Hey everyone ! Happy new year !!

Let’s begin this year with some good news about Dead Alone: Alpha 1.20.0 will be available on January 9 !

After more than 4 months, this new update is almost ready and it contain some really cool stuff, let’s dive into all that !

Content:

With this update, I reworked many aspects of the game to remove a lot of issues, bugs and simplify a lot the code. Most importantly, the playable character and the weapon system received some major changes:

The player character now feature full body first person animations, new sliding and walking movements, melee attacks and many more improvements and additions.

The weapon system received a lot of changes and improvements too: I switched from the old hitscan bullets to fully simulated bullet projectiles which means that all weapons now have a variable bullet drop and travel time when firing ! There is also a new dynamic crosshair giving more informations about the current spread of the gun.
I also improved the aiming, the effects produced by the weapons and updated the pickup system for weapons.
Finally, I added a new shooting type: Burst Fire, 2 weapons have been switched to this shooting type.

Here are some footages of those changes:

In preparation to the Beta 1.0.0, which will include the new Survival Gamemode, ground loot has been removed from the Horde Gamemode. My idea with this change is to give each gamemode a more focused gameplay: Horde Gamemode should be focused on fighting hordes and not really caring about looting. So instead of this, the shop will now have a larger importance since everything that you will need to fight the ennemies will come from it.
The Shop received some new updates accordingly, prices have all been updated to go with the removal of ground loot, weapons that are showed in the shop will now also feature an image and a short description instead of only have their name displayed. Crafting is still available at the workbench but ressources will have to be bought from the shop.

The Ground Loot system already received an update and will be reintegrated to the game for the Survival Gamemode !

On top of all of this, this new update will also include a new map expansion ! This map expansion is smaller than the previous one but finally mark the completion of the main map !

With this map expansion I realy tried to feature some diverse gameplay experience:

• First there is a large natural park allowing for mid to long range engagements with long line of sights and some closer combat around the greenhouses.

• Then there is the construction site, here you will be able to enjoy some really close quarter combats, you should definitely grab a shotgun with you !

• The last area is a more residential area which feature a diverse range of engagement opportunties from close to mid range thanks to the different buildings and the small camping area.

Here are some shots of those new areas !

There is another small map expansion planned to come later this year but this area will only serve as an introduction area for the Survival Gamemode.

Aside from all the reworks, there are also been a lot of various changes, mostly QoL.

Changes:

• Updated the New Game Menu with a gamemode selector for future use and a toggle for auto saves, the design of it has also been completely redone !

  

• Updated the options with 4 new inputs related to new in game actions:

  • Melee Attack : Default V

  • Holster Weapon : Default Left Alt

  • Walk : Default C

  • Relax Weapon : Default H

• All the shooting range upgrades have been tweaked to be overall better and have a more significant impact per upgrade

• The upgrades done to the armor will not be reset anymore when the armor reaches 0 health

• Made several optimisation to the lightning and more global optimisations

• Autosaves will now create a new save instead of overwriting any manual saves

• Updated loading screens

• Several UI related quality of life changes and fixes

• Added more workbenches across the map

• Updated multiple control points with larger areas and less restrictive borders

• Improved zombie spawning in several areas of the map

• Improved Zombies jumping behavior

As said before, this update also include an awful lot of fixes, i’m just listing a few a them below and not including all the reworks that fixed many things.

Fixes:

• Fixed an issue causing the flashlight to not emit light in some conditions

• Added a confirmation popup when trying to quit the game, this fixes some issues that could avoid the game from properly closing

• Several more menus can now be closed as they should when pressing escape: Inventory, Horde Shop, Save Menu

• Fixed some weapons that still didn’t had a properly updated name

• Fixed multiple issues with auto saves

• Fixed an issue that caused Molotovs to not slow down zombies as they should

• Fixed an issue that caused the Audio Settings to not be responsive and not being properly updated

• Fixed an issue that could cause some sound effects to be very loud

• Fixed many areas that could cause zombies to get stuck or spawn on incorrect locations

• Fixed multiple areas with collisions issues

• Fixed an issue causing the fall damages to remove an incorect amount of health

• Fixed an issue causing the player to be unable to shoot while in the bunker

• And many more...