There’s been an influx of new fans to the Youtube and Discord channels, and so I would like to extend a big hellish welcome to all of you! I’ve also (finally) created a public Steam page so that you can follow the game and be notified once the trailer and/or demo hits.
You can find the page here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2082530/Out_Of_Hell/
Please keep in mind that I will be updating the Steam page as the game nears completion and the screenshots currently posted are taken from the beta version. Those screens will be replaced over time with newer content!
I really wish I could show you a video encounter of this thing, but I already spoil so damn much and I want you to be genuinely terrified by this creature!
These images are from a “Boss” encounter where you’re stalked by something known as a “Gorehound” and after two weeks of tweaking the visuals, ambience, sound effects (that was super important) and game mechanics, I think I finally nailed it and it all turned out to be really freaky!
I wanted to go into more detail about this entire map, such as my thought process behind the visuals of the monster(s), the contrast in environments, the logic of the setup and eventual payoff of the horror elements, etc. but there’s just too much to talk about.
I’ve decided to hold off on that and save it for the Dev Journal later on, so you’ll just have to suck it up and take this image dump instead! 😉
…also happens to be the most tedious! I’ve been going through the maps and tying up all the loose ends, fixing whatever bugs I find and polishing or optimizing whatever I think needs it. It’s mostly visual stuff that I’m working on at this point, as I’ve already fleshed out all the mechanics and fixed all the uncovered bugs, thanks to the efforts of the testing team.
I ended up re-lighting certain places in some of the maps and added other little subtle effects that you might not notice right away, but I think the mind picks it up and adds to the overall picture.
As always, I’m still trucking along! 😀
The Out Of Hell mod had been absolutely plagued with a terrible framerate issue, even on modern hardware since release in 2009. It was something that I tried to look into, but lacking any real knowledge, the best I could do was try to change a few settings here and there and release a patch.
Still, the problem persisted…until now. A User named ImmersiveSinner joined the Discord channel recently (who also happened to be a member way back in the old days on the forums. Remember those? :p) and told us about a fix they discovered!
Here is what they posted:
8:53 PM]immersiveSinner: What I found … recently when I played it last (last year sometime) was that it still kinda ran like shit lol unless you did one thing then it was smoooooooth as butter.
[8:53 PM]immersiveSinner: I have a 13th Gen i7 and an RTX 4070 TI… so I was still surprised when I had such horrible frame drops…
[8:54 PM]immersiveSinner: but if you just close the console printout window… Damn it’s like a whole new game.
[8:54 PM]immersiveSinner: No idea why.
[8:54 PM]immersiveSinner: like 500 fps constant no matter what’s going on.
[8:55 PM]Chicken+Ribs Combo: Hmm, I havent heard of that! Maybe we can repost that in the bug forum. Theres some folks that tried to get to the bottom of that frame drop
[8:55 PM]immersiveSinner: Yeah so when you switch to OOH in the mod menu in UT2k4… the console windows opens up right?
[8:55 PM]immersiveSinner: just alt-tab. close it. get back to the game… no issues.
So uhhh…there you have it. A framerate bug that’s been there for 15 years was caused by an open console window. I can only speculate as to why that would cause such a framedrop or consume so much resources, but that was the problem this entire time!
Now, do understand that the mod itself still has issues with optimization, so it probably won’t run completely smooth in all scenarios, but this is definitely better than the alternative!
Thanks @ImmersiveSinner!!!
What an absolute struggle it’s been since the first official beta test! There were a lot of bugs and issues uncovered (some game-breaking) and I thought it would only take a couple of weeks (at most) to fix. Well, that turned into 2 months! Not only that, the weeks leading up to launching the revised beta were just fraught with problems.
The biggest issues had to do with the save system which I had implemented so poorly. It was doing all sorts of unintentionally weird stuff so I had to basically rebuild another save system that was more efficient and easier to decipher (I even get confused by my own code much of the time!) I mean, just have a look and try following this in order to bug test! XD
Even though it took so much time to implement the changes, I got it done and we moved into Phase 1.1, where it was the initial beta with all of the fixes and improvements applied. That’s still ongoing as it launched yesterday, but the bugs found in this version so far are fairly minor (spelling/grammar mistakes, some collision issues, small coding stuff)
I’m going to fix these ones up as quick as I can and begin tying the other maps into the game which will make up the second phase! I don’t believe it would take as much time as the first phase, since this is where most of the coding and mechanics are fixed, so those won’t be an issue going forward. Any issue will be with the maps themselves and not the actual framework of the game.
After the second phase is complete, I will release a trailer before moving into Phase 3.0, which is the last stretch of the game. If that tests well, then I’ll release a public demo while the testing team does a final run through of the game as a whole.
This entire process has been frustrating, amazing, eye-opening and educational all at the same time. In hindsight, I am so glad I did this since releasing this to the masses without proper bug-testing (like the 2005 demo and the 2009 final) would have been hilariously disasterous!
You wouldn’t believe how much has happened with this game since the last post! It’s been a whirlwind of activity behind the scenes, which is expected at this phase in development. From getting this thing onto Steam and the approval process, the testing and feedback…it’s been hectic!
I’ve gotten my impressions from the testers and overall it has been good. The major areas most important to me (atmosphere, art direction, story elements and sound design) were all big a hit. Where the alpha stumbled most was in the areas of mechanics, quality-of-life stuff and bugs, bugs, BUGS!
Since the test ended (probably a little over a week ago) I’ve been able to fix all the game-breaking issues and implemented a few of my own changes as well as some of the good suggestions from the testers.
At it’s core, it is still a difficult game and that won’t change because that is what is intended, but hopefully it will be a little more enjoyable to play.
I was going to make this post a little longer in order to detail the challenges I’m faced with trying to balance this thing (not easy since I need to go through videos, bug lists and suggestions from 11 different people) but I think it’ll be better to explain it in the eventual development journal that I’ll write later down the road.
All in all, it’s been crazy, it’s been nuts, but most importantly it’s been productive!
If programming has taught me anything, it’s that I am an utter moron! I had a feeling the fix was going to be something stupid, because that’s how it always is. I’ll have some sort of impossible bug or issue, spend days if not weeks trying to figure it out and approaching it from the most complicated angles, only to discover in the end that the answer was stupidly simple the entire time.
So let me explain what happened here:
The way I have my save/load system set up is within the level blueprint itself and each time the player gets to the checkpoint, it takes the variables such as health/inventory/ammo etc. at that time and stores it. If you die and reload, then as soon as the map is loaded in, it checks for all those stored values and applies them to the player again.
So when it didn’t work in the shipping build, it was really confusing the hell out of me! Why was this working only in the development build?
I spent so long researching it online and spent days and days trying to implement the fixes that I found, but to no avail. I even looked for solutions while at work (when no one was looking) and printed out pages of forum posts with potential fixes to bring home. Nothing worked.
I was actually making more of a mess of things trying to apply the solutions from other people’s issues. It wasn’t until I got so frustrated that I just went through my own code again and tried to narrow it down myself.
I did checks and saw that the map that the player was on was getting saved. I then did checks and saw that the health was getting saved. So logically, it had to be something with the inventory code and not the save/load system itself, since it was saving and loading those other variables fine.
It wasn’t until by chance that I took notice of one little node that said “INVENTORY”. The reason this stuck out, was because it should have said “SAVED INVENTORY”.
What the code is essentially doing here is searching through the player’s inventory, checking if there is anything in it, and then adding it to the current player’s inventory. Except when I saw that, it dawned on me that the “INVENTORY” node was just the base default inventory, and NOT THE FUCKING INVENTORY WITH THE SAVED ITEMS!!!
I extended the correct node, connected it, compiled and like magic, it worked! So this entire time, after weeks of stress and anguish and wondering if I was going to have to rebuild the whole damn system, it all came down to this one.silly.little.oversight.
I can’t even blame the engine at all because it was doing exactly what I was telling it to do! It was loading everything from an empty inventory; which is nothing! And when I told it told load from the inventory with items; it loaded the items. Go figure! XD The reason it still worked in the development build is because I think, it was either pulling the variables from memory or somewhere else that isn’t included after the game is compiled. I’m not entirely sure, but I don’t even care now. I’m just glad it works.
I am elated and exhausted. It’s finally solved. I’ll let you guys know how the testing goes. 😀
LONG NGUYEN | Digital Artist & Game Designer 