Author: haapavuo

Another month survived & progress made! We managed to unlock day 3 for the alpha testers and soon there is more coming. April will be sort of a holiday month so expect a bit less then, though.

Here’s what happened (the list is rather short but the tasks have been bigger)

• [CODE]: Days 1-7 now almost all-done & fully playable!
• [CODE]: Implemented some janter & target shooting mechanics and task flow.
• [CODE]: Improved RK-69 effects & physics.
• [CODE]: Blend shape support implemented for different body shapes.
• [CODE]: WIP: Eating mechanics.
• [CODE]: WIP: Various RK-69 holding poses for military drills.
• [UI]: Designed and implemented a new stats view.
• [SCENE]: Major lighting improvements overall.
• [DESIGN]: Even more Game Mechanics design for different upcoming service tasks & events.
• [ART]: Improvements to character body shapes, textures etc.
• [WRITING]: Lots of narrative design & content creation.

During February we updated the Alpha Tester Steam Build to include Day 2. Days 3-7 are well under way and day 3 may be unlocked this week. As said previously, the upcoming days are a lot faster to implement since we have a flexible core design already existing.

Screenshot yield for February was not huge but there’s some character related at the end. Perhaps March offers a bit more!

Let’s see what we’ve done in February!

• [DESIGN]: Game Mechanics design for dozens of different upcoming service tasks & events.
• [CODE]: Implemented the rest of the necessary Military Drill mechanics for the first three Military Drill exercises.
• [CODE]: Fully implemented Military Drill exercises 1 & 2. Started implementation of Military Drill exercise 3.
• [CODE]: Marches support running phases.
• [CODE]: March leader now properly acts as a part of the march.
• [CODE]: Improvements to animator & visual item equipping.
• [CODE]: Finalized day 2 implementation.
• [CODE]: Integrated cleaning service (“siivouspalvelus”, “sipa”) mechanics into the game.
• [CODE & UI]: Implemented systems for Traits, Attributes, Skills and Skill Trees. Also integrated those systems into the game mechanics.
• [CODE]: Implemented most of the unlockable skills.
• [CODE]: Improved saving system to store some data more persistently.
• [CODE]: Implemented a lot more useful debugging tools.
• [CODE]: WIP: Doctor’s appointment.
• [BUG]: Many minor & major bug fixes related to pretty much everything.
• [VOICE]: Lots of new voice acting.
• [STORY]: Lots of new dialogue & upcoming events. We are currently at week 3 and have done most of the camping related dialogues for weeks 4 – 8 already. Soon we will focus more on the “meta story” (conspiracy theories etc).
• [ANIM]: Animation improvements.
• [ART]: Mostly character customizations & improvements.

Whoa, what a start of a year! We’ve went through COVID (well, 3 of us at least) and other ridiculous diseases (no STDs this time). But now we are back – stronger than ever!!

Btw we got a new Game Designer to design some missing mechanics, attribute & skill systems etc. And of course to improve the existing ones, too. Since he is not a programmer, we now have our first team member to spend most of the time working on the mechanics design on paper.

Sorry alpha testers for still not unlocking day 2 for you. We want to improve Military Drill mechanics until we’re happy with them. Shouldn’t take much longer. After that, days 3-5 should be a lot faster to fully implement so you can expect a bit faster unlocks for those.

But anyway, let’s see what we’ve done…

• [DESIGN]: Game Mechanics design for dozens of different upcoming service tasks & events.
• [DESIGN]: Player attributes design & balancing.
• [DESIGN]: Player skill tree design & balancing.
• [DESIGN]: Player attribute change UI design.
• [CODE]: Military Drill overhaul. Formation dressing (“ojennus”) is now somewhat functional (meaning still not perfect).
• [CODE]: Office Manners (“toimistokäyttäytyminen”) overhaul & queueing mechanics.
• [CODE]: Evening Strength Calculation (“iltavahvuuslaskenta”).
• [CODE]: Some additions related to RK-69 mechanics (not gonna spoil more here though).
• [CODE]: NPCs can now be ordered to look at something whenever we want.
• [CODE]: NPC navigation improvements again.
• [CODE]: Ability to limit player speed depending on leader NPC movement speed.
• [CODE]: Ability to play custom NPC animations more easily at any point.
• [CODE]: Player attribute change & UI implementation.
• [CODE]: Fast-Forwarding mechanics fixes & improvements.
• [CODE]: Ability to order player to any position in formations.
• [BUG]: Many minor & major bug fixes related to pretty much everything.
• [VOICE]: Lots of new voice acting.
• [STORY]: Lots of new dialogue & upcoming events.
• [ANIM]: Pointing, punching, knocking, military drills etc.
• [ART]: Mostly character customizations & improvements.

Another year comes to an end and it’s time for some statistics!

This year we managed to…

• Start alpha testing phase 1 containing the 1st day of the military service. 103 people have activated the game on Steam and started testing. Thanks for all the constructive feedback so far!
• Do nearly a thousand Git commits!
• Build a great core (engine) for future service days (days 2 – 7 are almost ready and launching soon for the alpha testers!)
• Get great new team members!
• Launch 1st proper teaser video of the game (and also some other content on our YouTube channel).
• Increase our Steam Wishlister count from 1 812 to 7 471 (meaning +5 659 wishlisters during 2021!)
• Sell over 400 copies of the game on Indiegogo! Thank you all for believing in us & in Finnish Army Simulator!
• Get over 1 800 subscribers on our YouTube channel!

What will happen in January 2022?

• We are getting a new intern to improve the balancing of various things like player attributes & skill tree.
• We will release more content for the alpha testers.
• The development will focus more on content creation instead implementation of core game engine features.

And here is the changelog for December 2021!

• [CODE]: All NPC actions (movement, interaction, wait etc) can now be chained properly.
• [CODE]: NPCs can follow each other and/or player and also separate properly from each other.
• [CODE]: Items can now be queried in code more easily enabling capabilities for dynamic item related tasks.
• [CODE]: We now have the identity of the NPC that is currently occupying an interactable object.
• [CODE]: WIP: Implemented support for NPC interactions with sinks & toilets (i.e. taking a shit).
• [CODE]: Implemented a “hive mind” that controls NPCs during free time. NPCs are now able to do various activities on their own semi randomly, resulting in a humanlike behavior.
• [CODE]: Improvements to the military drill (“sulkeisjärjestysharjoitus”) logic.
• [STORY]: Wrote a lot of new dialogue & events for days 2 – 14. Added most of the stuff for days 2-7 to the game. Still needs testing, animations & filling some missing gaps here and there.
• [AUDIO]: Added footstep sounds.
• [ART]: Created a new barracks building model & use that instead of the old one.
• [ART]: Human model keeps improving.
• [SCENE]: Added missing colliders for some of the buildings. Also indoors.
• [SCENE]: New sand roads added & NPC paths tweaked to use them instead.
• [DESIGN]: Started designing various attribute effects for different core mechanics & service tasks.
• [BUG]: Lots of bug fixes & improvements to 1st day features based on alpha testing feedback.
• [BUG]: Many other improvements regarding some core mechanics (hovering objects, locking doors, identifying objects, UIs etc).

Closed alpha testing has begun! Happy testing all who have been granted the access!

Be on lookout for possible alpha access giveaways on social media! So please go ahead and subscribe below!

• [FEATURE]: NPCs make “human sounds” (fart, burp, etc) in idle state.
• [FEATURE]: Platoon lists for headquarters (1st day).
• [FEATURE]: Show latest changes in the main menu & pause menu.
• [FEATURE]: New steering navigator for NPCs. It can move a group of NPCs using cohesion, separation and velocity match forces.
• [FEATURE]: Stack (“pinkka”) & bed making (“punkka”) V2!
• [FEATURE]: Weapon disassembly & cleaning mechanics.
• [FEATURE]: NPCs can finally go to sleep!
• [FEATURE]: NPC dissolving support V2.
• [FEATURE]: Show game status on Discord (Rich Presence).
• [FEATURE]: Credits screen.
• [PROGRAMMING]: Alpha testing preparations (in-game limitations, tutorials, player assists etc).
• [AUDIO]: Lots of new voice-overs.
• [AUDIO]: Some new music tracks.
• [ART]: Lots of improvements to the human model & equipment.
• [ANIM]: Some new animations during dialogues.
• [LOCALIZATION]: Lots of missing English translations done.
• [DEVTOOLS]: Automation for build configuration.
• [BUG]: A HUGE LOAD OF BUG FIXES AND OVERALL QUALITY IMPROVEMENTS.

Current alpha testing estimate: November 2021
More information about the alpha testing schedule coming soon!

• [FEATURE]: Closet and room checks (tupa- ja kaappitarkastus).
• [FEATURE]: New optimized navmesh system for NPC roaming.
• [FEATURE]: Cinematic camera system for marches etc.
• [FEATURE]: WIP: RK-69 disassembly, assembly and cleaning mechanics (aseen purkaminen ja puhdistaminen).
• [FEATURE]: Improved capabilities to move NPCs to a disarray (häröpallo).
• [FEATURE]: WIP: Barracks cleaning mechanics. (siivouspalvelus)
• [FEATURE]: Skipping support for some activities and parts of activities.
• [FEATURE]: NPC look at, move to, interact with etc. commands are now possible during dialogue.
• [FEATURE]: WIP: Dissolve effect for NPCs when teleported.
• [FEATURE]: WIP: Fetching weapons from the arsenal (asevarasto).
• [ART]: A lot of new character customization.
• [ART]: WIP: Optimized barracks building model.
• [ANIMATION]: Some new military drill and other military specific animations.
• [SCENE]: Lots of scene improvements again.
• [SOUND]: Added some miscellaneous sound effects to the game.
• [VOICE]: Added lots of new voice lines for the 1st days.
• [MUSIC]: Composed & added a song for the main menu.
• [BUG]: A lot of bug fixes to the 1st week logic.
• [BUG]: Fixed hernekeittopäivä (pea soup day).
• [BUG]: Improved game cleanup & code referencing so that reloading & starting a new game is now possible without errors.
• [BUG]: Hundreds of other bug fixes…
• [OTHER]: A lot of rendering optimizations.
• [OTHER]: Added more tutorials for the players.
• [OTHER]: Updated to latest Unity version & libraries.
• [OTHER]: A lot of improvements for internal test tools & debugging.

Current estimate for alpha testing: November 2021.

Since September has mostly been quality improvements for the 1st week in the army, the list doesn’t seem long. Although we have made over 100 Git commits and fixed around 100 issues as well. There’s still lots to do but we surely are getting there!

• [FEATURE]: New mechanics for making bed (“punkka”) and stack (“pinkka”)!
• [FEATURE]: Dialogues can now be skipped and “fast-forwarded”.
• [FEATURE]: Support for civilian clothing in game.
• [PROGRAMMING]: Huge optimizations regarding GPU draw call amount. Many PCs still won’t run the game on the highest settings but we will default to medium settings to ensure that the game will be playable on most computers that have a dedicated GPU.
• [PROGRAMMING]: Sh*tloads of bug fixes & implementation of missing logic (player <-> NPC look at, interpolation for various transitions, UI improvements, font fixes, added missing colliders, navigation fixes, task chaining fixed, game loading fixes, facial animation fixes…).
• [STORY]: Added a lot of new dialogue content for the 1st week.
• [STORY]: Added many missing pieces here and there during the 1st week (fetching weapons, introductions to daily tasks etc.).
• [STORY]: Currently writing content for weeks 3 & 4.
• [ART]: Some new mostly generic 3D props and more clothes for the human characters.
• [VOICE]: Some more voice acting done for the 1st week’s content.

Current estimate for alpha testing: November 2021.

• [FEATURE]: Ability to partially or totally skip longer voice-acted dialogues.
• [FEATURE]: Support for vendors in the new UI system.
• [FEATURE]: Necessary restrictions implemented for Alpha Testing release. (Sorry guys! We don’t want to spoil everything.)
• [FEATURE]: Improved Steam integration and other preparations regarding the Alpha Testing.
• [FEATURE]: Service Calendar UI now shows the weekly schedule correctly.
• [FEATURE]: Tent Watchkeeping will soon be ready.
• [FEATURE]: Item grabbing mechanics.
• [FEATURE]: 3D Helper Arrow added for the player.
• [FEATURE]: NPCs now support different moods according to their voice-profiles.
• [FEATURE]: Name input UI.
• [FEATURE]: Ability to show and hide stuff in the game world according to the time & day.
• [FEATURE]: Simple point-to-point navigation implemented in addition to the NavMesh navigation system. Also refactored the whole navigation system so it is now easier to change between the different navigation modes.
• [STORY]: Lots of new story elements in game! Especially for the 1st day introduction.
• [AUDIO]: Lots of voice acting and cutting all that for the game.
• [ART]: 3D Models for:
  • Additional barracks area props.
  • More clothes, gloves, character textures etc.
  • Updated character model.
  • Updated FPS hands model and animations.
• [ANIMATION]: Some command animations.
• [ANIMATION]: Animation state machine improvements.
• [SCENE]: Lots of collider improvements.
• [TEST]: Major automated test improvements for faster development.
• [DEV]: Character model import automatization.

During July we’ve most been having holidays so the list is rather short! Expect more in August.

• [FEATURE]: Bus ride to the army.
• [FEATURE]: NPC commanding, path following, navigation upgrades.
• [FEATURE]: Food Menu & Equipment Listing!
• [STORY]: Beefing up weeks 2-4. Slowly bringing the story content into the game.
• [SCENE]: Lots of game world improvements.
• [AUDIO]: Plenty of new voice-overs. We got this thing going on now!
• [ART]: 3D models for
  • More clothes
  • Camouflage stuff
• [BUG]: Lots of bug fixes.