New Systems & What To Expect From The "Demo"

What to Expect:
This is going to be a pretty long blog entry, so let's get straight down to business. I'm kind of stealing inspiration from Omar when I want to get the demo out by Halloween. This will be Halloween by Australian time, so it'll be a day before Omar's demo. I really don't want to steal any notice from him and what I imagine will be an amazing demo. Mine, on the other hand, won't be so much. It's almost more like a proof of concept than a proper demo, and will have a rather large file size [roughly 50mb] because, well, I have a lot of redundant files and whatnot left over from previous versions, and, while those fills will eventually get a trimming, I honestly don't know what I'll never need and what I might need in the future. Anyhow, I don't imagine the demo will actually be very long; maybe about 20-30 minutes worth?

Systems – Customization:
Onto some of the systems in the game, though. A lot of the systems won't get as much showcasing in the demo as I'd like. The weapon customizability is a perfect example of this. Currently IN the game is the ability to attach all kinds of testing attachments, change the name and brand of the weapon, and all sorts of cool things that affect its stats in-game; including damage, fire-rate, and so on. This system is massive, but, due to the readily-available ability of importing saves, I can't really add many attachments that'd really showcase this feature without making the weapon itself too powerful.

Systems – Quality:
A system I wanted in the game since the very start was weapon quality. The biggest issue with how Hope Afloat is, and was at the time, was that it's pretty linear, in the grand scheme of things. Completing one area would unlock another, and, in that area, if there was a weapon there, most of the time the weapon was more powerful than the one you found in the previous area. It was also my own fault for having a pretty average amount of ammo in every area. There was never really a time where you didn't have enough ammo pooled up to be unable to take on a specific area. An area with 10 zombies would have the ammo laying around to take out those 10 zombies. This made a lot of the early weapons pretty redundant, and the need for more and more powerful zombies grew with the ability to dish out more damage.

The quality system fixes a lot of things in this area. Quality is given to you in a percentage; a percentage that decreases by 1% every time you fire the weapon. This percentage directly influences the max damage of the weapon. If the weapon would deal 200 damage, at 50% quality, each round would only be dealing 100. There are universal cleaning kits that can be used to bolster a weapon back up to 100% quality, but these are rare to find and rather expensive to buy. This system adds a degree of management to, not only what weapons you use and when, but also to rationing your cleaning kits.

Systems – RNG-Based Looting:
In the previous version of Hope Afloat, anything you needed was always laying around. Weapons, ammo, and so on. They were all pre-placed and always in the same place. A small system is in place that lets you loot bodies instead of objects laying around. Based on where you are and where you've been, the system will roll a number and give you an outcome based on different percentages and possibilities. You might get something common, like some ammo for a gun of yours, or maybe something rarer, like a cleaning kit, an attachment. Be careful, because the system can bite; literally. The corpses you search may or may not be properly dead. You can get melee weapons, which operate on a similar quality principle to firearms. The difference is, however, that checking to ensure a body is dead costs 10% of its quality. There is no quality penalty, but the melee weapon will be useless at 0%. The melee weapon in question, however, can be resharpened back up to 100% on the raft at the end of missions. They can only be re-sharpened a certain number of times, however. However, the choice to stab a body first or search it regardless is always present in the event your melee is blunt and you want to test your luck.

Systems – Stealth:
Please note that the system is incomplete as of writing this, and it's possible only certain parts will be available in the demo. My goal is to get the entire system functional by the 31st. As some of you may remember if you ever played Legacy, there were certain aspects of stealth. Firing a silenced weapon wouldn't alert zombies, but firing an un-silenced one would. There is a similar mechanic in Hope Afloat, but with quite a few additions. Firstly, zombies without certain abilities can only see directly in front of them. The mechanics for their random movement has also been slowed to give the player the ability to potentially sneak past hordes they don't wish to engage in combat. Zombies that do spot the player, however, will moan and alert the other zombies of the players position. Melee weapons can also be used to instantly kill a zombie who isn't facing the player and while stealth is available. The 10% quality deduction also applies in this case.

And that's about all. I hope you guys are looking forward to the demo, and I'll write more when I have more to show. Also, I've added a screenshot to the screenshots page demonstrating a bit of the stealth system. Enjoy.