Hi there!

It's been a while, hasn't it?

Due to recent events, I wanted to post a quick update on the game's development so far.

DEVELOPMENT HELL

Unfortunately we've been suffering through a little bit of development hell™ as all fan-games do at one point of their lives.

This is pretty normal in this community, a few of the common reasons that have pertained to us have been:

• Minimal free time due to work/school

• Poor organization & planning (I'm not a great project manager...)

• Inexperience in the medium

• Creative burnout and struggling with motivation

That being said, I feel like the circumstances of BERGENTRUCK have a bit more weight to them in terms of making the game difficult to make. Of course that's expected as it's very nontraditional for a fan-game, but I wanted to go into detail and touch on some of the unique challenges that have made themselves known while working on this weird little game:

The first version of this game that was made for Pensea's game jam, BERGENTRUCK 201X, isn't super complicated on the inside.

The entire world is a a tube, and "driving down the road" just spins the tube towards you so it looks like you're making distance. Then, a forced camera perspective which distorts the edges a lot makes the world seem a lot bigger and flatter than it actually is.

This basically means player movement is limited to how fast the tube spins towards you, and how much you're strafing to the left or the right. This also means object collision was extremely simple, since we were essentially working with 2D numbers.

The inside of the car was also entirely 2D, and made use of Godot's built in mouse detection nodes, as well as some 2d physics nodes for the items. Relatively simple.

However, a lot of this was more of a panicked compromise due to time. The original idea WAS for it to be a 3d world with set levels, but as I had never worked with 3d level design before, me and Tiz decided to make the gameplay loop a lot more simple and RNG-based so we could make the time.

Ever since we decided we wanted to make a "full version" of that game, I've been struggling a lot with the constraints that we set for ourselves with these original decisions in design:

• Road turnings or varied environments were impossible with the method that levels were made

• The forced perspective meant 3d models basically couldn't be used at all, only billboard sprites

• The entity/actor system was very rushed and messy, meaning bosses were incredibly difficult to make.

• 2D physics in Godot are pretty terrible and unstable, and none of the addins for competitor physics engines really worked in the way we wanted them to

• We couldn't really mess with mouse movement in the way we wanted to

So, we eventually decided to remake the game from scratch. Try and make things easier to make, expand the possibilities, and make more things work in 3D space. Wooh BOY, that was a saga...

THE DESIGN STRUGGLES OF BERGENTRUCK 202X

We had a list of concepts we wanted to explore within the levels of the full game, so it took a while to even figure out how we could make a game that'd support all of our ideas. Unfortunately there's sparse resources on making an Envirobear-like, and double unfortunately Godot, (while gaining in popularity) still doesn't have a whole lot of -in-depth documentation or a community that's willing to help you in regards to obscure features.

Just so you get an understanding, here's a list of some core systems we had to figure out:

• 3D arcade-y driving physics that behave how we want them to, and can be used for 3D platforming (most existing car controllers in Godot are unstable and horrible to control)

• 3D mouse interactions, including buttons, sliders (gearstick), steering wheels, and moving around rigidbodies while keeping their collision (items)

• A reusable component system that allows us to make items and actors behave in certain ways

• Actor collision and behavior (actors that follow the road, behavior state trees depending on how you interact with them etc)

• Path-based mesh and collision generation (for roads)

• Path-based distribution of meshes and collision (for decor, walls, level boundaries)

• A driver character visual with procedural animations, which is able to be swapped out or customized

Eventually we managed to put together a prototype for the new version, but it still wasn't perfect:

A few things I didn't like about this version:

• Levels that are consisted of randomly generated chunks made it harder to introduce mechanics gradually and keep things fresh, and also added extra work for the levels that we know are going to be static.

• Various performance issues

• The project and code structure was still very messy (completely my fault to be fair)

Of course we were getting closer, but there was still a few things we needed to rethink...

I wish I had more to talk about here, but the unfortunate truth is this is around where development has slowed down significantly.

In my free time I've been working on trimming the fat and organizing things, building the new version of the engine so we can start working on level content, but it's been a slow process. On top of some struggles in my personal life, my ADHD has made it pretty difficult for me to try to navigate these big complex systems without obsessing over every little detail...

So, what's the plan?

For one, we'll be cutting down on the scope to try and make it a bit more attainable. Some fun ideas will have to be thrown out unfortunately, but working on this game for years doesn't really sound fun when I have other ideas I want to explore in game development.

Second, I'm going to try and be a bit more vocal on the progress of the game's development as I've found a bit of pressure helps me keep momentum. I've been thinking about doing some occasional development streams where I can work on the game, so let me know if you'd be interested in watching those.

Third, I'm going to try to aim to release this game by the end of 2026. Originally my planned release date was before chapter 5, but that didn't pan out so well...

Oh, right!

DELTARUNE CHAPTER 5

WOW I did not expect this to come so early in the year!

Everyone in the team is incredibly excited for the new chapter, especially considering our favorite pathetic divorced dad Asgore looks like he's going to play a starring role!

You might be wondering what this changes about our fangame... The answer is: not much!

Due to the nature of what this fangame is, it'll be pretty story-light, but there'll still be a plot that goes further than "Asgore drunk-drives and runs over Dess".

In terms of story, we're planning on making the full version of BERGENTRUCK a Deltarune AU, mostly so we can explore some extra stupid concepts that wouldn't really make too much sense in canon. This is also shielding for any potential revelations in chapter 5 that might retroactively make some of our ideas not make sense, like:

• FRIEND'S canonical appearance

• Gaster's canonical appearance

• Further exploration of Asgore and Carol's character motivations

• Dess not being the Roaring Knight

We probably won't be using much content from Chapter 5+, if any.

If we get inspired we might make a level based on an area or event that happens in Chapter 5, but we have a pretty cohesive beginning-middle-and-end in mind for this game.

CONCLUSION

We're still working on the game, I promise.

It might still take a while, but I hope you enjoy playing it when it's out!

I do want to bring up that BERGENTRUCK isn't the only project I'm working on at the moment, which is another reason development's been slower lately.

I'm working with Angelvision to make a more traditional Deltarune fangame, VS DREAM WARDEN:

I'm also working on an original arcade game named Drunkpowder, which might be coming out before BERGENTRUCK.

If you want to keep a closer eye on what I'm working on, feel free to follow me on Twitter as that's where I've been posting a lot of my works in progress (much to my dismay).

That's about it for today.

See you soon!