26th june 2015
The 0.2.5 build released with this post has working versions of the "buoy", "trucks", and "wheel" stages (three of the four stages that were omitted from past “unstable” builds due to significant issues relating to the stability of their custom physics parameters when ported to Unity 5 and PhysX 3.3 ) and the three prototype stages, "chutes", "elevators", and "towers" that were demonstrated at E3.
The 0.2.5 “unstable” build also has experimental implementations of two new character attack moves, head-butts and dropkicks, head butts are triggered by pressing the jump button immediately before holding the duck button, dropkicks are triggered by pressing the jump button immediately before holding the kick button (the specific forces and other parameters for the moves are currently provisional and granular modifications will need to made is subsequent builds).
The 0.2.5 build also has significantly modified music and sound content (implemented in a series of sessions with Adam “Doseone” Drucker and Robert "Dirty Bob" Larder in the week leading up to E3), the new audio with multiple new or revised music tracks for most stages, 4 additional character voice sets, and numerous additional contextual audio events (that trigger sound effects when specific situations occur).
The playable stages in the “unstable” build are still experimental but are now sufficiently performant for testing and for us to collate suggestions and feedback on gameplay and performance issues through the Early Access forums (there will be additional optimisations and modifications made in subsequent builds). To start the feedback process we plan to make a series of monitored forum posts (in the next few hours and over the coming weekend) with information on planned revisions, current issues, potential optimisations, and other identified modifications we expect to make to specific stages, game modes, and gameplay mechanics.
Specific Information re: head-butts and dropkicks will be posted as individual threads in the Early Access forums in the next few hours.
Information on the new "chutes", "elevators", and "towers" stages and the completed and planned work done on modifying (or remaking) the "buoy", "incinerator", "subway", "trucks", "vents", and "wheel" stages will be posted as a series of individual threads in the Early Access forums this weekend (and in the coming weeks).
List of additions, modifications, and fixes made in the 0.2.5 “unstable" build
- added basic AI behaviour to truck movement (preparation for more complex vehicle movement)
- added fade-to-black and fade-from-black transition sequences
- added modified version of the “buoy” stage
- added modified version of the “trucks” stage
- added modified version of the “wheel” stage
- added object collision sounds (floor boards, falling meat etc.)
- added new ambient tracks to numerous stages
- added new contextual voice over events and associated audio samples
- added new music tracks to multiple stages
- added prototype “chute" stage
- added prototype “elevators” stage
- added prototype “towers” stage
- fixed an issue that made end of game messaging show per round (on screen text does not erroneously name the last player in the stored player index as the game winner when a round is ended)
- fixed an issue that stopped the audible level of collision sounds (and other physical sound effects) from being set with volume adjustments
- fixed missing navmesh for “subway” stage
- fixed the Status Bar toggle functionality (setting the 'Status Bar’ to ‘off’ disables the in game status bars as expected)
- made forward dives trigger damage to other characters when colliding with head / face (head-butts)
- made reverse dives trigger damage to other characters when colliding with hips / legs (dropkicks)
- made targeting prioritise objects that can hurt the character when punching or grabbing (to increase the potential for countering dropkicks and head-butts)
- modified character eyes to slowly close as their health decreases
- modified colliders to not calculate at runtime (baked colliders) to optimise scene load times
- modified the character targeting system to ignore low targets
- modified the frequency of pseudorandom sound trigger events to be more frequent
- modified the level of different categories of audio to be more audible at distance (to make punch and other collision sounds more audible by default)
- modified the maximum volume for ambiance to a lower value
- modified the road friction to more closely approximate real vehicle and road physics (collisions with the road surface don’t automatically concuss characters)
- modified the size of the “buoy" to make it more dominant (preparation for potential seasonal non-ice “buoy” stage variant and experimental procedural ice fracture tests)
- modified truck physics to explicitly contact the road surface (preparation for experimenting with undulating road surfaces) modified “ring” stage (preparation for arena context and arena specific assets)
- removed constraints holding the trucks to the road surface
- removed lightmap from "subway” stage to temporarily improve aesthetics (until the stage modifications are finished)
- removed lightmap from “incinerator” stage to temporarily improve aesthetics
Information on switching to / from "stable" and "unstable" branches To download 'unstable' alpha build of Gang Beasts right-click on the game name on the Steam library page and select 'Properties' from the dialogue window that opens, from this window select the 'BETAS' tab then the 'unstable' option from the dropdown menu (the menu labelled 'Select the beta you would like to opt into:' (to revert back to the last 'stable' branch select 'NONE- Opt out of all beta programs' from the same menu).
For reference switching between 'unstable' and 'stable' branches of the game can force the selected build to download to the Steam client.
Gang Beasts is an Early Access game that is currently in uninterrupted development, the 0.1.x and 0.2.x builds have bugs, partially implemented gameplay content and mechanics (please see the Steam Early Access FAQ at http://store.steampowered.com/earlyaccessfaq for more information).