Development so far

The Survival Factory is a game where you build a factory and then defend it. Imagine if Satisfactory and Left 4 Dead had a baby. Also throw in some roguelike randomness in terms of how the player unlocks or upgrades weapons. Now you've got the basic idea.

But for a first devlog post here, I figure it would be good to show/talk about what I've already done and how far I have to go. And I should mention, so far everything in the game, with few exceptions, is created by me. I do the coding, model creation, UV, texturing, and animating. The only things I have not made on this project so far are sound effects and music.

I'd divide the game up into three major components: combat stuff, factory stuff, and environment stuff. 

Combat stuff

Right now the combat stuff feels good, even as incomplete as it is. The player starts with a sword, then later (optionally) unlocks a rifle, shotgun, and rocket launcher. The juiciness is partway there to being fully satisfying: blood decals from hitting enemies, hit sparks, enemies flinching and getting stunned. But I've yet to do a full pass on the 'feel' of the weapons, and I'm definitely not ready to call this done.

There are also other weapons I want to add before releasing anything.

Enemy pathfinding was a major issue. I spent some number of months trying to find a decent way to have enemies pathfind in a dynamic environment where buildings are placed and destroyed. With the added complexity that all the enemies have jetpacks and will fly to any location that they cannot reach by walking. Fortunately, this has now been (mostly) solved, and that means one of the biggest obstacles to the project is complete.

I'm currently part way through replacing the placeholder weapon models. Here's some of the new stuff.

Factory stuff

The foundations of the factory are done. The player can create transporters which move resources around, such as feeding them into a factory building or a turret. Turrets also use the resources as ammo. 

The factory mechanics are sufficiently arcade-y and simplified compared to something like Satisfactory. In a game where enemies come in and attack what the player has created, it's essential that repairs are not a long process. 

Many of the factory assets at least have a 'good enough' placeholder that I think they will have to do for a first release. At least, to me they don't seem to distract from the game.

However, the factory side of things requires at least one more building which combines the three resource types meaningfully. Right now the resources are mined, moved, processed by one building, and can be stored in another. So the hardest technical aspect of the factory stuff is done, and what mostly remains is properly designing and balancing it so that the player is making meaningful choices.

Environment stuff

The environment is, by necessity, procedural and minimalist. So far the environment has a semi-horror vibe with the environment being somewhat dark and foggy, where a flashlight helps but is not required to see. I feel like this tone is working well.

I plan to add some alien trees or plants of some kind, as well as some rocks.

But I don't want to go down the path of handmade levels, which would be time consuming and eat up precious dev time.

Conclusion

Looking at my github milestones for this project, the 'General release' tasks are at 63% completion with 20 open issues (and 35 closed). The art assets milestone is 28% complete with 20 open issues (and 8 closed).