CyberThreat - 2022 Development Update & Recap Video

Kept you waiting, huh?

Welcome one and all to another CyberThreat development update post! A lot has changed since you last saw CyberThreat, so let's jump straight into some of this update’s highlights!

New Characters & Updated Scenarios

CyberThreat’s dialogue system and tools have been vastly improved and expanded upon, with further room to grow still. New improvements and additions include:

• Tutorial System

• Text Messages

• Procedural & Randomized Dialogue

• Spline Movement

• Dialogue Log

While these additions may not seem groundbreaking, they have massive potential for how they can be utilized, which would really enhance the experience. For example, if you’re friends with a character, you’ll start to receive messages from them asking to hang out, depending on the stage of your relationship. Or if you’re talking to another character in the overworld, their dialogue may differ each time you speak with them during the same day cycle.

Another improvement to the scenarios and overworld is the inclusion of a new Silhouette spawning system. Also utilizing Spline Movement, backgrounds are more alive feeling than ever as NPCs are able to do more than just walk in a straight line, and if they wander too close to the action or player, they start to fade out so not to interfere with the scene as it plays out. Coupled with randomized colors and animations/props, this new approach helps sell the living world that bit more.

CyberThreat features 25+ major characters for you to meet, date and hang out with over the course of the game, but there are also a lot of minor characters that have been added that still play a big part in filling out the world. Characters such as new teachers, students, civilians, and more! Some of the new characters include:

• Detective Valeria Rodriguez: One of the best detectives in the Edendale police department. She can be seen heading up cases separate to the serial disappearance case. She can seem tough as nails, but has a soft spot beneath her rough exterior. She has a tattoo of a bouquet of roses on her forearm, in honor of her wife who loves them.

• Shady Guy (aka: Jack M.): A dealer of imported foodstuffs, including some that aren't exactly legal... However, they do pack quite a punch when it comes to stat boosts in Cyberspace! He can't stay in one place for too long, so he only shows up in Edendale every other week to offer his wares.

• Mr. Cal: A touring street magician who travels coast to coast performing in various spots. He shows up in Edendale once a week for the player to meet with and offer them a chance to test their luck (and perhaps even increase it!).

• Darius Keon: Edendale High’s young gym teacher and “track ‘n’ field” coach! He harbors a fierce passion for athletics and fitness, and hopes to inspire that same love in his students. The player can choose to train with him after school to fortify their “AGI” (Agility) stat.

And that’s not even including Kidlat, Jesse, Isaac, Hillary, Iris, Arturo, Nat, Enrique, Adia, Eagle Canyon, and of course the teaser at the end… Soren. There really is a character for everyone! Each has their own story and personality, I’m excited to share more about them in future.

Updated UI & Presentation

Another update, another UI iteration! The UI has been updated to give a more clean, computer-like feel.

The game’s main color palette has been settled on too, being a mix of deep blues and white. This definitely helps sell the modern-day vibe, and gives the game a unique look and feel to match its themes.

There will no doubt be further tweaks and iterations on the UI of course, but it’s certainly reaching a more polished state with each new version. I’m hoping to add more animated elements and transitions in future, so keep an eye out for that!

A related improvement in the field of accessibility options, is the ability to toggle on response hints for dialogue choices. This will be iterated on to make it even easier for people to make the choices they want, especially if they have a hard time making decisions in RPGs like this. Keep an eye out as I'll be sharing more as the feature is refined!

New Weapons, Costumes & Enemies

If there’s one thing that I can CyberThreat can go toe to toe with Fortnite over, it's costume count! There will be plenty of unlockable cosmetics included in the base game! There are plenty of new costumes and weapons this update, with the key highlights being:

• Kaori’s Gauntlets:

• • CyberThreat’s resident bruiser finally has visible weapons! These come in the form of gauntlets on each wrist, adding to the strength of her punches.

• Weapons for all:

• • Every character has more weapons available to them, including Thornblade, Frostbite, Runic Sword, Blunderbuss, and more!

• Costumes for all:

• • Every character has unique costumes, such as Zia’s Ninja costume. There are also some costume sets that will allow for some slick coordination! Who said Virus slaying couldn’t be done in style?

This update comes with a big boost to the roster of enemies in the game! Some of the new Virus variants include:

• Satana

• Natas

• Crouching Yeti

• File Spider

• BAT

• Anubis

• Cerberus

• Burger

• & More!

While some of the Viruses shown off are still a work in progress, they’re a great base to iterate on and make them even more eye-catching in future. For an RPG like this, variety is crucial, and there are many more virus designs still in the pipeline! There will also be a focus on making sure they all feel balanced when the time comes, and that their behavior is varied enough that they feel different from each other in each fight.

Another feature implemented, but not shown in the update video, is the inclusion of “Corrupted Viruses”, powerful and unpredictable viruses which prove a challenging, but rewarding experience. More on those later!

New Activities

Expanding on the Fishing minigame shown previously, CyberThreat now has even more side activities for you to engage in! These include:

• Cooking

• • A simple minigame where you have to get the cursor close to the center repeatedly within the time limit. Depending on your score, you can get 3 different quality versions of the same dish (Poor | Normal | Excellent) !

• Gardening

• • A passive minigame where the player can grow fruits and vegetables over a number of ingame days. Seeds can be bought from different vendors in the game.

• Find the Ball

• • This one spawned out of testing new extensions to the games dialogue system, namely the Randomized Dialogue and the Spline Movement. It’s a classic game of selecting the cup you think has the ball in it, where you can win in-game currency and increase your “LUC” (Luck) stat!

There are planned improvements to these minigames which will boost the level of engagement value in time, such as being able to unlock new recipes when the player buys a better oven, or being able to water their plants to increase their expected yield.

Other activities in the game will include:

• Hanging out with Contacts

• • Going to the Arcade/Coffee/Cinema/etc. to increase your contact level.

• Extra curricular lessons and activities

• • Music lessons/Jogging practice/Science experiments/etc. to increase certain stats.

• Going on Dates

• • Spending time with a romantic partner boosts morale and leads to quicker stat increases for a period of time.

New Domains & Mechanics

The first new major change to the domains (dungeons) in CyberThreat is the addition of “Spybots”. These viruses roam around in Cyberspace and alert other viruses to the presence of intruders. These viruses then flock to the source of the alarm and a battle ensues. When you’re spotted, the Virus’s awareness of you goes up. If you are spotted 5 times in one domain visit, you will be forcefully ejected from the domain entirely, and time will progress. You won’t be able to return to the domain until the following day, so make sure not to be spotted!

Other improvements/additions include:

• Corrupted Viruses:

• • Mentioned above, these viruses pack quite a punch compared to their non-corrupted counterparts. On top of being stronger, corrupted viruses can be unpredictable, and can perform hacks they wouldn’t usually. These encounters are high-risk, high-reward, as they also carry a lot more Cycoin than usual viruses!

• Fixed Camera angles:

• • For maximum cinematic feel and dramatic effect in certain areas.

New Music

Finally, I had the pleasure of being able to work with another amazing composer on the game’s soundtrack. Dale North has composed 2 songs for the game, which includes the one heard in the latest update video. So far, CyberThreat has featured music by Strayfe, Van Reeves, Varien and now Dale!

What’s Next?

Currently I’m working at upgrading CyberThreat from using Unity 2019, to Unity 2020 and the Universal Render Pipeline, and I can immediately see an improvement to performance and graphical fidelity! More importantly, I find it’s helping me work towards my ideal art direction for the game, having more flexibility with the shader graph and other URP and Post Processing effects. I look forward to providing you with more updates on the upgrading process in future, as there’s still a lot to do!

I was also recently very fortunate to be accepted into the “Tentacle Zone Incubator Programme'' for 2022 as Aphelios! This is an amazing opportunity to grow and learn, and I hope to come out the other side having benefited greatly from it all!

Coming up:

• Game jamming

  • Before jumping back into CyberThreat full time, I’m taking just a short amount of time to prototype and build some vertical slices of other projects, just to practice certain aspects of game design and flesh out some ideas, and then hopefully implement them back to CyberThreat.

• GMTK Game Jam

  • I’ll be participating in the Game Maker’s Toolkit game jam again this year, which I hope will be a lot of fun and a good experience! Please stay tuned for a (hopefully!) fun game from it!

• Chapter 2 Complete

  • Since the game has definitely reached a minimum viable playable state, the focus now will be on completing the cutscenes and content enough that the book can be closed on Chapter 2 (So to speak!)! I don’t expect this to take too long in its most basic form, the most time will be taken making sure it’s polished and presents the game in the best possible light. Up to Chapter 2 will be a nice vertical slice of what’s to come with the rest of the game! (And when the time comes, to any publishers/journalists, my inbox will be open…)

• Demo release on Steam

  • Once Chapter 2 is ready… The public playable build will be shortly after! I plan to add some additional modes to help show off the game for this though, since the game opens up a lot more after Chapter 2 is finished. Things like a random battle mode, some side story content, etc. to help give a glimpse into the full experience the game provides.

  • I have an internal date set for this, ideally it will be before, or align with the next Steam Next Festival, or equivalent if possible. Either way I’m eager to get the game in your hands sooner rather than later, so I can hear your feedback on what is, and isn’t working!

• Manga scenes

  • I’ve been working with a fantastic artist on some CyberThreat artwork behind the scenes, and they’re keen to work on more CyberThreat promo artwork, including manga styled excerpts based on the game’s story and characters! Stay tuned for more on that!

Thanks for Reading!

Thank you so much for your interest and for reading this far! CyberThreat is still a solo developed and funded venture, so your support means the world! If you don’t already, please follow CyberThreat on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, as it really helps get the word out about the game! And join in over on Discord, we'd be delighted to have you!

YouTube: Youtube.com
Twitter: Twitter.com
Instagram: Instagram.com

Discord: https://discord.gg/e9QTXWcjmu

Thanks again, and Happy Pride month one and all!

Conor