Alpha Update #003

Welcome to another alpha update! We've had an update ready to release for while, but have been holding it off for the time being. Without any more of a delay, we'll share what has changed so far.

As you can see in the photo above, we overhauled the forest. We didn't change the flow of the land nor the mountains, but we redid the ground texture, added more variations in the trees, added grass, flowers and rocks, and redid the path you will travel on from scratch. From the photo above, you aren't able to see the foliage besides the trees for optimization. We have set the render distance to an acceptable distance, while allowing our computers to run it over 110FPS. We will submit a ground level photo in the next alpha update once we have the forest better optimized and make sure it's up to our personal standards.

On the topic of optimization, Every map and menu currently available hits over 110FPS; mainly in the 200FPS range. This was tested with Firefox, Chrome, a recording app, and discord all open, while sharing our screens. We have a GTX 1070 and GTX 1080, so we know that tier 3 graphics cards and up will run smoothly, but we are unsure of tier 4 currently. We will test using our server PC once we are ready for a beta release. Stay tuned for our recommended computer specs!

We set a goal to update the sewer map interaction system with major objects, like doors and the tunnel. We still get asked about the tunnel to this day, and we've said before that it was not meant to be walked through. We did that purposefully because we wanted to see how the community would react to our custom map and assets we've purchased. The sewer map was our first proper map in Unreal Engine, so we were pleasantly surprised when no one had any gripes with it besides a glitch or not being able to go through the tunnel. We've gotten the map updated to the point where you can go to the very end and exit the sewer. We have minor changes to do like add varying footsteps, update the current fog, and add random tools and items to pickup and/or inspect.

The main menu has had a total rework. We have little touches to add still, but we added a background to the main menu, and redid the entire UI from the bottom up. We felt that the old system was too buggy, especially with the leave function, and didn't feel like the game we wanted. This new menu looks amazing, and runs great. You'll get to see the menu at the beta release!

Finally, I would like to talk about the beta. We will talk more about it in May, but the beta is in the works. The beta will essentially be the demo after release, and it's just a portion of the game. We will talk about a release date, how to get it, and more in the first week of May, so stay tuned.

Thank you guys for reading this update! We understand that this is a pretty bulky update, but we wanted to be clear with what's going on. Online school has just started for me, and Drew is basically finished with school. Luckily this won't mess with our work, since I only have 4 classes, and half of them are pretty light. We'll see you guys in the next update!

-Aaron