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High Entropy: Test Build 0.3.0 Now Available

With this update, all the planned content for the Test Build has now been added, with the included Challenges Mode consisting of a beginning, 15 levels, a default ending and a special ending if you finish with a 100% score in all levels. Hopefully, this will make this free version of "High Entropy" a fun stand-alone gaming experience in itself while it also serves as a way for people to help me test things out and as a demo.

I've tested it as much as I had time to, including completing all the levels with a 100% score through every path possible (I've designed most of the bigger levels to have multiple solutions), but given the amount of things I've added and changed for this update there's still a decent chance of bugs slipping through. I'll try to keep updating the Test Build with bug fixes and level tweaks (feedback will be really helpful) but, from now on, most of my development time will be dedicated to working on the Story Mode for the commercial version of the game.

Here are some screenshots and the changelog:





Changelog:

  • All challenge mode content is now included: added levels 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 plus the standard ending and the 100% score ending.
  • Added new enemy type: walking turrets.
  • Added new type of enemy bot, one that throws energy balls.
  • Added exploding barrels.
  • Added safes.
  • Added assault rifle.
  • Added breakable crate.
  • Enemy bodies can now be looted.
  • Player now can't run or jump while grabbing big/heavy objects (right now, just the empty crate).
  • Changed the corridor wall color of challenge levels 1 to 7 to green (experimenting with the color giving an idea of the difficulty progression Green->Orange->Red). All rooms now have blue walls to add a little visual variety while keeping things simple.
  • Changed the lockpicking minigame to something similar to the one in fallout 3. The one I had is too ability/reflexes based, once you master it you rarely break lockpicks, and this new version, while maybe even more unrealistic, adds a little randomness so you always have the chance to break picks, even on the easy ones, but you also have the chance to be lucky and pick hard locks on the first try... (needs more testing to finetune the values for each difficulty)
  • Sentry Turret lock on target code modifications needed for new Spider Turret, may have broken something, needs testing.
  • Changed the sentry turret beep sounds to something less annoying.
  • Added code to the bots to avoid attacking through map obstacles like doors and walls (at least most of the time)... needs testing to see if everything works as expected and evaluate if the potential performance hit, if any, is worth it.
  • Improvements to how NPCs process sensory data (sounds, hits...) and how and when they investigate sounds (for some they just rotate to look at the sound origin and then rotate back, for others they go to investigate and come back soon, and for 'lure' items, right now just the soda cans, they stay there longer before returning). Turrets don't react to sounds (may change that in the future). Still needs more work.
  • Bots now alert nearby bots when detecting an enemy (the player). Bots that are alerted this way don't alert nearby bots, or it could escalate quickly.
  • Added HUD icon to show while reloading weapons. Also, interactions are now disabled while reloading.
  • Created more spam emails to add to the computers so they feel more real and also to make important emails less obvious.
  • Player can now use keys to take all and exit in the inventory/container UI.
  • Pressing the reload key while already reloading the shotgun stops the reload after the current projectile is loaded (until now this was done pressing the fire button, now both inputs do it).
  • Many other small tweaks to some levels and objects.
  • FIX: enemies can now see and damage the player while climbing a ladder.
  • FIX: wooden doors were missing in challenge level 0, I had accidentally deleted the prefab and didn't notice until now.
  • FIX: computers now correctly turn off when players abruptly stop using them because of an enemy attack.
categories: gamedev, high-entropy