Welcome to the first update of Unsung Heroes 1898! I plan on making these updates periodically, either weekly or biweekly depending on how much I can get done. Should I be unable to follow this schedule for a period of time, I'll be making a post to announce it.

This update, which I have internally called the "MoveTech Update", fixes many of the issues regarding movement in the game. In the original version of the game, players had limited movement and certain aspects of the game felt off. The MoveTech update now allows the player to go prone and to lean around corners. Furthermore, certain bugs have been fixed, such as restricting players from climbing steep slopes (the player now will slide down a slope that is too steep). 

Game feel was another aspect of the game that felt off. Guns were "static" in that they never moved with the player. Now guns accurately sway depending on movement. When running the currently held weapon sways even more so and the player is restricted from aiming or firing the weapon (a mechanic that is present in most FPS games). 

There are also a ton of new details in the game that were not present before. I had originally planned to create a "full-body controller" similar to games like Arma, however this eventually proved to be too difficult to create. I decided to instead combine some of the features I made from that controller with the new and refined FPS controller I made for the game. There are a few benefits from this. Firstly, sound effects are now completely animation based, which makes them more responsive and accurate to the various contexts of the player. When walking over certain types of ground (grass, gravel, dirt, rock, etc.) different footstep sounds can be heard. You can also see the soldier's shadow. (It should be noted that this is somewhat unfinished currently, since the model is wrong and the weapon's shadow is not visible. This will be fixed in a future update.) 

Finally, there is new UI to go with the game. It removes the minimap (which was very confusing and unhelpful) and adds a few extra displays for information (there is a counter for the number of available artillery, which objectives have been taken and by who, and what pose is the soldier currently in). Some of the UI is not functional at the moment, but will be worked on in the future.

One thing that is important to note is that these features are not playable in the preexisting three maps. Instead, there is a new "development map" that can be selected in the Instant Action menu that allows you to test these new features. At some point, I will go back and add these features into those preexisting maps, but for now this allows for faster development and increased game stability.

You can download Version 0.1.112 on the Itch.io page for free (I've also kept the previous version of the game if this version proves to be unstable for whatever reason). If you have any feedback you want to share, please do so on our community Discord server (https://discord.com/invite/p8CA9qXgCN). Thanks and enjoy the update!

Full list of additions and features:

• Players can now go prone and lean left and right
• Players are restricted from climbing steep slopes and can also slide down them
• There are slightly updated controls when crouching
• Players can no longer aim or fire weapons when sprinting
• New weapon animations play when player is idle, walking, or running
• New SFX, which are animation based and play dynamically depending on the surface of the ground
• Players are able to see their own shadow (work-in-progress)
• Aiming now zooms the camera to allow for more accurate shooting
• Updated UI, with new weapon, score, hitmarker/crosshair, and troop displays
• New development map, which all of the above features are playable on (only)

This development log post is also available on the Venomic Games website: https://venomicgames.com/?p=640