Category Archives: Game Development

Rammalamma

We’ve been working on some new special abilities for the vehicles in Auto Fire, including the ​Ram Piston​​​.  ​Different vehicle chassis types can have some crazy maneuvering abilities, although they’ll consume resources such as gas, so make sure to use them wisely!

The foundation of the special moves system was pitched in by developer comrade Jim, created during this stream where we talked through some of the system updates needed.

The followup was transferring it to on-demand equipment, which didn’t have the ability to be aimed yet. The plan is to get some more moves in like bootleggers, side swipes, and some weirder stuff. Stay tuned!

Auto Fire v0.6.02: Crits and Repairs

I am rolling off of a bunch of updates by the first coder to touch Auto Fire outside of me… My friend Jim streamed his work this past Saturday and Sunday and helped get some cool functionality in that I hadn’t done before.

Along the way he also added some Quality of Life improvements to some of the code, for his convenience but of course it will be helping me even more. Friends are nice to have!

In particular, I’m looking to snarf some of that ram functionality to wrap it up into a couple vehicle gadgets: A Ram Piston and… a Bootlegger somethingorother. Plus it lays the foundation for me to knock enemies around as the result of player action… something that ramming desperately needs.

For the time being, the new build has some fancy new features:

Critical hits

Weaponry now has a critical hit functionality when fired…  By default a weapon has a 5% of delivering a critical hit, with a crit dealing 2.5x damage.  You can improve that crit chance by 25% by painting your targets with radar (the 1 key) before attacking.  Sustained fire does still improve your chance of hitting (as does radar painting) but only radar enhances crits.

Critical hits are a core method with which I want to handle skill improvements, electronic warfare, and general hit bonuses. Improvements to hit chances are also in there somewhere, but I don’t want to have a lot of shots missing in the game… that can be frustrating. Hopefully this will be a whole new angle by which players can decide what to do next.

Revised repair functionality

While gas and ordnance still cost cash to purchase, repairs to your car now need precious parts to fix up.  You can refill your resources and make repairs in 10-unit portions now, rather than in an all-or-nothing fix.

Resources will become all-important as time goes on, an cash will mainly be focused on acquiring new gear, doing deals, making bribes, and so on.

Improved smoke screens

Smoke screens are a staple of car combat, but to date it hasn’t really been effective at getting anyone off your tail. I already had wide smoke screens but decided that it should be the norm… you should feel good about spending your action using one if you are in trouble. These wide smoke screens will nearly fill a roadway, to help you make an emergency escape… It really can deliver the goods.

…and other stuff

  • Gas now informs you if you are full and can’t pick up any more.
  • Some improvements to UI and feedback
  • Menu/UI Usability improvements.
  • Links to the help page and Discord from within the game.
  • A few additional bugs fixed.

Auto Fire v0.6.01: Objective Pointers!

As the Space Marine once said:

Hell, it’s about time.

A small update coming down the pike today, but one big one comes along for the ride.  Objective pointers!  When a boss appears, the game will help guide you to the opponent, and once the boss is destroyed, you will be pointed to the exit.  It’s a frequently-requested feature, and it will only get more robust as time goes on.

Change list

  • Objective pointer appears when boss appears and then the exit gets a pointer when the boss is dead.
  • Game doesn’t slow down quite as long when an enemy dies, and it doesn’t slow down at all if the victim is offscreen.
  • Rebuild some shader files to reduce hitches.
  • Visual quality defaults to Very High rather than Very Low(!).  (Auto Fire is 3D but it’s not that taxing on your machine…)

Bug fixes

  • Fixed the spacing for the inventory/buy/sell screens a little, and a few other quirks.
  • The loadout and settings screens had some fixes to make them more usable with a keyboard.
  • Fixed some things interfering with the cargo screen when used with a mouse.
  • Fixed some bugs when using the repair screen.
  • Removed a rare combat result in the loot crate encounter for the time being.  (Caused you to get stuck in the encounter popup)

As usual, it’s freeeeeeee on Itch.io.

Auto Fire v0.6.00: A Smooth Startup

It’s arrived… a big update, worthy of a full point!  Auto Fire has had a lot of work put into it over the last month, not the least of it being the revised onboarding (that’s fancy-pants dev talk for what a new player experiences).  A lot of players’ first experience with Auto Fire was tough, because there were some really dangerous enemies out there in the badlands, and you were just as likely to meet them while you were still trying out your training wheels as any other time.

In the spirit of making the game more playable and easier to understand, there’s now an intro that eases you into things a bit… and sets up the conflict against your (generated) rival down the road!  Clear out those bandits and get back to civilization!

The game also tailors that early experience when you’re stuck with a couple of junkthrowers and not a lot else, so that you are less likely to encounter enemies that want to come punch you in the fun bits right away. This way you can pick up some loot, head to the garage, and upgrade away!

In addition, the player can now customize their character more fully upon startup.  You can choose your portrait, and the dialogue (even the procedurally-generated stuff) will adjust for male, female, etc.

There are a ton of changes that came in, but a lot of it is nerdy stuff that only I care about… Oh, hey, here’s some cool stuff you might actually notice!

Campaign

  • There’s a new encounter system that extends the random encounters in the game previously.  You now can see your opponent, they can call you by name, and choose a course of action.
  • The game starts with some intro encounters that help give you a sense of what you’re doing there and what to do next.
  • Character customization has been extended to support player portraits as well as choosing gender.
  • Both enemies, players and any NPC can now be male or female.  Dialogue is set to use the correct language to address them as it comes up.
  • You now have a (soon to be) publicity agent and a rival that are generated on campaign start.  These are referenced and used throughout the game.
    • Agents are now handled outside of factions.  Thus agents (any NPC) can join you, an opposing faction, or be an independent operator like the player.
  • A story manager presents basic encounters that drive the initial experience forward.  This will hook in as more cause-effect things happen with the player.
  • Naming has been adjusted to better fit categories of civilians, punks, drivers and corporate suits.
    • Female names have also been added since we can generate those NPC’s now.

Gameplay

  • Chests now break open when moved onto in the overworld.
  • Weapons now start with a higher amount of damage (junkthrower starting around 10) but don’t increase as drastically (the maximum is about 250% of the minimum, rather than the former 1000%)
  • Weapons have less of a randomized spread in their damages (used to be 70-130%, now is 80-120%)
  • Armor for the player’s vehicles have correspondingly been increased, from 100 per side to 150.
  • Armor repair kits now repair 15 per side rather than 10.
  • When the player is ambushed into a battleground, they start in the middle of the map rather than near the entrance.

UI

  • There’s a new intro cutscene that sets the situation when the campaign is started.
    • Because I know dying would be a chore if it couldn’t be, these can be skipped.
  • Encounter text also has a teletype-style reveal, which again can be skipped if the player is impatient.
  • Portraits can show or not show in encounters, and can even show as a transmission.
  • The loading screen shows hints and has a spinner so you know if the game is live.
  • The cursor keys have been remapped to work properly within menus.  Key navigation of menus still needs improvement, but it should be better than it was.
  • Fame/Prestige is displayed properly on character and city menus.
  • Adjusted a bunch of buttons to be more visually interesting.

Visuals

  • Cars now don’t kick up much dust when travelling on roads.
  • The gas can in the world is now red, matching the icon(!)
  • There is a quick stint of slow-motion when cars are destroyed, and the same effect is back when the player died.

Audio

  • Revised some of the stingers when entering maps.
  • The turn-end sound was revised to be less in-yo-face.
  • Button presses have more audio feedback in more cases.

This coming month will be all about adding variety and continuing to improve the interface.  If I demonstrate the game at a show, what will draw players in? What will it take for them to understand what’s going on? What last flourishes or abilities would really sell the whole package?

BIG WEEK! Big Week!

This has been an exciting week for me… As Hidden Path puts the final digital shrinkwrap on my most recent VR title Raccoon Lagoon, I’m bidding the classic nine-to-five a temporary adieu. As of yesterday, I’ve started focusing my full attention on Auto Fire! It is my hope to get it into solid, pro-tier shape over the summer, and see what happens!

In celebration of this moment, I’ve put together an early trailer, complete with some pro-tier voice acting:

Auto Fire needs a lot of work yet. I need to make the interface more approachable, flesh out the content, and improve the basic art so that the game starts turning heads. I need to deliver on the fantasy of driving a combat car… that’s skidding, shooting, hauling convoys, maybe even launching from jumps? The possibilities are endless!

Adding gamepad support should help people get comfortable with it quickly, and improving the mouse interface will hopefully do the same. Anything that helps people ramp up and be gripped by the promise of a muscle car bristling with chromed-out weapons.

As an inaugural step for my all-in on Auto Fire, I’ve been deeply examining my turn model… something I haven’t touched in like two years. The way it used to work is that each team would execute their moves when the timeline reached it, so that if you were moving at 60 mph (3 moves per turn), and the enemy was moving at 40 mph (2 moves per turn), the simulation would resolve with:

  • You move (progressing to 0.333 seconds)
  • They move (progressing to 0.5 seconds)
  • You move (progressing to 0.666 seconds)
  • They move (progressing to 1.0 seconds)
  • You move (progressing to 1.0 seconds)

Guh. This might sound sensible if you are a realism fan, but when many entities are moving at different speeds, the turns all interleaved and the player never knew who was going to move when. It was confusing and could get frustrating as an enemy vehicle suddenly drove right into your path or out of your line of fire.

The new model is pretty simple: Each turn you execute your moves, then the rest of the world executes their moves. So in the above example, you’d get your 3 moves, then they would get their two. It’s basically X-com style, but you know what?

It ended up playing exactly the same.

Yeah, you can’t really tell there’s any difference at all, it flows great. And while I was worried that you’d be irritated by that long pause for your opponents to do their thing during your fancy driving , it actually feels a lot better than when your opponents interrupted you at odd, unpredictable times during your turn.

This is an important breakthrough because if I can make the player keenly aware of what a “turn” is, I can help them understand what acceleration does (more moves per turn) and how weapon cooldown works (most weapons can only be fired once per turn). I might not need a hojillion progress bars (a weapon is either available or not). Since the core goal is to make the game more accessible and less math-y, I’m optimistic that this is a good step that doesn’t sacrifice the core gameplay.

Finally, along with this exploration I started experimenting with better shaders using Amplify for Unity. It’s another useful step, because there will be a lot I want to convey in-world and good shader control will help me make better 3D and mouse-driven interfaces. Things are looking up!