SITREP - Week 034

Kim (ZPSHicks)
Game Director

"We've started planning a rather ambitious milestone plan for (hold on!) Interstellar Marines: Prologue (Project IM, if you will) or in other words the back-story of the Interstellar Marines: Trilogy ... which is where Bullseye, Running Man and Deadlock are all integral parts (even though it might not be that obvious :)) ... With a strong contextual storyline and intense coop yet to see the day of light as we move forward!

Our ambitions are sky-high (which is never going to change) so with the limited resources at our disposal it's a real challenge to prioritize everything (as you've noticed) and yet we still feel that we're "slacking" (lack of a better word) on selling "The Why" to new people with our current rather unoptimized communication and sales arguments ... something we really feel we must work hard to optimize in parallel to working on the game (I hope this makes sense).

Our plan for the next few months, is to get to a point (fast) where we're able to invite "non-evangelists" to take Deadlock for a free test-run (e.g. during a weekend) commanded by very clear mission parameters; Deadlock must be fun/exciting enough so that an FPS gamer experiencing Deadlock wants to naturally play for at least an hour and he/she must leave with a little "devil" inside their brains slowly convincing them to come back and pay for more! (Meant in the most sincere For the love of the game type way of course!

Less talk more work, Please! :) ".

Mikael (heks)
Lead Programmer

"I've been working on smoothing out the visual jitter of marines experienced under lossy network conditions. So far I've implemented a variety of potential models that all have their respective pros and cons - none of which are perfect - so we're testing internally and trying to make an educated guess as to which one to go with.

However, one of the downsides of smoothing is that it will introduce visual lag which effectively means you have to lead your aim more than without smoothing. I'll probably have to look into some server-side lag compensation to combat this at some point.

Other than that I've been working on the backend of the website and Deadlock server code, which will enable game statistics on the website at some point in the future.".

Anders (cptKickASS)
Lead Artist

"These past weeks I have started prepping for environment work, and more optimization tools. As part of our quest for a better looking and better performing game. I have been looking into Unity's new LOD tool, and tweaked our asset pipeline. This means that we now have a new tool for Kim and Jess to use when they build and populate levels. This will help them add more detail and prettier shading to the environment, and at the same time create assets that are more scalable in terms of performance.

Hopefully we will be rolling out the first assets with the next update. Kim and I have also been talking to four super cool 3D artists who will be starting an internship in the late summer. So we are planning to really pump the visuals of Deadlock in the coming months. Yehaa!!".

Jess (NecroSonic)
Level Designer

"I have been looking into new map prototypes lately. I did a first mock-up of a new outdoor map codenamed Arch. It is not yet done, but maybe an iteration01 is not too far away after all. Kim's comment was that the map somehow reminded him of Jurassic Park. Now, if that is a good or a bad thing I'm not sure.

Other than that I am trying to cook up a more "complete" playground map that may at some point replace our current one and maybe serve as a public taste of Deadlock to showcase the visuals and feel of the game".

Nicolai (Reese)
Audio Director & Composer

"Track change noticed; new title and focus area detected.

I have by own initiative thrown away my CEO hat and replaced it with a sound and music umbrella born in the well of creativity.. or something. So; please give a warm welcome to our new CEO / "boss lady" Maria (Kim's wife) which will be taking over my previous administrative responsibilities and tasks

This means that I (finally) am able to focus all my earth bound energy purely on composing music and sound designing Interstellar Marines.

As promised, I have added the score for the latest "Deadlock" video to the briefing room and I'm concluding a bonus track in return to your "patience reward" unlock and will release this early next week (this upcoming score is part of a later story video / in-game scene). We have talked of using all of the music as a potential "external" side-income to our Spearheads, Frontliners and Support medals; which is why we have talked a bit of adding the tracks to the shop, iTunes and BandCamp.com - anyone got ideas for other places or comments in general to this strategy?

Anyhow, going forward I will spend quite some time with the sound design, a lot of audio ideas and technicalities / coding going forward; this being approaches to  reverberation, sound occlusion (footsteps in particular) etc.

Maria (Mary)
CEO

"Mary reporting for duty! - During the last 3/4 of a year the sh--load of strange papers lying on Reese's desk has moved over to mine, so now it´s all my headache!

Those of you who are older Super Supporters (+30 medals) have already met me on mail, all you new - I´ll write in due time!! So as far as I´m able to, I will ease these creative perceivers from colorless admin tasks, and sometimes I´ll have the privilege to talk to You - the lovely community of Interstellar Marines!

When I´m not here at Zero Point wearing a big hat, I am Mrs ZPSHicks and mother of our three kids, working parallel to finish my Bsc.merc ... all for the love of the game! :)".