To start this devlog, it should be mentioned that this update should have been released two weeks ago (about a week before the Easter weekend). The trouble was that there were many personal issues that I had to address and I had come down with a pretty awful cold (of which, I'm still recovering from). That being said, it's better late than never for this update. This update is actually one of the biggest yet, since the game's launch last year. So, let's get right into it.

End Battle Screens

Once a battle has ended, either victoriously or in defeat, the player will be given an "end battle screen." In the original version of the game, this simply just had the overall result of the battle displayed and game options to either restart or quit to the menu. This new battle screen shows much more info, such as the overall game time, how many kills the player got, and what the most played unit was. There is now also a score counter, which ties in with the new soldier switching multiplier mechanic.

As before, the game encourages the player to switch and fight as different soldiers. To further encourage picking as many soldiers as possible, the soldier switching multiplier will exponentially increase your overall score the more soldiers you play as. In future versions, this score will be used in a rudimentary upgrade system that will allow players to gain perks to help them in combat.

Revised Objective Points

Capturing objectives are the second focus in each battle, after eliminating all enemies. The new objective points work much the same way as they did in the original version. However, there are now better indicators of how an objective is being captured. For instance, each objective has an emissive glow that tells the player whether an objective is allied controlled, enemy controlled, or a set target for a unit. There is also a progress bar above the objective that shows the progress of how an objective is being captured. Where before this updated slowly and with a stutter, now the bar accurately updates to show capturing progress in real-time. 

Damage Indicators

In the previous update, I mistakenly called the score text that appears when you have attacked an enemy as a "damage indicator." From here on out, I will be calling that by its most common industry name "Kill log." The actual damage indicator, which shows in which direction the player is being attacked from, has been finally implemented in this update. This very simple feature now allows the player to see where an attacking enemy is.

Settings Menu

The settings menu has been completely overhauled in this update. Firstly, you can now access it both in the main menu and in-game. Secondly, there are a whole lot of gameplay settings that were not present before, such as crosshair visibility, friendly fire, auto-reloading, whether to enable or disable the damage indicator and kill log, among many other things. There are still some menus that are not finished yet, such as custom settings of the graphics menu, key bindings, and viewing controller layouts. Nonetheless, this new settings menu should make the game much more accessible and customizable than it was previously.

Old Maps Gone, Hello Revised Maps

For the longest time, the three original maps were still using the original game's mechanics and systems. All the new content of the last few updates were exclusive to the fourth "development map." With this update, all new content is finally playable on the previous three maps. There are also a few new additions, including new battle strategies, new difficulty balancing, and slightly changed placement of objectives. 

One thing to note is that there are a lot of assets missing on these older maps. The most noticeable is water, which is not present in this build, as well as post-processing effects. The reason for this is because the next update will feature an engine and graphics overhaul, including new water simulation using Unity's HDRP water physics, among other HDRP assets (better vegetation, lighting, etc.). As such, lots of things that are not present in these maps will be fixed in the next update.

There are also some bugs with the AI, which is much more pronounced on the new maps. Though the current iteration of the AI is much better than the original version, there is a lot that still needs to be addressed. One thing that is planned is to provide players (as well as myself) some needed "debugging" tools for the AI, allowing players to see how the AI is interacting. I'll try getting this change added in either the next update or the update following the next.

Another Short Announcement

As mentioned in the previous devlog, versions 0.1.112 through 0.1.115 have been removed from the Itch.io page due to constraints on how many files can be on the game's download section. If you still want to try these older versions of the game, or if you have any bug reports you wish to give, please check out the Unsung Heroes 1898 Community Discord server. Due to time constraints, I will not be listing known bugs that are in this update, but you can assume that a majority of them will be patched up in the next update. 

You can also view this devlog on the Venomic Games Website: https://venomicgames.com/?p=744