to the Kraken-control mission, and made the UI transitions between the states smoother Fixed returning to Island Select often picking a random island to highlight instead of the one you just played, or being started at the spot of the other campaign Fixed pausing the game and changing vehicle control remapping not updating right away At 60hz physics, player takes 50% damage, structures take 25% more, and kraken is 10% slower. Reduced enemy turret/drone HP at 60hz Increased homing and damage at 60hz for player projectiles Reduced earthquakes strength at 60hz Added Secret Mode logo to intro Added Secret Mode people to credits (and made multiple tweaks to credits) MISSION TWEAKS: 1-5 decreased destruction goal % to 90 (from 100) and increased bonus time to 6 minutes (from 5) 1-6 decreased destruction goal % to 90 (from 100) 2-1 increased bonus no-ruins-destruction goal % to 15 (from 10) 2-2 increased bonus no-ruins-destruction goal % to 15 (from 10) 2-3 decreased bonus destruction goal % to 60 (from 80) 2-5 increased ammo to 20 (from 15), decreased bonus goal % to 80 (from 90) 3-2 increase bonus time to 6 minutes (from 4) 3-4 increased size of target area for boxes by 25% 4-2 revised vehicle to be more responsive to turning/acceleration 4-4 revised vehicle so it's less spinny, easier to control 5-2 reduce strength/force of hurricane a bit 6-2 reduced strength of earthquake a bit 7-1 reduced both % goals to 95 (from 100) 7-2 reduced accumulate goal to 900 (from 1000) and debris clear % to 90 (from 100) 9-2 made the lighting a bit brighter, reduced player damage, and increased structure damage 9-2 moved turret so it's more visible from start, has a bright central light, and the ground encourages moving towards it at the start 10-1 updated vehicle to rotate/move more responsively 10-2 reduced damage to player from mines, and increased kraken timer 5 seconds 11-4 reduced damage/force from storm

Version 1.13 Released! Exit-Freeze Fixed!

Radiangamessteam_community_announcements

366d ago

It's been a few months since version 1.12 and subsequent patches were released. Today, version 1.13 fixes the biggest issues caused by that update along with a few other minor tweaks/fixes. Let's get to the changelist first, then I'll go over the exit-freeze issue and the journey to fix it, and finish up with some other news.

1.13 CHANGELIST

Rebranched code from 1.11d to prevent exit-freeze
Reintegrated all 1.12 changes into new branch
Added new cheat to unlock all missions
Fixed dropship sequence going too fast and causing issues when framerate was low
Changed a couple gamepad shortcuts a bit
Grayed out vehicle slots that have nothing when in Load Custom Vehicle menu
Removed some excessive debug.log statements
Prevent GPU from trying to release resources twice on shutdown

THE EXIT-FREEZE MYSTERY

As you can see from the the first item, the solution to the exit freeze was relatively simple in the end, though it took a very long time to figure out. And to be honest, I'm not actually sure what code caused the exit freeze, I just know roughly where the freeze came from.

The exit-freeze was first reported in May after 1.12 (or one if it's follow-up patches) released, and I tried to find it sporadically since then, and got many player.log files from players along the way. But those files contained almost no useful info. The most consistent thing that happened was the "BlockManager" shutting down, then the file was blank. That means the BlockManager probably wasn't the issue, but other than that, having no info meant I had no idea where to start, and the freeze may have only happened on certain PCs after playing an indeterminate amount of time.

When I discussed the game with Secret Mode during subsequent meetings, I mentioned needing help with tracking down the issue. After getting builds, they found it happened for a few people fairly consistently, but the repro steps were still unclear. Some thought it required alt-tabbing, or keeping the game open a certain amount of time before closing, but most mentioned playing a few missions.

This summer I had my older kid doing some intern work for me, and I asked them to spend of time trying to find the freeze. They got the freeze on their PC, and eventually found pretty fast and repeatable reproduction steps a few weeks ago. I tried the same steps on my PC, but it never crashed. I had made 6 different builds with potential exit-sequence fixes, but none of them fixed the issue.

I was still stumped what the issue was, but with a PC that got the freeze consistently, I mostly had what I needed to fix the issue. Now I just needed enough time to track it down.

For reference, the repro steps to get the exit-freeze on a PC that gets it: Load mission 1, get dropped off, back to Island Select. Do that for missions 2 and 3, then exit the game. Happened 100% of the time if you did those steps, but if you took one mission out, or didn't get dropped off, it never happened.

TIME MANAGEMENT

With Rhythm Storm's launch and follow-up updates done, I had to make a decision: Rush to finish Speed Demons 2 (intended to launch at the end of August), or switch to Instruments work and try really hard to fix the exit-freeze and get the console versions for certification. Aside from having the SD2 intended launch date in a Best Indie Games video, I don't really need to launch SD2 in August, and the timeline would have been very tight. I wasn't worried about getting it done if I chose to do it, but I didn't feel good about having Instruments' work continuing to be delayed. And I wanted to enjoy working on SD2, so the choice became obvious.

Alan suggested narrowing down the changelist where the exit-freeze happened. So after I got Unity installed on the freezing PC, and attaching the debugger revealed nothing useful after a couple hours, I did exactly that. I thought I was doing a good job of narrowing it down, except I was getting conflicting info about when it happened. I finally realized after a few hours of resyncing, rebuilding, and re-testing that the freeze happened in certain branches earlier than others.

A CONSEQUENTIAL MERGE

I realized that there was a merge of the Xbox/PC branches before version 1.12, so I tested a few of the Xbox versions (converted to work on PC, which took about 10 minutes each), and the freeze always happened there, but never on the PC-only branch. I got back to the first Xbox version before I realized it was the PS5 version (which the Xbox branch is based on) where the freeze originated. I tried a couple PS5 versions (converted to PC) unsuccessfully before I realized I wasn't going to fix the issue trying to narrow down the changelist.

The issue was the merge of the Xbox/PC versions. There was no reason that needed to happen. I don't remember why I merged them earlier this year, but I had shortly after split them back off from each other. So it really made no sense in retrospect. Instead of fixing the issue, which could be anywhere in the PS5 version (lots of GPU-related changes to get it working), I needed to avoid it altogether. In other words, take the last clean PC version and integrate all the 1.12 and beyond fixes into a new branch.

Definitely one of my worst merges ever (should have cherrypicked instead)

So that's what I did, and after another few hours of work, the crash disappeared. I cleaned up the build, did a bunch of testing, and now 1.13 is out. It all seems "obvious" in retrospect (like most bugs do), but I'm just glad it's over.

SPEED DEMONS 2 DELAYED

In case you missed it above, Speed Demons 2 is no longer coming out in August. It'll hopefully be out in September instead, but Alan are I are going to get everything on Instruments of Destruction done as best we can (for both the PC and console versions), then I can work on finishing SD2. It hasn't really been promoted very well outside the initial trailer, so part of that work is making a good release date trailer and sending a near-final build to a lot more streamers/etc before the launch. Either way, a little extra dev time certainly won't hurt.

Another ICYMI: Rhythm Storm is out (and fun if you like that sort of thing).

That's all for this time. \

-Luke

PS. Don't merge unless you really mean it :)

Celebrating Radiangames 15-Year Anniversary

Radiangamessteam_community_announcements

453d ago

Back in May of 2010, Radiangames released its first title, a twin-stick shooter called JoyJoy, on the Xbox Live Indie Games service. It was the start of a small series of games, with 7 small games releasing over the next 11 months. In the 15 years since JoyJoy, Radiangames has released over 20 games on a number of platforms. It was also nearly a year ago that Instruments of Destruction version 1.0 launched on Steam. To celebrate the 15-year anniversary of Radiangames, Instruments of Destruction is being featured by Steam in its first Daily Deal with its biggest discount yet, and there was a minor update yesterday to fix a few mission-related issues. Radiangames’ classic title Inferno 2 is also on sale. And Fireball 2--sequel to the 4th game Radiangames released on XBLIG in 2010--is launching today on Steam, Xbox Series X|S, and Playstation 5. A Year of Radiangames Releases Fireball 2 marks the first of many launches for Radiangames in 2025. Rhythm Storm is getting a new demo next week. That demo and the Speed Demons 2’s demo will be in the June Steam Next Fest. Those 2 games will be coming to Steam, Xbox, and Playstation later this summer. Rhythm Storm will come to Steam in July, while the timing of the ports and Speed Demons 2 are still to be determined. The Instruments of Destruction ports are still in the works, and there will be an exciting announcement about that soon. While the majority of the porting work is done for Instruments of Destruction, the console certification process is a lot more complex and labyrinthine than I expected. Fireball 2 was a much simpler port in technical terms, but it took multiple months to get it through all the hurdles needed to actually release the game, and I’ve barely managed to do any promotion for it. Radiangames’ Destructive Future Though 2025 has gone relatively well so far, the experiences of the last couple years and a shift in Alan’s plans has made me reevaluate what to work on after the current games and their ports release. I want to cut back and focus on 1-2 projects at a time, rather than 3 or more, and have those projects be related to each other, so I’m not reinventing so many wheels with each new game, and it’s easier to share code between them. Even Rhythm Storm and Fireball 2, two games that look like they share a lot, only have drawing code and a basic game structure in common. Meanwhile Speed Demons 2 looks similar to Instruments of Destruction in a few ways, but has almost nothing in common with it. It even uses a totally different rendering and particle pipeline. The solution to all this reinventing: Start over one more time (using small bits from previous games). BUT with a plan for multiple games that build on each other, step by step. There will be some new tech for each game, but that tech adds to a framework that is needed for the future titles. One key part of that tech will be a new destruction system, one that’s more flexible than Instruments of Destruction’s. That tech is planned for the 2nd game in the sequence, and destruction will be part of nearly every game Radiangames makes beyond 2025. The other “change” for future titles is simple: No more multi-platform titles after 2025. Everything will be designed for PC/Steam. If a game would work well as a console port, I’ll hand it off to someone else after the PC version is done. I have 4 foundational games planned out in my tech progression, with 2 slightly larger games after the first 4. Beyond those 6, I have at least 10 other ideas that could use a good portion of the tech. There will likely be tweaks to the plan along the way, with new ideas or sequels that I need to work on, but the goal is to keep using this foundation for every future Radiangames title. If all goes well, Radiangames will be making games for another 15 or even 30 years.

Speed Demons 2 Announce Trailer + 1.11 Arrives With Lots of New Parts!

Radiangamessteam_community_announcements

542d ago

Just a quick bit of news before getting into the details of this update: Speed Demons 2 is an arcade highway racing game coming to PC and consoles later in 2025. The trailer below debuted exclusively on IGN, and the Steam page is now live, so you can head over there to read more (or wishlist the game). VERSION 1.11 IS HERE! Despite the short update cycle, there's a lot to cover for this version. Just a warning though: Pretty much every change has to do with vehicle building. We'll start with the changelist, then go into a bit more detail on the new parts and significant part options. Changelist: - Added Stasis option to Vortex and Turbine parts, along with anti-gravity modifier - Added Shockwave part (projectile weapon, triggers shockwave explosion) - Added Laser Gun part (projectile weapon, similar to X8 Rifle/Gauss) - Added option to modify explosion strength of projectile weapons (use with caution) - Added option to disable muzzle flash mini-explosion (all projectile weapons) - Added Aero part for custom aerodynamics - Added Ball wheel part (omnidirectional roller) - Added option to scale all non-steering wheels that weren't yet resizable (including Ball) - Added Flex Isosceles part - Added option to hide base of flex parts (panel, triangle, etc) - Added option to Gyro part to use direct rotation instead of physics - Made Fireball explosion available in Effects part (3 sizes) - Added logic to make big vehicle impacts more consistent (such as mission 2-1) - Changed Settler SB level a bit - Made sliders also change speed relative to the input strength (up to 1) - Fixed slider activate mode ignoring the slider during negative inputs - Fixed outline around bomb parts sticking around after they explode - Fixed a bug with dropship pick-up (at the end of a mission) being too fast - Fixed a potential GPU thread overflow when lots of particles are active NEW PART OPTION: STASIS (Vortex/Turbine) This is listed before the new parts for a reason. I was going to add a new part or two for this feature, but piggy-backing on the Vortex/Turbine was a faster way to get it done. The Stasis option turns the Vortex/Turbine in a sort of physics-pause tool, with tunable settings and control over how frozen the objects are, and how much anti-gravity to apply. NEW PARTS: SHOCKWAVE and LASER GUN These two new projectile weapons give you new ways to annihilate things. The Shockwave in particular can destroy basically everything in one blast if you turn up the explosion damage option high enough, but I'm not going to stop you. The Laser Gun has nothing to do with the previous lasers, aside from sharing some FX and shaders. It's more of a traditional sci-fi projectile weapon. It doesn't really do anything new, but is a nice change of pace aesthetically. NEW PART: AERO The Aero part is relatively simple and small. It only has 3 significant settings, and a 4th that will mostly go unused. Based on the forward velocity of the part (and the relative forward speed vs. overall speed), it creates drag, lift, and a bit of rotation. It only cares about speed in one direction, but that's enough to simulate a wing fairly well, possibly better than the actual wing parts. Use multiple Aero parts at various points on an aircraft, or just a few with different orientations, and you can simulate whatever kind of aerodynamics you can imagine. NEW PART: FLEX ISOSCELES Flex parts are a bit of a pain to create, but this one mostly works like a normal flex panel. I make no promises about using it in a mirrored creation, but it does have 10 slight variants for visual purposes. Of more importance to some is the new inclusion of the HIDE BASE option on all panel-like flex parts. This prevents the base from rendering, allowing for adjusting parts without having to worry about the base. Note: This doesn't disable the base collision, just the rendering. NEW PART: BALL WHEEL The omnidirectional ball wheel was another quick part to make, and I figured out a simpler way to make wheels scale-able as well. They don't use E/Shift+E to change the size, but I think that's an acceptable compromise. The scaling option is now available on all non-steering wheels that didn't already scale. NEW OPTION: DIRECT ROTATION (Gyro) The last significant new part option is for the Gyro. There's now an option to use an alternative method of rotating towards the target orientation. It bypasses physics almost completely, and it's only 2 lines of code (after lots of trial and error), but ends up being more stable and effective than I expected. It's not the default setting, but perhaps it should have been. The rest of the fixes/updates are fairly minor. Overall this update went more smoothly than expected, but it's possible I broke something with it, so I won't be surprised if there's a 1.11a version soon. Up next: We'll be working on wrapping up and submitting the console versions (reminder: March 27th on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S).

Version 1.1 Now Available, and a Console Release Date

Radiangamessteam_community_announcements

549d ago

Instruments of Destruction version 1.1 is finally here. It's been much longer than I originally anticipated to release this update, and I want to apologize for the longer-than-expected delay. It arrives with a new trailer to showcase both the update and the announcement of the console versions' release date: The console version is nearly done, but is coming in late March mostly because I'm unsure how long the certification process will take. I'll talk about the console versions in more detail another time, but the console porting process for Instruments has been fairly intense. Alan handled a lot of the optimization work (he's handling the PS5 port), while I did a bit more once I finally got my Xbox dev kit fully functional. Too Many Projects The console version isn't the only reason why it's taken so long to get version 1.1 done. Working on Fireball 2 took some time, and a new Speed Demons game took even more. That project is a story for another day. I haven't even mentioned Rhythm Storm, which has received the least amount of attention. But I did work on it a bit recently. In December, I worked on all 4 games to get them running on Xbox. It's obvious now, but 4 projects is 2 projects too many to juggle. I wanted to release all four in 2024, but got burnt out by finishing Instruments 1.0 on PC. Then Fireball 2 bloated a bit, the SD project got WAY bigger than originally planned, and I never focused on finishing anything. Having two projects to work on still makes sense to me, particularly when one is a "side project", but 3 or more is where I've felt overwhelmed. I'll continue writing up my ideas for new games, but no more prototyping them until I'm ready to handle them ballooning into a side project. And all of my recent projects have had a common problem: Feeling uncertainty about the art style. Which Bear (Art Style) is Best? The art style in Instruments of Destruction evolved quite a bit from where it started in 2020. But the improvement since then doesn't reflect the excessive amount of time I've spent on the visuals. I've tried a lot of different values and variations of nearly every art element and visual effect. And that has continued with version 1.1, which brings not one but two "new" art style presets. If I had to choose, I'm not sure which of the 3 art style presets I prefer. "Classic" is what version 1.0 launched with, plus a few minor changes. "Normal" is the new default, and adds a lot more saturation and black outlines around most objects, making it look similar to cel-shaded graphics. "Comic" is like Normal with a new full-screen filter and tweaks to particles. The trailer above shows the game almost exclusively with the Normal art style. There's some sort of style-fatigue at play in my brain, as I seem to always prefer the "new" style when I change the preset in Instruments. And when I check out old versions of my games that have had multiple art styles, I rarely feel like there's a big improvement once the basic elements are set. I don't mind working on the art of my games, but it's rarely an efficient use of my time. Aside from realizing I'm spending too much time tweaking art to be different (rather than better), I think my most important realization of the last year is that aiming for a more "realistic" art style takes quite a bit more time than stylized visuals, and that my art skills/workflow don't lend themselves to realism. I can get close to realism, but not close enough to actually look real. And when I take a step back and compare my games' realism to other games that do it well, it's never a favorable comparison. On the other hand, cel-shaded/comic style visuals are more timeless in nature, and I think I can achieve them relatively well, and in a more efficient manner. The style seems to work well in both Instruments of Destruction and the new Speed Demons game. So I feel good about finally figuring this out (even if it seems obvious now). Character Portraits On the other hand, one feature that absorbed way too much time and didn't have a clear resolution is the new character portraits. This idea was suggested to me back in May when the game came out to make the game "more appealing". Basically the new feature shows a picture of the characters when they speak. There are only 3 images, and they're not animated. I also found a contract artist to do them. So it seems like that's a fairly small feature. But I'd estimate it took over 2 weeks of my time to get them in-game, which included finding the artist, creating the reference board, sending feedback, updating the UI to display the portraits (and fit the current art style). I also spent multiple days refining the art myself, as the original versions didn't quite fit once they were actually in-game, and it took quite a few iterations to create versions that fit well enough to ship. In the end, portraits don't show when Outlines are disabled, and I thought about cutting the feature entirely after it was done. So 2D character art is probably not something you'll see much of in my future games... That's enough about my struggles with art. Let's take a look at the changelist, then talk about future plans and Instruments of Destruction. VERSION 1.1 CHANGES * Added art style presets: Normal, Comic, Classic * Added subtle textures on world geometry and structures * Added outlines option around structures, objects, and player vehicles * Added new fireball particle for the center of explosions * Added optional full-screen comic filter * Added new character portraits (shown when Outlines are enabled) * Re-enabled 60hz physics option (intended for consoles, but low end PCs can also use) * Added motion trail option for blades and wing parts (for rotational motion) * Added two sandbox levels, based on older ones (Test Island and Sandbox Resort) * Made vehicle/level thumbnails adjust to the art style (kind of) * Tweaked a few vehicles/etc so they work better with 60hz physics * Changed shadow rendering to be sharper * Fixed a few minor mission balance issues * Fixed a few minor bugs and tweaked a couple interface things 2025 and Beyond Plans Version 1.1 will not be the final update for Instruments of Destruction. I'll be fixing any significant bugs that slipped through in the next few days, and taking requests for minor tasks/tweaks/etc that would make the game/editors/etc better. I might also refine the two new revitalized Sandbox maps. Finishing up the Xbox and Playstation version for release is my other main priority. Let me reiterate the important part: Now (end of January 2025) is the ideal time to submit bug reports/suggestions/etc for things you want fixed/tweaked. Just comment down below with the relevant info. I'm not going to change anything major or risky, but this will be one of the last round of feedback-based changes to the game. I'll also be perusing the Steam forums and Discord bug-reports and suggestion channels for the first time in a while, but I don't mind seeing the same suggestion/report again. After 1.1's follow-up updates and the console versions, my plans are less certain, but do include the following tasks: 1) Finishing and releasing Fireball 2 on Steam and consoles. Aside from achievements/leaderboards and a little UI work, there's not much left to do. 2) A new update for Instruments of Destruction with a few refinements to build mode (some of which may be PC-only). 3) Simplifying, refining, and finishing Rhythm Storm. There's a lot to do here, but I'm looking forward to working on it. This won't happen until both #1 and #2 are finished. 4) Finishing and releasing the new Speed Demons project. This might happen sooner than later, or it might be a while. Beyond those four things, I don't know for sure what's next. I have plenty of ideas for future projects, and I want to work with Alan on a new project too, but that's not set in stone. Yet I am fairly certain of one thing: I don't plan to work on Instruments of Destruction after the first half of this year. That doesn't mean it'll never have more updates beyond that, just that I probably won't be the one working on them.

New Video: How Physics-Based Destruction Works (in Instruments of Destruction)

Radiangamessteam_community_announcements

682d ago

Let's jump straight in and get to the video, then I'll go into a bit of info on the video, and when to expect another update (and console versions) for Instruments of Destruction: The video is just under 10 minutes long, and it took around 40 hours of work to complete it. It's not quite as slick or animated as I hoped it would be, and the pace is too fast, but it's done and I think it does a decent job of explaining how the destruction works. This is my second devlog video (first was on DodgeBomb, which was renamed Fireball 2). There's a lot more I could talk about with Instruments, especially the overall design, and the vehicle building system. The vehicle build system was actually more technically challenging than destruction, but I'm not sure it's as interesting to watch a video about. After making this video, it's pretty clear that there are a lot of ways destruction could be improved in future games. With visuals in particular, everything could be better in multiple ways. But Instruments does two things better than most other destruction systems: It has a ton of objects, and it interacts with physics/other systems well. I'm still not sure when I'll make more destruction-based games in the future. I'm looking forward to it though, as working on the destruction stuff is something I enjoy. It's challenging, but also creative and interesting work. Even visuals for destruction are fairly fun to work on, though I wish I had either gone more realistic or more stylized with Instruments. Something to keep in mind for future projects. Future Instruments Work I've had an Xbox Series X devkit for almost 3 weeks, and I'm still not able to make a build for it. It's not a technical/game problem (yet), as I'm just waiting to get access to some software that let's me do it. I'll be emailing the relevant parties again today. The PS5 port is nearly done (Alan has done all the work there), so porting to the Xbox will be a lot easier because of that. There are a few other Instruments updates I'm ready to start working on once that issue is resolved. Some further optimizations from Alan have also benefitted all versions. Those will be coming in the next update as well. As for when the next update will be, I don't have an estimate yet. No estimate for the consoles yet either. I might be working on Instruments stuff sooner than later, but I'm still trying to figure that out, and I don't have a clear picture of everything I need to do next. If my plans are clarified sooner than later, I'll update this post with more info.

Version 1.05 Optimizes Rendering and Fixes An Important Bug

Radiangamessteam_community_announcementspatchnotes

765d ago

Let's start with the update changelist, then I'll discuss what we've been up to and the future plans for the game: VERSION 1.05 CHANGELIST Turned off shadows from rendering for cameras that don't need them (optimizes rendering a decent amount) Fixed Flex pieces updating every frame even when not necessary (major fix for certain vehicles) Added Kill Timer property to cannons (set it to kill off cannonballs X seconds after they are fired) Fixed a gamepad issue with the options menu Fixed a couple challenge types never working 100% correctly Fixed missions/challenges in BnD having no parts available Fixed a divide by zero issue with looping counters set to 0 The first two items are the important ones for version 1.05, with the rest being minor fixes/tweaks. Alan has been working on the console version, and he discovered a significant optimization for that version. Shadows were rendering on multiple camera types (such as rendering a depth buffer to create grass impacts) that didn't need them, so he turned them off and now the game just runs faster for all platforms. An even bigger slowdown was happening with objects with lots of resizable flex parts, like the bee (MCCH Apis Atomica) at 17:21 in this Scrapman video: Every flex part was updating its mesh and collider every frame, and that's a lot of expensive code to run for 400+ parts. So I fixed the code that made it happen, and now the vehicle runs a lot smoother (runs above 60FPS for me, while it was below 15FPS previously). Plenty of other vehicles were affected by this issue, particularly some of the more complex ones on the workshop. Beyond Version 1.05 As stated previously, I've been feeling a bit burnt out on Instruments after working on it for so long and for so many hours this year. While Alan has continued to work on the console version for part of the last month, I have moved on to other games (DodgeBomb and Speed Demons in particular) to try to finish them up for release on PC/console, and I had a long vacation with the family. I was hoping when I returned from vacation, I would have a more balanced perspective on work and Instruments of Destruction in particular. But to be honest, I still dread thinking about or working on the game. Version 1.05 isn't a big update, but it was a necessary one to finish, so I'm glad to have it wrapped up. I appreciate all the kind words and encouragement to keep going and promote the game more. I will definitely do more promotion when the console versions release. I also appreciate the feedback and suggestions to make the game better, though at this point I don't think I'll be making any significant revisions to the campaign or build mode. There will be more updates to the game, but I'm not sure when, or what most of them will be. I think that's all for this time. -Luke

Launch Week concludes with Version 1.03

Radiangamessteam_community_announcements

808d ago

I want to start by thanking everyone for your support during this past week as Instruments of Destruction launched into version 1.0. It's been a stressful time, for reasons I'll go into below, but it's also a time to celebrate. Version 1.03 is the last significant update we expect to make to the game for a little while. We've been getting through as much feedback and suggestions as we can from the past week while working on fixing bugs and trying to tweak the game to be the best it can be. Despite the stress of launching the game, having Alan helping to troubleshoot and fix issues has made this past week go a lot smoother than it otherwise would have. He's fixed a number of important, challenging bugs, which has allowed me to focus a bit more on the balance and fun of the campaign. Campaign Tweaks Versions 1.01, 1.02, and 1.03 have each brought with them some updates to vehicles and missions to improve the campaign. The biggest area of concern was the Boulder Bay missions, which went too far into the "moving boxes" theme, and was just not as much fun as other areas of the game. Two of the Infernal Isles missions also needed some vehicle adjustments, and missions with turrets/drones needed to be tweaked as well. The Kraken also got a bit of a nerf in terms of move speed in 1.03. Overall, the game is supposed to be fun and varied more than it is particularly challenging (or frustrating or tedious). I feel more confident that the campaign achieves that at a consistent level compared to v1.0 last week. We've also addressed the majority of the technical and control issues that have come up, and the number of negative reviews (angry ones in particular) has diminished compared to the weekend. A Successful Launch? The launch of the game has been a success by many metrics, but launching on May 10th turned out to be a less-than-ideal time to launch. Hades II stealth-dropped a few days earlier, and then Animal Well also launched suddenly as well. The week was devoid of big games when I chose May 10th as a date, but both of those games garnered a huge amount of buzz and made it harder to get coverage from many outlets and YouTubers. The game still got some great articles from places like PC Gamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, PCGamesN, and Level 80, but I don't know of any sites that have reviewed the game, and YouTube coverage has been a fraction of what it was for the Early Access launch. A couple Reddit posts I made went semi-viral, and one I put on Imgur went very viral. But Imgur is *not* friendly towards indie video games in 2024, and the post has like 35% downvotes and way more angry comments than supportive ones. Combined with the sometimes-quite-angry reviews that really didn't like a specific thing or two about the game over the weekend, as well as the skewed wishlist-to-sales ratio (way more wishlists than sales, which surprised me), and I haven't really enjoyed this launch as much as I wanted to. I've had 2nd thoughts about not using a publisher for a while, and this launch has only solidified the feeling that I should have used one. Alan has been a great help in terms of finishing the game itself, and it would have been great to have a partner to help with promoting the game. Promoting the game is something I just do not enjoy. I'm only ok at it, I always feel like I should be doing more of it, and yet I simultaneously feel like I'm doing too much of it when I do. What's Next? Version 1.03 will be the last update for a while, unless there's some urgent-to-fix issue. The game is finally as good as I hoped it would be for 1.0, and I'm burnt out. Alan is just starting work on the ports to PS5 and Xbox Series S/X. The game is also coming to GOG.com sooner than later. I don't have any definite plans for what to add to the game in the future, aside from bonus missions for the Build & Destroy campaign (aka 7 more Sandbox maps along with a few new structures). I could maybe see adding some Expert missions to the Main Campaign. Those would just be remixes of the standard missions with different vehicles and harder objective requirements. Some time away from the game will help me get some perspective on what could be added to improve it further. So for now, I'm taking a break to work on something else (and enjoy the summer with my family). Hope you guys enjoy the game! - Luke Here's the full changelist for 1.03:

Revised 3-3 significantly (no more boxes)
Added option to cameramod to disable the cursor while active
Added a small warehouse to 3-4's target area
Added vehicle-building collision scalar/setting to vehicles, affects high speed vehicle impacts
Made Armando (vehicle) use Medium Joint Stabilization to reduce glitchiness
Revised 8-3 so there's no time limit and bonus goal is destruction
Revised turrets to aim a little slower, fire a little less frequently
Revised drones to fire a little less frequently
Slowed down Kraken move speed a little (except 10-5)
Increased range of Valkyrie laser
Reduced angle of camera change caused by zooming in/out (default unaffected)
Added option to prevent thrusters from affecting other objects
Added buttons to remove objects in Sandbox mode (when Place Objects is active)
Added Sandbox mode option to disable invisible walls
Prevent game from saving immediately if you quit right way (possibly wiping out save data)
Prevent progress saving if crystals and stars are both 0
Made map/structure loading overlay use transparent buttons so you can (kinda) see what you loaded
Fixed glow for barrels on mission 4-2 not working
Fixed structure glow failing to work correctly in 2 cases (turning off too fast, and not turning off when it should)
Fixed "Test Destruction" in structure editor being "frozen" in time
Fixed Failing BnD 8-2 objective->Pause sequence in BnD missions (failed instantly on next restart, got stuck)
Fixed vehicle ropes falling from the sky after a dropship despawns (visible on main menu sometimes)
Fixed a couple challenges having reduced controller vibration when they didn't need it
Significantly reduced insane impact blasts from Bomb Launcher and structure collisions
Made ultra-wide (21:9) push the UI elements to the side more (aka expanded max UI width)
Fixed an obscure bug with mouse controls
Fixed Rust Rally (sb12) has the challenge scores reversed

Version 1.0 releasing on May 10th, 2024!

Radiangamessteam_community_announcements

851d ago

Let's get the important stuff out of the way first, then I'll ramble on about the game's history, evolution, and what's left to do. Instruments of Destruction version 1.0 is releasing on May 10th, 2024 (aka 37 days from now). Version 1.0 will include a main campaign with around 50 missions and a separate high-score challenge for each mission. In that campaign, which is designed to be enjoyed by players of all ages, there's no vehicle building required. The secondary campaign, which focuses on teaching the vehicle building mode and more puzzle-style objectives, will have around 25 missions (and 25 challenges). Plus, Sandbox mode will always be there for your mayhem needs. Other big additions include professional voice acting for the main 2 characters in the game (see below for more details), full text localization into 12 languages, a few new graphical features, and more optimizations. And of course there will be a large number of bug fixes and other minor improvements to vehicle building and some vehicle parts. We've also got a new trailer announcing the release date. Check it out here: Before going over the remaining work, let's rewind and see how the game evolved over the course of development: A Four Year Journey It's been over 2 years since Instruments of Destruction released into Early Access, and 3 years since the game was announced. I started working on it in January of 2020. It wasn't called Instruments of Destruction at the time, but instead "Debris Inc" The short description for the initial concept doc that I wrote up at the time: Debris Inc is a physics-heavy destruction-based game. Take down a series of increasingly complicated and interesting structures using a variety of unique vehicles. At the same time, try to avoid doing too much damage to the surrounding structures. The full doc is only a page long, and a few details are off, but for the most part the description matches how Instruments of Destruction has turned out. The big omission is that there's no vehicle building mode mentioned, as constructing your own machine wouldn't be added until a few months later. The game underwent a number of direction shifts early on, but ended up back where it started, with the addition of vehicle building. There's also less of a focus on "avoiding damaging surrounding structures", though that is an objective in quite a few missions. The game released into Early Access in March of 2022, and at the time the most comparable game was definitely Besiege (but with modern vehicles and more detailed destruction). However, when I released the game's original Early Access Release Date trailer in February of 2022, another game was mentioned even more often than Besiege: Rare's classic N64 game, Blast Corps. I knew all about Besiege, but had very little knowledge about Blast Corps, other than vaguely being aware of its existence. We'll come back to Blast Corps in a bit, as I wouldn't really pay attention to that for a while. Over the next year or so in EA, most of my focus was on adding to the vehicle building experience, which meant adding more parts and more powerful editing capabilities, but very little in the way of making the vehicle building more user-friendly. There were some new missions added, and a lot of cool new physics toys and ways to make crazy vehicles, but I really didn't have a cohesive plan for how to finish the game. I made multiple roadmaps, including plans for a combat-focused campaign with roguelike elements, but I didn't really feel good about where the game was going. It had lots of potential, but I wasn't sure what to do with it. In early 2023, I finally played Blast Corps through Xbox GamePass. Even though it looked dated to my eyes (I'm not a fan of blurry textures), it was also very clear to me: Blast Corps was more fun to play than Instruments of Destruction. It wasn't really the moment-to-moment gameplay or missions itself that stood out, but the simplicity and flow of the whole experience. It felt rewarding and things moved quickly between missions. There was a variety of vehicles and objectives, and missions were quick and fun. I needed to bring that flow and experience to Instruments, and let the standout elements of the game shine through. For Instruments that means the campaign should focus on vehicles, destruction, and physics. Fast forward 6 months and the game was featured at the PAX Rising Showcase in Seattle. The new campaign with pre-built vehicles was pretty rough, but things went well. Lines were long, players were returning to play multiple times, and I heard the word "satisfying" a lot. I felt like I finally had a path to finishing the game. There were some other things to take care of, including redoing the build mode UI to support gamepads and adding a bit more atmosphere to the game, but I finally felt like I could imagine what the final game would look like. And it is remarkably like the original description, though with a lot more "vehicle variety" than I imagined. The Finish Line Approaches As of April 3rd, there are 41 playable missions in the main campaign across 9 regions. There are 2 more regions left to finish, and I expect those to go relatively quickly. The secondary campaign will be the focus after that. But those missions are far easier to make than the main campaign's, as they don't require a vehicle, and many will be based on previously-created missions. After the missions are playable, completing the story and writing dialog is the priority. Everything right now is focused on getting what needs to be done so that voice recording can be completed. We're working with a voice director for the two main story characters: Hendrix (formerly Jenkins) and Mr. Sharpe. We received over 100 auditions for Mr. Sharpe, and over 200 for Hendrix (yes, that was way more than expected). I listened to all the auditions last night, and it was a bit overwhelming to narrow down the field. Final selections will be completed this week, but recording won't happen for a couple weeks at least. Alan has completed all the technical work for making localization updates a lot easier, along with getting in a number of optimizations and adding support for some graphical features (such as game-resolution scaling). There's one more important optimization to make, but after that he'll be helping clear out the bug backlog and adding quality-of-life features. Many of the challenges (and vehicles for those) still need to be completed as well, but they are lower priority due to the bottleneck with voice recording. Some of those challenge vehicles will be variants, while some will be unique. As we've added more missions, we've gotten feedback from playtests that players *want* to use the same vehicles more often. We're not doing that exactly, but we are standardizing the control schemes a bit more, and doing more vehicle variants than originally intended. So the "Roller" (names are subject to change) from mission 2 is seen at least 3 more times in various forms, for instance, and the Shover from mission 4 has at least 2 variants. My goal has been to have a hugely varied and interesting line-up of vehicles, and we're still hitting that mark. I can't think of any game that has more unique usable vehicles (counting built-in but not user-created ones), but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I think the one area where the final lineup is a bit lacking is in the walker category. Making good walking mechanisms that can move moderately quickly and not look janky is very difficult (without animating them in a separate program). I hope to add more walkers in challenges, but my engineering skills seem to reach their limits when I've tried to make them so far. As you can see, there's still a lot left to do, but the most difficult parts are behind us. I apologize that we've not been responding to feedback or questions lately. Our focus is squarely on getting 1.0 finished. Even if we don't respond, we are doing our best to keep track of all the bugs and suggestions. If you're wondering if you should buy the game now or wait for 1.0: I'd recommend wishlisting it now, and buying it when 1.0 is released. The game will get a 15% discount on release, and buying it on release day will result in a far more satisfactory experience. You can buy it now if you want to see the beginning of the game, but keep in mind progress in the campaign will be reset for version 1.0. Thanks again for the patience and support! The finish line is just over the horizon.

Mapping out the Road to the Finish Line

Radiangamessteam_community_announcements

902d ago

Version 0.501 is now live on Steam. Here's the changelist: * Revised Options menu layout (scrolling list, shortcuts to sections, descriptions of everything) * Changed mission map display to show thumbnail images * Changed local/built-in vehicles to show/use thumbnail images * Improved functionality/usability of capturing thumbnail images for vehicles/etc * Added thumbnails to missions and mission vehicles * Significantly improved smoke rendering speed by rendering it at a lower resolution * Added environment smoke to 2 dust-storm missions * Added smoke rendering options for quality and environment smoke * Smoothed out camera zooming and fixed some other camera issues * Added voice volume ducking and other sound options * Fixed a variety of bugs/issues 0.501 doesn't have a huge changelist, but some of the changes were significant, and the smoke rendering optimization was a big challenge that both Alan and I took multiple stabs at to finally get it all working the right way. The options UI and map UI changes may be more apparent, but those were relatively quick tasks in comparison. The map UI in particular I'm not 100% satisfied with, so version 1.0 will look a bit different than what you see in 0.501. How it'll be different I'm not exactly sure, aside from it being more animated/rewarding when you return from a mission. There will almost certainly be a version 0.501a (and maybe 0.501b), but otherwise this is the last update before version 1.0. I still don't have a solid date on 1.0, but late April is still seeming like a reasonable time. There will be additional news posts here despite the lack of new builds after this week, with the next one very likely to be about the Release Date Trailer. PUSHING TOWARDS 1.0 The Release Date Trailer will be the start of the promotional push leading up to version 1.0. The goal is quite simple: Have the biggest 1.0 launch day possible. The best way to do that is to have the best game possible, and to build excitement so that everyone wants to play it on launch day. I think we have a good plan/design to make the game the best it can be, and there is a plan for a good amount of promotional stuff as well. I've never enjoyed promotional work that much, but it can be rewarding to talk to journalists/streamers/etc directly, so I try to focus on that aspect. I'm also getting help from a few people, so I don't have to do everything myself. There's a lot of work to do, but I'm looking forward to getting it all done. Thanks for all the support along the way! -Luke

The Last Big Pre-1.0 Update - Version 0.500

Radiangamessteam_community_announcements

909d ago

Version 0.500 is now live on Steam! This is the biggest update yet, and the last major one before version 1.0. Part of the reason it's such a significant update: For the last 4 weeks, and until the game is done, Alan Lawrance (lead developer of PolyBridge 3, lead designer of Red Faction, and overall amazing programmer) has joined the "team" at Radiangames. Alan is awesome, and we hope to keep working together far beyond Instruments of Destruction. On to version 0.500: I have not been keeping a full list of the changes, but here are the major elements of this update:

New Campaign missions and challenges and vehicles
New Build & Destroy missions and challenges
Sticky Bomb part, build mode tweaks/fixes, and other part improvements
Destruction improvements and optimizations
Improved mouse controls
Visual changes (smoke particles, UI rendering)
New environments (and new main menu music)
Initial pass of story elements

There are now 11 near-final missions, challenges, and associated vehicles in the main campaign. Two of those missions are essentially the same as previous ones, with 9 new missions joining them to form the first 2 regions of the game. The other 6 missions are still available, but most of those will undergo some significant changes or get removed from version 1.0. On the Build & Destroy campaign side of things, there are 5 new missions/tutorials and challenges. These new ones are less-directed tutorials for the most part. The almost 2-year missions from previous versions are mostly still available, but they are going to be significantly updated or removed for version 1.0. Rather than go on more about the rest of the new features, I want to also want to go over what's to come, both in the short-term and the long-term. THE SHORT-TERM In this case, short-term means the next week or two. There will be some follow-up improvements that Alan and I will make, with a focus on more performance optimizations and a number of UI updates. A new options menu is the biggest new UI thing coming soon, though the campaign map and vehicle save/load stuff will also get some big changes. The new smoke particles will also receive some performance optimizations and other changes so they don't impact the framerate so much at higher resolutions. After these smaller updates in the next couple weeks, the game will not receive any further updates prior to version 1.0. We'll still be looking for mission feedback and any bug reports as we approach 1.0, so please keep letting us know what you guys think. THE LONG-TERM Here's the plan for the rest of the game prior to version 1.0:

A lot more (30+) Main Campaign missions, challenges, and vehicles
A lot more (15+) Build & Destroy missions and challenges
Localization for all the text (not voice)
Removing/revising some old missions/islands
More varied Sandbox-only islands
More mission types and objectives (esp. combat-oriented missions)
Real voice acting for Jenkins and Sharpe
More optimization
Simple intro and ending animations for both campaigns
More special events/weather (meteor shower, for instance)
More ways to customize vehicle appearance
Lots of bug fixes
Replacing or updating a lot of the bonus vehicles

NOTE: Campaign progress will be RESET with version 1.0. Basically there's a lot of missions left to do, which is actually not that scary, and a wide variety of smaller tasks that are needed to finish up the game. Nothing is especially risky/difficult, and it's far more fun to work on the game now than it was 4 months ago (hello build mode UI redo). The scary part is that this is the "real" first part of the game, essentially, and I hope people like it. There will be some nice complementary elements that get improved, like the UI, and the writing/voice acting, and maybe some other things. And I haven't really playtested anything recently, but in terms of gameplay/missions/tutorials/etc, the first part of the game is "ready". After 4 years of development, the game is almost done. There will be some updates after 1.0, but unlike Early Access, I know what I want the game to be, and this is it. So when will version 1.0 be out? I'm not sure yet, but there will a release date trailer posted here when that's all figured out. That trailer should be out by the end of the month if all goes well, and for the release date, April feels like a safe bet, but you never know.

Winter Progress Report

Radiangamessteam_community_announcements

954d ago

A new game update is still many weeks away, but I wanted to give a report on the status of the game. I've been jumping between a few different areas of work, with the biggest two being figuring out the campaign mission plan and adding new biomes. I've done other work, like a bit of optimization and improving the streak particle drawing, and I'll talk a little more about the main two tasks. But first a small caveat: If you want to fully enjoy the game and aren't really into building vehicles, I'd wait to play the game until 1.0 is finished. You can still safely buy the game now since it's on sale, and the price won't this low again until next summer, but the campaign will be *way* better in a few months. CAMPAIGN MISSION PLAN Before figuring out the full campaign mission plan, I had to narrow down what Instruments of Destruction is really about, what makes it unique. And it comes down to 3 things: Vehicles, Destruction, and Physics. Those are quite obvious, but focusing on those 3 aspects as the pillars has really helped me figure out how to create a cohesive plan for the missions. This game has too many potential directions to go in, and I needed something to help me get past the decision paralysis that I had been feeling. Then I used a spreadsheet and just wrote down every mission idea, vehicle, scenario, physics highlight, or other element that I might want to highlight in a mission. I started a second sheet and started copying and organizing these ideas into groups of missions. I'm trying to make each mission semi-unique and fun/satisfying, and trying to emphasize at least 2 of the 3 pillars, if not all 3. Some secondary ideas and previous missions/vehicles will be used as challenges instead of a primary mission. A third sheet was added so I could make to focus on Build & Destroy campaign missions. Not everything is planned out precisely, but I have a plan for how everything fits together, and I'm nearly ready to start working on missions. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/40401905/47864e59f70f6be1bab235b9a75055c8662b4c75.png NEW BIOMES Recently I've been really enjoying working on adding more atmosphere-enhancing elements to the game, such as the new ambient animals, improved skyboxes, rain/thunder. These things don't directly impact the 3 pillars, but they help make the game more immersive and satisfying (to me at least). When I was working on the mission plan, one thing that bothered me was not having enough biomes for all the different groups of missions (each 4-5 missions has a general theme/focus). So I started adding some new particle settings, and new tree types, and new rocks, and friction for the ground, and a couple other things, and before I knew it I have a bunch of new biomes. I'm not going to reveal them all, and I have to think about if I want to hide a few of them in the map editor (until version 1.0's campaign is beaten). The ice biome above shows off some of the new stuff, including low-friction ground, snow-pebbles instead of grass, falling snow, and some new trees/rocks. And because of the low friction in particular, it plays a bit different as well. HOLIDAY BREAK I'm taking a week or two off for the holiday break, but after that I'm looking forward to making lots of progress on the game and pushing towards 1.0 in the first half of 2024. If I had to guess on a date for 1.0 on Steam, I'd say March or April is the most likely. I'm not great at estimating times, so we'll see how accurate that is.

Mouse Controls! (kinda) and Cloudy Skies (literally)

Radiangamessteam_community_announcements

971d ago

This is a slightly smaller list of changes, but an important update. No changelist this time, but each change needs a few words, so here we go. SKY IMPROVEMENTS I messed with some volumetric clouds, and they looked pretty good, but not worth the performance hit (about 1ms on my PC). Just using nice high-res textures turned out to work the best, with no real performance hit and a nice visual improvement. I tried messing with different visual styles of clouds, but realistic ones seemed to fit the best. The sun/moon is also now visible as a very bright sphere. If you look towards it, the post-processing adjusts appropriately. Overall, this was a nice bang-for-the-buck improvement in making the world feel better (it's also the reason why this update is 100+mb in size). There are a few things left for the UI/etc that need touching up, but this is one of the last in-world tweaks before 1.0. MOUSE CONTROLS This was a not-too-complex task that required balancing a lot of different issues, so there's a little clunkiness in how you make a vehicle use mouse controls. But I think the result is a good compromise. Basically this dialog handles all the mouse controls. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/40401905/04432081561a96586b3de1b6bb9c9d202ed6b727.png The majority of that dialog controls how the X/Y axis function and which controls/inputs they override. The bottom part controls which controls/inputs the mouse buttons override. Except they don't override anything, they share/piggyback on existing controls. Originally I had mouse buttons mapping normally, but this made for some awkward issues, especially for those who use Orbit cam instead of Follow cam. Instead everything mouse-related is on this popup, and the mouse controls only function when you 1) use follow cam and 2) are not using a gamepad. I switched some of the mission vehicles to use mouse controls (the ones that fire something), but aside from Hover Hornet I think using the keyboard remains identical to before. That vehicle I felt ok changing because it never controlled great with keyboard in the first place (it's always been far better with gamepad). SPACEBAR CHANGE! This is a side-effect of having mouse support. I decided it was time to switch the main shortcut for starting/ending the game to ENTER instead of SPACE. The mission vehicles will be changing soon to use SPACE as the main fire/action button, and LEFT SHIFT as the main turbo/boost button. This should make the game a bit easier to pick up and play for new players. LOGIC CODE CHANGE Some logic stuff, particularly with things that toggle, has always been a bit buggy. I decided it was time to bite the bullet and change anything with part controls/logic that's not visual to use the same code path, and it seems to have worked. I have tested a lot of different vehicles and things seem to be working as expected (aka better than before), but please let me know if you see any logic-related glitches/etc. A link to the Steam Workshop vehicle always helps :) STEAM WORKSHOP FIX I fixed the issue with Workshop Vehicles not having their creator names showing up (and maybe sometimes showing the wrong vehicle name). It was an easier fix than I expected, sorry that took so long. PART COLORS New part colors now make a little more sense. If you change the color of a part, that's the color any new part will have. It no longer cares about any parts you may have selected/highlighted, only if you changed colors. I think it also changes the default if you assign new colors in the Edit Palette menu, but that feels ok to leave as is. NEXT UPDATE PLANS The next update will be coming...I don't know when, sorry. I'll be working on more turrets/enemies/etc starting tomorrow, and more missions soon. It may be January before the next significant update. I'm looking forward to making lots of fun/varied missions, and development has gone pretty well the last month or so. But estimating/predicting how that will go is difficult to do with any accuracy. A new release date trailer will be coming in January/February when I have a better idea of how long it'll take to finish the game.

Adding more life to the game (aka seagulls and turtles)

Radiangamessteam_community_announcements

975d ago

Instruments of Destruction takes place on small islands, mostly for technical reasons. I've been thinking about adding something to the islands since 2020, but didn't find the time to do it until now. That something is the animal you see/hear on basically any island or near most large bodies of water: Seagulls. Islands without birds seem lifeless, which they literally are (sorry plants). {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/40401905/694b70f889791f8ca3f59012303e01b60fe8e381.gif Seagulls aren't the only new lifeform, as sea turtles are also now chilling on beaches. Both new ambient creatures are generated/placed procedurally when you start playing, so you won't see them in build mode. I may still tweak how they behave/react, but they are pretty interactive right now. There's a set number per island, and that can be adjusted in the map editor (along with a couple beach parameters relating to turtle locations). There can be up to 400 total creatures, though nothing comes close to that currently. Though these creatures have no real impact on gameplay currently, that may change with some bonus missions in the future. And even without a true gameplay impact, the game/world feels a bit empty when I load up an island that doesn't have any spawning (especially seagulls). In terms of things that will definitely make a gameplay impact, lets take a quick look at the full changelist: Changed how the Kraken works in a few ways - Damage to tentacles no longer matters, only hits to head - 1 hit = enraged, 2 hits = game over - Change a bunch of details and UI elements to fit new design Added new turret entity and better support for destroyable objects - Not currently used, but can be placed in Sandbox/Editor Added new ambient animals (seagulls and turtles) with automatic placement - Turtles spawn on the shore in groups - Seagulls spawn on (mostly) edges of structures - Control spawning count and beach limits in editor Added a damage flash to parts and objects Added Bonus Vehicles to the Vehicle select menu (old vehicles from previous missions) Made a potential fix to logic part issues, particularly with toggle parts - Also fixed issues with toggle parts and dropship, as seen in Mission 8 Fixed a few other minor issues The big things to note: The Kraken works a bit differently, with it now being a two-hits-to-die system. It moves a bit slower, the tentacles no longer matter for damage, and when it hits a structure with it's head, the structure falls down. The rage meter is replaced with a "danger level" that shows how close the Kraken is to something it can take damage from (either an explosive or large structure). There's a new enemy turret and improvements to the entity destruction system to support it. This isn't used on any campaign missions yet, but it will be (you can place them in Sandbox mode to try them out). More turrets and other enemies will be coming soon. Now that I've got one working, the rest should be a bit easier/faster. Bonus Vehicles resurrects a bunch of the older vehicles that were available previously. Note that this list will change in the future, so if you want any of the vehicles in particular, you may want to load-and-save them locally. I also fixed an issue with Mission 8's vehicle (Dragonfly) that was caused by the helicopter drop. It may have also fixed the issue with toggle logic sometimes breaking, but that's a more difficult one for me to test/confirm. UPCOMING WORK: ANOTHER SLIGHT DETOUR Many people have asked for mouse controls over the past 1.5 years, and until recently I didn't see a good enough reason to worry about it. Controlling physics-based vehicles with a mouse is tricky, as vehicles have rotational inertia, and mouse controls are a weird kind of analog control (compared to a joystick/trigger). Plus other vehicle building games (like Besiege) don't have mouse controls. But with the recent new campaign, the difference in controls between a gamepad and keyboard-only is more noticeable. Quite a few vehicles in the campaign, particularly those where you need to use/aim a weapon, control much better with a gamepad than keyboard. So I need to do something about that. I don't know exactly how things will work, but I'll add some kind of mouse support for controlling parts. My initial thought is to let you assign the mouse to override four buttons (such as the arrow keys), and use an analog value for each axis that can go well past 1, but also centers itself over time. You'd have control over a couple speed values for each axis, and it'd be easy to invert the axis/speed. These values would be saved with the vehicles, and it'd be easy/quick to change. Perhaps there would be something for marking the Y-axis as auto-invert (so it could be inverted by player's options if desired). But I'll have to try it out and see. Along with the mouse-control thing, the other major task for the next update is adding more turrets/enemies. I'll probably look more closely at adding more objective types as well. I'm anxious to get back to making/improving a bunch of missions/vehicles. There will likely be one more (significant) update before the end of the year with the enemies/mouse controls, but new missions are unlikely to arrive before early January.

Update 0.415 Drops Today (That's a Pun--Vehicles Get Dropped Off Now)

Radiangamessteam_community_announcements

988d ago

For the past 6 months or so, I had been planning to redo the camera system entirely. I didn't do that, as I instead found some good ways to work around the systems limitations. The changes went about as well as I could have expected, and I consider the camera system close to final at this point, though if you have any feedback/requests, now is the time to speak up. I also spent a couple days working on the new Dropship (helicopter) sequencing/etc at the start/end of Story missions in the main campaign. The Kraken got some camera focus as well, so you'll see it more clearly when it arrives, departs, or destroys everything. Now my focus shifts towards making the game as fun as I can. Part of that is vehicle and mission design, but before I go into extreme-content-production mode, I need to get the remaining objectives and other supporting AI/obstacles working. Need things like turrets, defense drones, and other trap-like things, along with more obstacles that can be used in light puzzle-solving. KRAKEN TWEAKS COMING? I'm also not 100% sure about how the Kraken works right now. I'll probably try making the failure state not analog. Basically any damage to the head triggers the end of the mission, but damaging the tentacles won't matter. That will require redoing missions/timing and slowing the Kraken down, but that's not a big deal. I'm also considering having obstacles/etc that the Kraken is drawn to (like a siren), and I'll think about how else you can interact with it aside from preventing damage to it. About 25 of the final missions will use the Kraken, and I want to be sure they don't feel like glorified escort missions. They're on the edge of that right now, and the uncertainty of the mission fail state doesn't help. With some fine-tuning, better indicators of Kraken-danger, and a dedicated "where's the Kraken?" camera toggle/button, I think the Kraken missions will be as fun as the non-Kraken missions. 0.415 CHANGES Here's an overview of changes for 0.415, which is not complete, as I didn't write everything down this time (too many camera changes/tweaks to track): - A helicopter now drops off your vehicle at the start/end of the main campaign Story missions - Some controls for a few vehicles were updated/improved - Mission intro/ending camera now use custom angles/etc (no control) - Camera modes now cache their zoom/rotation/etc so Orbit/Follow no longer depend on each other - Follow and Orbit camera had numerous small improvements - Vehicles with Momentum cam now work better with Follow cam - The Kraken gets camera-focused on at 3 different times (entry, exit, and destroy) - Isometric camera mode was removed (Orbit does the same thing, more or less) - Full-screen blur is used for camera transitions where appropriate - Sped up some sequencing to remove unnecessary frames/pauses - Tracking mode was removed (for now) - New transition from Build mode to playing the game - Added a new Invert Reverse Turning to Power Wheels/Treads (checkbox, enabled by default) - Outputs and signals now use a different highlight color to make it a little more obvious that inputs and outputs are different (and signals/controls are too) - Fixed some bugs (custom missions and a couple others I forgot) FUTURE UPDATES As usual, I'm not sure about frequency of future updates. At some point in the next couple months, I'll probably stop updating the game until 1.0. There will be a number of new missions before then, and 1.0 will likely double the number of missions in addition to adding some other polish/finishing features. The big unknown is really how long it will take to make all the missions/vehicles fun and varied. Not every mission has to be amazing, but having a lot more standouts like Push It Real Good and Initial Revision is the goal.

New Build Tutorial and Challenge Mode in Version 0.410

Radiangamessteam_community_announcements

993d ago

Let's start with the changelist this time. It's not a massive one, as some of the things listed took a bit longer than you might think at first. Here's what changed in version 0.410:

Added 5 new build tutorial missions + islands
Added new build tutorial system with step by step instructions
Added challenge missions/objectives for first 2 main + 5 build missions
Added new challenge mode logic and objectives
Added new voice lines for new build tutorials + challenge mode
Added new part unlocking system for Build&Destroy campaign
--- Editor lets you edit the part locking per mission
Added a Mission Complete/Challenge Complete popups when you finish
--- 3-stars for normal missions (bonus and main objectives)
--- Moment of completion for Challenges
Added invert output option to direction sensor (Max Limit = 1 instead of 0)
Islands now load their outline meshes from disk instead of generating them
--- Speeds up going into either campaign for the first time after startup
Level Editor: Added new tools to help place more entities faster
Changed reset layout for vehicle controls to use a better default layout (assumes you haven't change mappings)
Crystals are now semi-random on each load (3 chosen from ones placed)
Changed campaign map islands to fade in/out as you get closer (instead of always drawing)
Fixed campaign map scrolling limits to be dynamic based on islands in the campaign
Increased build menu size of parts and part names
Made shift+click work to select the same colored-parts again (on the Colors setting)
Level Editor: Fixed popup for vehicle default selection deselecting
Level Editor: Fixed cutoff sliders for grass/rock (switched to Wave Logic-style)
Fixed not being to remap a gamepad axis (stick/trigger)
Fixed resizing part reseting physics linkage
Fixed CoM debug display (F11) being broken on certain maps
Slightly reduced area damage boost to structures from 0.360 (particularly with lower mass)
Fixed shortcut to hide/toggle handle not working (Ctrl+W)
Disabled outlines on selections/etc during build mode (too slow with tons of parts)
--- May bring it back later if it can be optimized
Added debug function - Shift+F11 in build mode - disable BOTH as a dual input/output option
--- May make this permanent, feedback is appreciated

The biggest things for 0.410 are the new build tutorials and missions in the Build & Destroy campaign, and Challenge mode now being a real thing that's fairly fun (7 challenges currently). There are a lot of smaller changes within those, and a lot of voice lines added as well. I'm pretty happy with how the initial missions for the Build & Destroy campaign are shaping up, and the Challenge missions are working well. The build tutorial is hopefully good for new players, but really I need to test it a lot more. Feedback on the tutorial is appreciated. It's a different style than other tutorials, and there will be at least 5 more tutorial missions coming in the future. The additional ones will be less step-by-step and more general. The idea is to teach the basics and then slowly let the player take more and more responsibility for the vehicle design. By mission 11 in the BnD campaign, there won't be any instructions, though you'll still be unlocking parts throughout that campaign. BUILDING NOTE: I'm considering removing the "Both" mapping option for part controls. Parts can have up to 4 inputs and 4 outputs, and you can assign 2 at once (as an "axis"). But I've been finding it more annoying than helpful when working on vehicles, and I added a mode to disable Both as an option. Hit Shift+F11 while in build mode, and you'll no longer have Both as an option. Just something to try out for advanced vehicle builders. UPCOMING WORK After a small bug-fix update or two to follow 0.410, my next two priorities for big tasks: 1) Revise camera system. 2) More objectives and things to support additional objectives. The camera system work I need to look at more closely and figure out if I should rewrite the whole thing or try to wedge in transitions to animated/scripted cameras at the start/end of missions. Both approaches could work, and though I'm tired of messy code throughout the game, rewriting something that mostly works is not always wise. Having some way to override/blend into a different camera might work, and it could mostly reside outside the rest of the camera system. For the objective stuff, it's time to finally add turrets and drones/orbs that attack the player (and Kraken). I'm not sure if those will be vehicle-based, or custom objects (like the car/truck/SUV). Beyond the enemies, I need to make sure all the other mission types I want to do are possible. The missions are turning out well so far, but I also see how it could become tiresome/repetitive due to too much focus on destroying stuff. Part of that also requires more creative level design and vehicle/physics interaction. Either way, having a variety of missions is needed to keep the game fun for both campaigns. Beyond those two things, the biggest remaining task is adding all the missions to both campaigns. That's a massive task on its own, but I'll be breaking it into smaller groups along the way, and missions should get easier to work with fewer features being added. Beyond missions, there are quite a few small tasks, and I'm sure I'll find more things to fix/tweak along the way. It finally feels like I will finish the game someday, even if I'm not sure yet when that is.

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