I Swear I’m Working! ;)

Hello folks! Just want to drop another update on how the polishing phase is going!

Even about a year ago, I didn’t think the polishing phase would have taken this long (or this much work) because from an art standpoint, I already knew what had to be done to optimize things, what to spruce up and exactly how to do it. To a lesser extent I knew what was left in terms of the programming side (I did have a TODO list afterall), but what I didn’t count on was how much I actually missed in terms of features that people wanted to see.

I start to think about it and realize that much of it is basic stuff too; things I had in the mod but for one reason or another didn’t include in this version! I’ll break down.

1: Different stages of damage for monsters

In the 2009 mod version when you shot a zombie, the clothing and face would get bloody. I’ve included it again and if you shoot a zombie in the face, the material changes to a bloody (or at least, bloodier) version and repeated hits will damaged the head model itself (parts of its skull will fly off)

2: Brains and maggots

In the mod version, a headshot resulted in a geyser of blood and brains and writhing maggots! I didn’t add it on purpose in this version because I thought people wanted the gore tamped down and I didn’t include the maggots because I never heard any remarks about it before, so I thought people just didn’t notice it. However, it turns out people did notice it and wondered where it was and they also wanted the bloody headshots back! So now, each headshot will yield at least a 5 pound bag of brain matter, skull fragments and writhing maggots!

3: Unequip animations

I didn’t include these initially because I thought it got in the way of the pace of the game (I wanted to opt for a more quick switch method for the weapons) but then I realized that the pace of this game is deliberately slow…so why on earth would I rush the weapon switching animations? *forehead smack* So I decided to put them back in.

4: Sprinting animations

I left this out because I’m just a lazy bum. I’ve added motion to the weapons for sprinting now.

5: Reloading mechanics

This was one where if it weren’t for some members of the Discord channel pointing it out to me, I never would have known! My experience with real-life firearms is very limited. I’ve held a hunting rifle, an over-under shotgun and a handgun in my chubby little hands before. The only thing I know about firearms now is that they are waaaaayyy heavier than they are made out to be in the movies! XD

So imagine my surprise when I find out that some of my gun animations were inaccurate! (this is what I get for watching other videogame reload animations for reference hehe!) I was able to correct them, but as a result had to program some more things to accomodate the new functionalities. You can see it in the video at the end of the post.

6: Ironsights/Aiming down the sights (ADS)

I will say this right off the bat; I absolute DESPISE ADS in first-person games! I found that it always got in the way and resulted in me getting my ass kicked in multiplayer games so I never intended to include it in Out Of Hell.

But lately as I was going through my old code, I came across it tucked away in my base weapon class. I had added it as part of a tutorial video I watched years ago, but never “connected it” in Blueprints, so it was just kept as reference and nothing more. I decided to hook it in and try it, just so I could prove to myself again that ADS is a stupid, terrible thing to have in games.

To my surprise, I found that it made the game so much more intense! The first boss fight is just a basic encounter and easily breezed through, but as soon as I had to rely on ADS, this simple encounter turned out to be really freaky! Anything that adds to the unnerving atmosphere of the game is good in my books!

As shown in the video, you can fire without ADS but it will be much more innaccurate than if you do. This makes the game more challenging in a fair way, as opposed to framerates of about 9 per second making the game artificially harder!! **wink wink**

7: Walking attacks for zombies

This one took a lot of effort and messing around but I got it to work! This was on my TODO list for years, but I never succeeded until now. For the longest time, whenever a monster attacked, it would have to stand still and then perform its melee attack. This is easily exploitable as you could simply step in, smack it, step back, step in, smack it and rinse and repeat. It was also exploitable when monsters chased you but had to stop in order to attack, and all the while you could literally keep walking backwards and they would never be able to catch or hurt you (unless you backed yourself into a corner)

Now, most zombie types will be able to attack as they are moving and this makes for some incredibly dangerous encounters! It is programmed to be a random occurence to give the player some breathing room, otherwise you’d be dead in less than 30 seconds against a fast-moving zombie.

There are a few other things I’ve fixed and added, but those will still be kept under wraps as not to spoil too much.

I want to thank everyone for their suggestions and feedback over this past while! Keep the feedback coming and if it’s useful, I’ll see what I can do! Of course, it takes more time to implement these things, but in the end it only improves the game and makes it a more polished experience.