Progress Updates

For the time being (while the Indiegogo campaign is active) all progress made daily that is generally posted on this blog will instead be posted in the form of an update on the campaign page. For any newcomers that do not know where to find the campaign, follow the link below...

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/renewal-zombie-survival-indie-game/x/3972602?c=activity

-Tgb

P.S I have been doing updates in this form for the last 2 weeks approximately, so you may need to read all the updates if you want to catch up!

July 26th Progress

Bug fixes!

     Today I was able to fix several bugs that I have come across. Including XP gain glitches, invisible NPCs in some situations, and the HUD in the loot screen. There were several other small glitches fixed but it's too many small things to list.

     Anyways, the midnight attack system is done as far as I know. I have been testing it and haven't come across any bugs yet that I haven't been able to fix easily. I will be talking to my brother Skye (Skyepilot2) and asking him if he is available to make a background for the midnight attack system in which case I will be able to move on with development.

     Next thing to work on: I will be spicing up the combat system a little bit, speeding up AI turns and fixing issues with weapon accuracy, etc.

July 25th Progress

Midnight attack system almost complete.
Most of the code regarding the midnight attack system has been implemented. The only code left for this system is fixing a few bugs and glitches caused when fighting from inside the town. After these are fixed I will be moving on to the graphical/design portion of this system as there is barely any of the graphical design done yet. I am not worried about this portion looking perfect as of yet however. I am more focused on completing some other important features that I want done, then afterwards coming back and improving graphics in several aspects of the game.

-Tgb

Beta Download Open

Windows OS:
http://www.filefactory.com/file/9220qtyw043/Renewal_Beta_V1.0_Win.zip
Mac OS:
http://www.filefactory.com/file/39kr6trnv3vh/n/Renewal_Beta_V1_0_Mac_zip
Contact me if you have any questions, comments, concerns, or suggestions for the next release, as ideas are always taken into consideration with my own concepts!
Keep in mind this game is not in it's full state and you may notice less content then a full fledged game. Beta V1.0 is focused on the game engine and gameflow of the game not the content amounts.  There is bound to be a lot of content added throughout upcoming releases, as well as new and improved features. This being said, there are some known bugs in V1.0, which have been fixed already. However the known bugs barely effect gameplay and so will be released when V1.1 comes out.
That's all to say about it, have fun, and don't forget to give feedback in the end, it is always highly appreciated!

Midnight Attack System

All of the bugs that have been discovered by Beta testers up to this point have been fixed. I plan to move on with adding a few new items as I come up with how I am going to finish developing the midnight attack system.

For those that do not know what the midnight attack system is: Every midnight in the game, a horde of zombies hits the towns defences. If overrun, the town will have zombies spawning inside it until cleared out. This increases the push for survival because players are expected to not only fight to collect food and weapons, but also to barricade the town. After so many days of the town being overrun without being cleared I possibly want to make it impossible to clear making the game very challenging to survive at that point, but still possible. Certain town features would also be unavailable when the town is overrun (Hospital maybe?).

Contact me with feedback or suggestions at RenewalTheGame_Support@hotmail.com

-Tgb

Support the Developent!

Hey everyone it would be greatly appreciated if I could get some support at Renewals newly set up Indiegogo page. If you are not satisfied with the information posted on the blog feel free to read through all of the information on the page as well a watching the video I made of myself talking about Renewal! All support is appreciated, and I thank you for any contributions ahead of time. Here is the link:
http://igg.me/at/RenewalTheGame/x/1810132

Pledge your heart out ;)
-Tgb

Opening the game!

The game can be opened with Internet browsers, however I noticed many issues with playing through a browser including extreme lag so I suggest playing by opening the game file with the given standalone flash player that is included in the download! If you do not know how to do this do it as follows: Right click on Renewal Beta V1.0 (.swf) and clic on open with... Then choose browse for program and navigate to the game folder. Then select the Flash player within the folder to open the game with and it should work great!

-Tgb

Beta V1.0 Release!

I have not been updating the blog for the last couple of days simply because I was just fixing up all of the little issues I have come across before beta was ready. However it is here, and if you would like to see what is new why not try it out for yourself!

Beta version 1.0 is now complete. Links to the download(s) will be emailed to everyone who has signed up for beta. I did some testing on compatibility for the game as well for when it comes to OS. The following OS's are guaranteed compatible with Renewal Beta V1.0:
Windows XP (1)
Windows Vista (1)
Windows 7 (1)
Windows 8 (1)
Mac (2)

These 2 versions are both uploaded online and beta testers will be receiving a link to both. I am not sure if the windows version or Mac version will work on any other OS's as I do not have access to any other OS's... however you may feel free to test it out if you would like to.

It is not too late to sign up for beta, if you would like to be directed to the beta downloads please contact me at RenewalTheGame_Support@hotmail.com and you will be added to the beta list! All feedback is welcome and encouraged as I will need a bit of insight as to what needs to be done for Beta V1.1. I have a small list of criteria but I will need any bugs reported to me through the contact information above. There may be some that I have not came across at this point in time.

-Tgb

P.S If it would be easier to contact me through a facebook page or twitter page please do say so as it would be a simple thing to create for the good it may do :)

July 11th

NPCs were finished being added to the game today. As stated in yesterdays update the NPC position tracker was set up for Tech Tile Town in all the ways I could think of. Besides NPCs I wasn't able to complete very much. I ran into several issue while trying to update the general store's interiors and luckily was able to pass them all by the time my work came to an end today. But this did put a dent in the development cycle, pushing back the estimated finish time by about a full day. Originally I had planned for beta to release around July 18th, after speeding through NPCs, dialog, and quests, I was able to cut off a day from the estimated release. Therefore the estimated release date is now right back at July 18th :)

-Tgb

July 10th NPCs

Today I implemented more NPC features including casual NPC conversations with different dialog. I also spent a bunch of time developing a movement system for the NPC survivors. They will casually walk around a bit and stop and look towards you when you go to talk to them. It is set up so that any NPC can have quests once they are added to the quest list. So far I have implemented 3 of the 6 new survivors that will be walking the town, and there are still a few small fixes I would like to do. One fix that is quite important is an NPC position tracker  so when you leave the town and come back, NPCs will be where they were when you left (rather then resetting to defaults). Tomorrow I will finish the NPC development and move onto décor within stores as well as adding the already drawn store clerks.

-Tgb
Don't forget to email me at RenewalTheGame_Support@hotmail.com to answer any questions about development, or to SIGN UP FOR BETA!  

July 9th Quest and Dialog

Today was spent on fixing glitches within the quest system and dialog system as well as making some pretty big improvements. Pre dialog when going to accept quests has been added completely. A lot of code for the quest system and dialog system has been minimized to improve performance as well as make new implementations much easier/quicker. Gaining two levels at once (gaining one when you are still assigning skill points) has been fixed to actually work now.

The most notable feature of todays progress is the quests however, six all new quests were added to the game as well as the capability to have different quest givers. You can accept quests from Robert (originally), as well as Jeff and potentially any other NPCs I want to have quests. There will be more quests added however I am not sure if that will be after beta testing or if it will be before hand.

Just a couple minor touches with the quest system that I would like to fix up tomorrow morning before I move on to fixing and improving the world beyond scenes. Which in fact has also already been started, today weeds and trash/papers have been added as randomly generated décor to the world beyond scenes with the goal in mind of making it look somewhat more apocalyptic.

-Tgb

July 8th Progress

Now that the weekend is over I have accumulated a new list of bugs/issues which were all fixed sunday night and today, I have also gotten started on the new list of features needing to be done before beta release. I am almost positive I will be able to release beta by Friday if I keep working at this rate. Not much to be said however I am beginning to work on NPC movement and basic dialog for them. Hopefully I will be able to finish that by tomorrow night and continue on with graphics additions as well as quests.

-Tgb

July 5th progress

Today I was able to completely finish fixing all of the bugs and glitches I could find as well as make more improvements. The crafting feature has been re-implemented, and can now be accessed directly from inside the players house. A few pieces of character customizable content was added (still not much). Several major features were also fixed today such as the day and night cycle, and most importantly I was able to pinpoint and remove an error within the world beyond scenes that would cause a game freeze.

All together a majority of todays progress was done on the world beyond enemy spawn system, lootable spawn system, and technical fixes within the world beyond as well.

For this weekend I will be visiting Greenguy and Skyepilot, whom are both going to test the game and look for glitches/bugs to fix, as well as make suggestions for small improvements before beta. The only other things I am sure need to be done before beta are as follows:
-Add more quests (currently only one quest with all of the new features)
-Add more décor to world beyond scenes (weeds, trash, etc.)
-Add more décor to store scenes
-More weapons for sale in gun store
     -Create sprites for arrows and crossbow bolts
-Implement general store
-Add a few non-interactive NPCs to town
-Add store clerks in stores
-Add new path generators for the world beyond scenes (as well as fixing existing ones)
-Lastly to fix any issues found by Greenguy and skyepilot

-Tgb

July 4th Progress

Today I was able to finish  quite a bit in a short amount of time. With only about 4 hours spent developing the game today I was able to finish fixing the list that I came up with before, make some more minor improvements, and actually come up with some more things. A majority of todays development time was put into improving dialog and quests.

The action key (default enter) used for entering buildings and such, has a new long awaited feature. Such a small thing makes a big impact on the dialog system however. Pressing this key when talking will now skip to the end of the sentence/dialog rather than just skipping to the next dialog.

I also came across a program called TED notepad, which is proving to be extremely useful when creating new dialog for the game that has certain requirements to be met. This should help cut down on some of the future time spent on modifying/adding game dialog.

-Tgb

P.S Make sure to visit us here at the blog every day to make sure you don't miss out when precious information on Beta is released.

July 3rd Progress

More fixes and improvements were done today. Do not underestimate the amount of progress being made because there is little information for me to post about. A lot of progress done today was technical, and there were a lot of small fixes/improvements that would take too long to list individually. That being said there were some challenges I was faced with today, however I was able to overcome every one so far. Sound effects and visual information was added to many different areas within the game, and quite a bit of code was reduced by amount (reducing game size a bit and improving performance).

Similar work will be continued tomorrow, and then I should be ready to move on again!

-Tgb

July 1st and 2nd Progress

For most of what I have been working on over the last couple days, it has been small things. No huge features to be implemented so I have begun to go over the game and fix it up. I tested the game as it is now and came across quite a few problems. A large portion of these problems were fixed already with a few still to go. In addition to fixing many bugs/glitches I was also able to adjust a couple things and make some minor improvements including:
-Sound FX created/enhanced
-Sound FX implemented into several clickable features/menus
-Skills information display has been improved
Lastly, a fairly embarrassing mistake that I actually hadn't noticed until just recently, the in game time went through 61 minutes in an hour (e.g.  7:60, then 8:00)

Greenguy and Skyepilot have also jumped in to help me with getting renewal ready for beta. Greenguy is working on making some indoor decore for the shops, while Skyepilot is fixing up some small errors made in the World Beyond Generator.


Tomorrow I will continue to fix up the rest of the glitches I have found as well as making small improvements still.

-Tgb

P.S Getting pumped to release beta version soon!
Don't forget to sign up for beta if you haven't already by sending an email to: RenewalTheGame_Support@hotmail.com

Item Quota Reached

Over the weekend I was able to complete my goal of creating 50 new items. They are now ready to be implemented as soon as I have stats made up for them. I spent a lot of time making several bladed weapons, as well as some food and other unique weapons. For now I will give you a sample of 5 of the new items.

Canned Corn

Zedd Colt

Cross Bow

Bowie Knife

Katar

-Tgb

June 27th Progress [Stores Purchase Functionality Complete]

So I have been working hard all day and have finished off with some very promising results, as well as some screenshots to keep you up to date. As you know I wasn't able to complete the store feature in just one day's work, however it is now completely finished and looking pretty good if I do say so myself. A special feature I threw in was the purchase of multiple items at once, making it possible to purchase ammo in bulk. This feature also has a clickable bar to skip ahead and back as much as you want for the amount you are going to purchase.

Without further ado here are todays screenshots:

 

 

For this weekend I plan to complete a total of at least 50 items. Including weapons, foods, and resources. I am writing out a list tonight and will give myself from tomorrow until Sunday to complete all 50. If I finish before Sunday I will continue to finish up with some other things that need to be done with the game before it is ready for beta.

 

-Tgb

 

P.S. For any questions, or to sign up for Beta, please contact me at RenewalTheGame_Support@hotmail.com

June 26th Progress

As planned today I was able to work on the actual store feature of the game (purchasing/selling) though you cannot completely buy or sell things yet, the GUI is almost complete and the information set up is also nearly complete. As promised I have a screenshot of todays progress, and will be continuing on with this feature tomorrow. I will be finishing it, then touching it up before moving on.

This screenshot displays a simple layout of the "gun store" which currently only has 2 weapons (Page 0[Will be 1]) for sale as well as one ammo type (Page 1[Will be 2]). The third tab underneath the main box will be used to present your money as well as the cost of the selected weapon.

Some other small glitches/bugs were also fixed today including but not limited to;
-Bright Background for some items
-Collisions within runtime generated scenes


On another note here is the newest trailer for Renewal, I noticed I forgot to post a link to the trailer on here. If you enjoy the trailer please feel free to comment on it and share it with your friends

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eX8vAGWmaVs

 

 

-Tgb

Exams Done

Now that exams are done I am putting more time into the production of renewal. Today there isn't much to say about new stuff that would be noticeable to any gamers however. Today I am/have been working on the store generation feature. I have completely implemented a fill feature and a quadrilateral feature to help generate the interior of new buildings. Still to finish is the Row and Column feature which I am working hard at now, should be able to finish it within an hour and move on.

Once the GUI for purchasing or selling to store NPC's I completed I will upload some screenshots for everyone to see. However this work may take a while since I still need to design it and make the graphics.

-Tgb

June 15th - Size Reduction

Today I was able to implement a whole new system for scenes to come. This includes potentially hundreds of stores and world beyond regions to visit and explore. Rather than using up large amounts of file size for every new region/building to be added I was able to create some code that will allow every region/store to use the same basic file.

In normal English this means that for every new location added to the game, the actual file size for Renewal will only increase by approximately 1 KB (give or take). However this does not include any graphics that need to be added for the particular locations. 

Besides that I was also able to create a few more decore items for the interior of stores, etc.

-Tgb

P.S There should be new screenshots up sometime this week if time permits it.

June 10th Progress

      Today I was able to finish up some new indoor decorations/tilesets for the hospital scene. There are two floors, and a staircase up even higher that is blocked off. Not much else to be said for the time being, the nurse NPC is almost complete as well but has not been implemented yet. Next up: Other Stores!

Screenshots:

June 1st Progress

Today I was able to finish up on more of the GUI and midnight attack feature. The newly added GUI has a toggle feature, allowing you to render it invisible, therefore getting it off of your screen. I made some major modifications to the equation regarding size of the midnight attack, to ensure that the game doesn't get impossible to survive after so long.

Here are some sections of screenshots regarding the new features. The top banner (red) is the day number you are on (days survived). The second (green) banner represents the strength of the upcoming midnight attack. Lastly, the third (blue) banner represents the strength of your towns defences/survivors. The second screenshot is just displaying the toggle feature, when this section of the HUD is toggled off (via the small blue button).

I have done some calculating and discovered that in the course of 30 minutes (real time) a full day (in game) passes by. This gives you plenty of time to get your town going good and to focus on quests and collecting supplies during the early days of the game.

 

 

Possible Ideas:

-When a zombie is killed in the world beyond, strength of midnight attack is weakened

-Midnight attack will damage/lower town defences making it more vital to build up defences each day.

-(A) Option to give NPCs weapons to increase the towns defences (gives a use for outdated weapons)

   OR

-(B) Building to construct that allows storage of weapons for backup defence (if barricades are breached)

-When zombie count exceeds defences, town gets overrun.

 

 



 

 

May 31st Progress

Today I was able to implement quite an important feature. I came up with a series of equations to determine the size of the midnight attack (progressively gets stronger - some days may have a couple less zombies, depending on chance).

The days you have survived in the town are now tracked, but do not begin until you have completed the first quest for Robert. (Need to complete this quest before leaving town).

Fixes: I was able to fix several glitches in the quest system, in some cases where rewards were not actually received. When talking to NPC's there was also a glitch where you could walk around sometimes, that was also fixed.
Several other minor glitches were fixed.

There are no screenshots for todays progress unfortunately. Tomorrow, I will continue working on the midnight attack feature (graphics) and possibly move onto more interior for the hospital/stores in town.

Request: Beta Testers (13/100)

I have been working very hard lately to finish up with some big features of Renewal and have just recently been touching up on a lot of the small things. Rather than making a post on all of the new things/features that have been added to the game since 0.4.2 I have thrown together a short trailer. Some of the screenshots contained in this trailer show features that are new, and some may include features that are not really visible (Sound effects, functions, etc).

Exam time is rapidly approaching again so I am not sure how much time I will be able to fit in to working on Renewal over the next few weeks, but I will try my best to update the blog when I find time to add new things.

If you are interested in being a beta tester for V0.5, please contact me at RenewalTheGame_Support@hotmail.com
I am currently holding at a limit of 100 (MAX.) beta testers so if you are interested, contact me ASAP. However this limit may be modified.
I am currently expecting beta testing versions of 0.5 to be released around July 2013. Mainly for the fact that I will need to add a lot of content (items, skills, weapons, etc.) before it is ready.

-Tgb
Current Beta Testers (13/100)

Back to the Code

Today I finished setting up all the new graphics for inside the town and completed all of their collision sets (Minor fixes still needed). This means I am now able to get back to work on the code part of the game, however it may take a while to re-implement the current written code with the new graphics and files. Hope I can show you guys some promising screenshots soon! :)

1 Year in Development!

Today marks 1 year in development for Renewal. There are some exciting changes that I have been working on, Tech-Tile Town and the world beyond are both being completely re-mastered with new graphics and... lots more!

-Tgb

0.5 Sneak Peak

   We finally have some more news for you guys, we've been working hard towards the next release. I understand it has been a while since you have heard from us so I figured it would be important to let you know that the development of the game continues and we are still adding more and more things to make the game a "complete" game.

0.5 is going to be our biggest update yet which is why it is taking so long. There was not enough new content in the previous updates so we are combining a lot more content into one large update next. I would not like to mention a lot on what to expect but have thrown together a small image as a sneak peak to get your brains going on what is coming to Renewal in the near future. There are plenty of fixes with controls and other glitches that have been occuring but you will hear more on that once the release is actually made, but for now enjoy our little sneak peak and let us know what you're thinking of this idea...

Also, I am planning on releasing just a simple version of this new amazing feature for everybody to test out online and see what they think, but I will need to put a little bit more work into it before it is ready :)

-Tgb