Do the shoulder buttons work? They should work as an alternative to the triggers. If they work, this is purely an input problem. If not, the problem is somewhere else.
A new alpha update 0.0.10 is now available with all the new weapon modifiers and devices that I have showed here and many more improvements!
Here’s a new gameplay video:
Full list of changes since alpha 0.0.9:
- Made some projectile damage and sniper modifiers increase shoot sound pitch.
- Fixed random shadow flickering while player moves around.
- Show “continue game” menu after successful mission completion.
- Added drop markers on ground to indicate incoming drop pods.
- Increased initial fire rate for the rifle.
- Show warning message when damaging containers.
- Added device/controller specific button icons.
- Trigger Steam gamepad text entry for menu text items on Steam Deck.
- Use Steam persona name as default high score name when available.
- Made large walker enemies keep more distance to each other.
- Fixed some particles not properly facing camera.
- Added explosive projectiles modifier for the rifle.
- Added reflective projectiles modifier.
- Made time-limited projectiles break into dim fragments on expiration.
- Added secondary effects to some of the less useful modifiers.
- Added a missile launcher sentry gun variant.
- Added explosion stun modifier for the launcher.
- Prevent diggers from burrowing while stunned.
- Lowered ballistic fire rates for the eight-legged walkers.
Downloads are available on Itch.io as usual: Phobos Down by FRACTiLE Games
I will soon have to decide what to do about early access on Steam but until then you can wishlist the game: Phobos Down on Steam
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Since the last alpha update, I have mostly been working on improving the flora. The explosive plants have been made a lot more useful. Their explosion range has been increased and, most importantly, they no longer damage the player at all:
To add more variation to the mission sites, I have added a new plant type called “tentacle”. These are not explosive but can be destroyed and will grow back just like the explosive plants:
I have refactored the obstacle (decorative elements, like these plants) placement logic to be more dynamic and to allow me to add new types without having to change the code every time.
If the game is started without connection to Internet (or if the server is down), following warning is now shown instead of just empty high score tables and silently lost high scores:
After long consideration, I also added one all-time high score table for the totally random games. Because the maximum possible score depends so strongly on the randomization, I was (and still am a bit) worried that that this might feel unfair. Then again, the weekly challenges are there for the fair score competition. I would like to hear your thoughts on this.
There is a lot more work to be done before the next alpha version update with these changes. Next I intend to test some more decorative plants to add even more visual variation.
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Perhaps you could allow a seed input, so people could play the same “random” game? You could even give people an option to directly start a game with the given seed from the high score table?
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The game initially had a custom seed entry option but I removed it to make random game runs feel more “unique” by not being able to replay the exact same game once you died.
That also solved the problem of insane number per-seed high score tables with just one score in each of them. I like the idea of being able to “replay” a game from high score tables but I would somehow have to limit the number of different seeds available.
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Most of the work since the last update here has gone into procedurally placed plant clusters:
This took way too much time but I like the end result. Each plant in a cluster reacts to player or enemy bodies, wind and blast waves from explosions. This makes them look dynamic and alive. There are currently three different variants of clustered plants.
I also tweaked the site generation code a bit to pick the used obstacles and decorations more intelligently. It is now guaranteed to pick at least one light emitting obstacle type every time to prevent dull looking sites with no dynamic lights at all.
The original plan was to have the next alpha update also on Steam early access by the end of this year but it’s clear at this point that I can’t make it. I have pushed the release year on Steam to 2025. The next alpha update will still likely come this year but it won’t be initially available on Steam. If things look good with that update, I will send it to review on Steam and it will be published on early access later.
Now is a good time to go wishlist Phobos Down on Steam: Phobos Down on Steam
A new alpha update 0.0.11 is out with added visual variation between mission sites and many other improvements including those that I have showed here before.
Here’s an updated gameplay video:
And a random screenshot taken in the pause/photo mode:
Full change log:
- Added a bit more details to walker leg models.
- Enabled debanding post processing filter.
- Show a warning pop-up when the game can’t fetch challenges from the server.
- Fixed showing high scores for challenges incompatible with current game version.
- Added all-time high score challenge game type.
- Improved site obstacle placement logic.
- Added tentacle plant variant.
- Increased explosive plant damage range.
- Prevented explosive plants from damaging the player.
- Fixed connected gamepad causing jerky movement in keyboard controls.
- Improved right stick deadzone handling for smoother aiming.
- Added three types of clustered plants as terrain decorations.
- Made sure that every mission site has some obstacles with dynamic lights.
- Made total number enemy waves independent of the mission count.
- Shortened average game run a little.
- Fixed hidden mouse cursor in high score name entry.
- Made fast crawling enemies only a little bit faster than the player.
- Allow menu navigation using gamepad left trigger too.
- Only deliver GodotSteam libraries with the Steam version of the game.
- Show blinking health bar already at 50% health.
Downloads have been updated on Itch.io: Phobos Down by FRACTiLE Games
And you can wishlist the game on Steam: Phobos Down on Steam (planned Early Access early next year)
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I took my Phobos Down bar-top arcade cabinet to a local IGDA gathering earlier this week. It was really nice to see people play and enjoy the game and I got some good feedback too. This is how it looks:
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That looks really fun, I like your concept. Good luck with it.
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Phobos Down alpha update 0.0.12 brings improved UX for new players, performance issue fixes, and a lot more.
See release announcement for more details: FRACTiLE Games - Phobos Down 0.0.12 alpha released
Full change log:
- Fixed missiles sometimes bouncing off targets without exploding.
- Flash plant light intensity too on damage.
- Adjust plant light position according to deflection.
- Made orbital strike missiles explode slightly above ground.
- Doubled orbital strike missile damage.
- Added varying level of predictive aiming to some enemies.
- Spawn new medical devices in direction of player’s movement.
- Show indicators for burrowed off-screen enemies too.
- Made off-screen container damage indicators more visible.
- Delay extract zone appearing after dropping wave rewards.
- Don’t drop wave rewards after the last wave of last mission.
- Fixed auto-aim picking targets from behind player too.
- Reimplemented the custom particle system as C++ module.
- Fixed some particles not properly facing camera in photo mode.
- Show a text hint about the modifier slots if player tries to destroy the first modifier.
- Made a more natural looking idle standing pose for player’s legs.
- Added more confidential documents to destroy.
- Limit some of the confidential documents based on number of successful game runs.
- Updated game completion and failure messages.
- Added a stun device that lures lifeforms.
- Added a tick sound and blinking emissive details to devices during timer countdown.
Downloads on Itch.io: Phobos Down by FRACTiLE Games
Wishlist on Steam: Phobos Down on Steam
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Phobos Down is now available on Steam Early Access: Phobos Down on Steam
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Alpha update 0.0.13 is out now: FRACTiLE Games - Phobos Down 0.0.13 alpha released
This is a bit smaller update than usual but it has some nice additions like this “gliding projectiles” weapon modifier:
Full change log behind that link.
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It has been silent here but Phobos Down project is still very much alive.
I have done a major input system and weapon UI refactoring. This should not cause many visible changes but makes further development easier and enables touch input for a mobile version.
Mouse aiming has changed a bit. Now the mouse cursor is always captured in-game, so you don’t accidentally click outside of the window. The “constrained mouse aim” toggle has been replaced with three-level “mouse aim range” setting that controls how far the mouse cursor is allowed to move from the player. The end results is the same but a bit more customizable.
Although the weapon wheel UI looks the same, it is now scalable and supports more traditional point-and-click style interaction with mouse (or touch):
It was pointed out that the player needs to be aware of the containers outside of the camera’s view. To help with that, I added constant screen edge indicators that show the positions of all containers beyond screen edges (the grey bars in the gif above).
I started testing a new weapon modifier that goes by the name of “ballistic modifier” for now. In practice it turns the rocket launcher into a grenade launcher. This is going to need a lot of work before it is usable but I see great potential in it:
The auto-aiming works so that it uses the lower and more direct arc if target is close and the line of fire is not blocked. Otherwise the higher arc is used. This allows shooting in high arcs over obstacles while still shooting nearby enemies directly in the face. Currently the aiming does not account for targets velocity so hitting moving enemies is very hard. That is something I’m going to work on next.
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