I've been making more progress on The Outbreak Story over the past two weeks. Here's some of that progress!

I added more weapons into the game. Here's a new weapon for Noah, which has a small chance (1 out of 16) to lower the enemy's defense when an attack hits an enemy, causing subsequent attacks that hit the enemy to deal more damage. 
​(check the original tweet here)

​Also added more weapons for Marie!
(check original tweet here)

​And yet more weapons for Marie!
​(check original tweet here)

Finally, paralysis now works on enemies. Though Noah as well as other party members could already get paralyzed, I hadn't implemented the status ailment for enemies yet. Until now, that is, of course.

You can tell that an enemy is paralyzed when they start shaking uncontrollably. When paralyzed, just like when Noah or another party member is paralyzed, the enemy's attacks have a chance to fail and moving around becomes more difficult. Of course, some enemies are immune to paralysis.
(check the original tweet here)

For the past few days, I've been making some improvements to The Outbreak Story's gameplay based on feedback I'd received from testers and people who played the demo. Here's some of those improvements!

I added an animation of Noah reaching for his guns and grabbing them before he starts to shoot enemies. This makes it feel a lot smoother.
​(check the original tweet here)

I also started working on aerial combat. There were some issues at first, but after receiving some feedback from Impossible Realms (check out her Twitter here), I managed to fix most of them.

When hitting an enemy in the air, it cancels your fall for 1 frame.
(check the original tweet here)

I wasn't happy with it yet, though. There was an animation bug (which is visible in the above GIF) and, because the first frame of each attack also cancels your fall, it was possible to exploit the air combo mechanic to "glide" through the air for long distances. This would cause issues in dungeons, which rely more on platforming mechanics than the overworld areas, so I had to do something about it.

The solution I came up with goes as follows: when finishing an air combo, there would be a short cooldown period where you would fall down and couldn't start another air combo. However, when the finishing attack hits an enemy, it cancels this cooldown period, allowing you to chain combos as long as you keep hitting the enemy.

This solution works pretty well, in my opinion.
(check the original tweet here)

I also added a charge attack into the game. While I'm not fully satisfied with it yet, I think it's pretty decent. I'll probably keep tweaking it in the future.

(check the original tweet here)

And that's it for now!

If you've made it this far and are reading this, thanks a lot! Please consider following me on Twitter (@BasMakesGames) or checking out the demo for the game on Itch.io or GameJolt. If you would like to get in touch, become a tester or get notified whenever I post something about the game including progress updates, join the Discord.

Greetings, and stay safe!
​-Bas

Happy (belated) new year!

As you all know at this point, it's 2021 now, and I hope it will be less bad than the hell year known as 2020. I plan on getting the COVID vaccine as soon as possible and hopefully go outside and visit more people again after that, as long as it's safe to do so. Meaning that I'll actually have a social life again outside of talking to friends and family over the internet... yay!

Anyways, it's been a month now since I've released the demo for The Outbreak Story. I've gotten plenty of feedback, I appreciate all of it, and I hope that this year will be the year that I finally get to finish this game.

​Here's some screenshots:

If you're still here, thanks for actually reading this stuff.
​Greetings, and stay safe!
​-Bas

The demo for The Outbreak Story has finally been released. It's available on both Itch and Gamejolt. It runs on both Windows and Linux.

Links to the Itch and Gamejolt pages below:

Itch Store Page: bas-makes-games.itch.io/the-outbreak-story
GameJolt Store Page: gamejolt.com/games/the-outbreak-story/309300

I am very thankful for all of the support I've gotten from people, for the feedback I've gotten as well as the people who helped me beta test the game.

I hope you enjoy the demo!

Greetings, and stay safe
-Bas

Just a heads up, the Steam store page for The Outbreak Story has gone up! Check it out here.

Greetings,
-Bas