6 Dec 2014
This post has information on the coming 0.1.6 build.
We have solved the break force value issues identified in the last post but still have some stubborn tasks to finish and some testing to complete before the first Unity 5 version of Gang Beasts is released on Early Access, we expect the release to be this year but wanted to make a post to give information on the development road map for next year and information on our plans for sharing more frequent information about the development of the game following the Unity 5 release.
The work on the next release has prioritised moving Gang Beasts from the Unity 4.5 engine to Unity 5 but has also focused on removing or reducing annoyances associated with the limitations of the current control input implementation. The move to Unity 5 has meant a second significant reworking of the default character control scheme (as the PhysX 3.3 is much more exact than the system used for previous versions of the characters) but has given dramatically improved physics performance and improvements in general performance (this has temporarily slowed the development of the game but importantly gives much greater scope for interaction with physics objects).
At the same time as moving Gang Beasts from Unity 4.5 to Unity 5 we have also implemented Unity’s new Physically-based rendering (PBR) shaders and Global Illumination, we plan to share more information about these improvements in the coming weeks leading up to the release of the 0.1.6 build. We have also taken on additional freelance support to help with some development and non-development tasks (support, press, events, merchandising, legal etc.) to minimise interruptions and give the time to fully engage with Early Access.
To summarise the key technical work on the game is almost finished at which point we can start adding a glut of new content to the game, including new stages, new fighting moves, the new audio system, more character customisations, more character body types, sub-boss and boss fights, and additional game modes and environments.
There will be limited new content in the 0.1.6 release (similar to previous releases) but his will be followed by more significant content updates starting from January next year, we have setup a development log at http://beefcity.info to share frequent update information and other general development content (pre-viz images, play testing footage, technology tests etc.), the key content from theses posts will also be shared in weekly posts on Steam.