FROM THE BLOG

Weekly News – TR Run Progress and Art, KAG Modding

Hey guys, sorry for the delay on the update. Last week was a trying time, but we’ve gotten back on track. So, lets get to it.

Trench Run News:

TR
development has been going along strong. The Run mode testing has shown
that playing in a team on bigger maps gives the game a totally fresh
feel. Run allows for much more depth than the free-for-all skirmish
mode, but requires a bigger commitment.

Some issues that we’re addressing include:

• runs being hard to deny
• missing feedback for when a run is being threatened
• some connection-transfer issues between game servers.

Of the issues from last week:

• Engineer air-striking is harder but still possible ; you just cant sit right at spawn and rain hell on the map.
• The
  medic is more useful even in the hands of an idiot. You can pick up a
  wounded medic as a living teammate – which then allows the medic to heal
  the rest of the wounded.

However, the big news is not related to gameplay…

When
we first started making Trench Run, it was meant to be a fast, quite
small, 2-6 month project. More experimental graphics that we could
produce quickly were settled on at the start of the project. However, as
the project exits its first year we are at a point where the game
should probably at least pay for itself. As such, we’ve decided to
rework the graphics to be more appealing to a wider audience. They’ll
still be lo-fi, but less abstract, and with room for team colours to
help readability. Our graphical aim is “a game made from 2015 styled
like the 90s, not a game from the 90s released in 2015”.

Current pass over The Forest biome (new on the left, old on the right, full size x2 pixels here). We hope the extra time shows, because getting all this in game is going to take some doing!

This
is quite a frustrating decision for us to make. It pushes game code
work from me on to Michal, and it will take a few weeks of full time
graphics work at least for me to get a full game’s worth of art
reworked. However, its a decision needed the good of the game’s
financial success. The game being more accessible should mean you guys
have a bigger crowd of people to play with instead of another small
clique of die-hard fans.

We’ll be doing more experimentation
and polishing of the current mockup graphics this week, but I think
we’re set on this direction now. We’ll keep you updated as the game and
its art style develops, and we trust you’ll bide your time alongside us
as we work towards a better Trench Run!

KAG News:

Verra has got to work on investigating various modding “annoyances” and smoothing them out:

• Error
  messages in the console now refer to the right line even for included
  files, and dont miss errors when the error occurs at the end of the
  file.
• The “infinite mod redownloading” bug.

Progress is looking good and we’re happy to have him aboard!

Until next time,
Max