Here we are with one final devlog, at the end of the polishing phase sprint! It's been a crazy journey to get here but we're proud of the result of our work. If you're interested in trying the game, a build has been attached to this post and is available on the main page!

Introduction

Additional playtesting showed us the gameplay balance was more or less where we wanted it, so we have focused on visuals, player feedback, fixing some last mistakes and the like, so as to make everything ready for this final week. Have a look:

Art & Design

This week was more focused on level decoration than previously as we were alreadt happy with the gameplay. Along that, some nice effects have been added/improved here and there. More down below...

Level

Several areas have received quite an upgrade!

We also enabled some additional post processing effects to push our lights further:

Props

New decoration props have been added around the map, for example:

Particles

Some existing particles have been revised, with the addition of, for example, dynamic lights:

Barrels

Muzzle flash

Power source "breathing"

Other

On top of our loading screen, we have added a fade to levels:

Programming

This week was mainly focused on fixing some last issues, more adjustments, player feedback and some visual improvements since the more "quality of life" changes have already been covered. Have a look down below...

Destruction

We still wanted to reinforce the destructive force of the power source in some way and found a perfect candidate in destructible meshes, as we were also able to automatically generate debris using the props we already had at our disposal.

Here are some examples:

The next step was simply then to integrate these destructible meshes into the main map by replacing "normal" static meshes with their destructible counterpart.

The major advantage is that everything integrates nicely with the AI navigation systems and debris don't obstruct movement.

Before any intervention from players:

After crashing the power source into a few jersey walls...

As you can see, the navigation mesh (in green) doesn't care about debris, just like it should.

Power Source

Some additional improvements again!

• Power source auto-aim prioritises guards over everything else, when in range. This change was made to help players avoid unnecessary headaches in a typical situation like the one above, where the auto-aim would have targeted one of the barrels, and manual aim might have been blocked by the barrels.

• Chromatic aberration on crash

• We noticed new players sometimes had a hard time understanding what needed to be done once the power source is charging, even if explained, which is why we tried to make it extremely obvious with this prompt (it is a bit smaller in-game)

• The power source is now visible through obstacles, just like guards and aliens are.

• Highlight effect on power source (non-super) appears immediately instead of being weighted by spin power
• Collision mesh has been re-adjusted for more accurate behaviour

Other

• Optimisation changes
• Timer does not tick during escape phase anymore (reverted from a previous change)
• Added proper footstep sounds for guards
• Adjusted volume of a bunch of effects

• Fixed missing socket on alien players (at some point, cables had reverted to being connected to the feet of players, this is now fixed)

Conclusion

So that's it concerning our devlogs for HIVEMIND! The final build is available right here so we hope you'd enjoy it. As a recap, here is the control scheme used:

Have fun!