https://store.steampowered.com/app/3695630/Project_Landsword/

Landsword is finally up on Steam! Please visit the page and wishlist it.

Thank you

First off, I want to say a massive thanks to everyone who donated since I uploaded the last build. To each and every one of you, if you donated even a dollar — thank you.  The response has been overwhelming and it means a lot that so many people believe in this project even when the updates are infrequent and there's no set date when the next one is released. Seriously, thank you all!

I would also like to thank everyone who made videos on the game and provided feedback and support in the comments, it's greatly appreciated as well.

Progress

A lot of work has been done since the current build, although a solid amount of it is invisible since it's boring things like rewriting the save, redoing the settings menus, adding basic gamepad support, and code optimization.

Effects

I did manage to recruit some outside help with programming shaders, and now we can have sandstorms and other weather effects in the game.

Mars is a lot like Australia.

Some improvements to the in-game particles and details have also been made.

I felt the grubs weren't very satisfying to kill, so a major update to their tile and particle effects was done on top of a few improvements to optimization and their behavior. In the future there will be a mission where you'll need to tread carefully since they can burrow underground and ambush you at close ranges:

Old test (v.0.6.2)

The second mission right now is really lacking in structures for them to topple and destroy. Half the fun of it is running away and seeing them wipe out a city block behind you, but I didn't want to duplicate the first mission's level and just change the enemies so I ended up making the gardens level as a placeholder. I still want there to be some kind of massive palace structure that the player completely defaces while trying to protect.

Horrifically compressed footage, but you get the point.

More organic enemies are also in the works. Starship Troopers and EDF was a big influence, so much so that I originally didn't even intend for there to be actual mech enemies that you fight, however after playtesting I figured they're just too much fun not to have.

Options / accessibility

I've been saying that the menu was going to be redone with some extra options for much too long. The next build has settings completely revamped now with separate tabs. Control rebinding for ZQSD and other keyboard configurations is now available, as well as different ways to launch grenades.

You can also now select from four different kinds of aim reticles and an aim assist line, so it should be much easier to see now.

New weapons

2 hour parking only!

The main in-game HUD of the game has been reworked to be a bit more readable and less distracting. I ended up getting rid of the white borders around each element since I felt they made the screen feel a bit busy.

Smoothbore cannon

They're barely 12 pixels on screen, but spent shells and SABOT casings are discarded every time you fire. This weapon is a lot of fun to use despite its simplicity, you can two-shot enemies but it requires accurate aiming.

Landmines.

The headlights still draw over buildings, I need to figure out a way to fix them. It's a challenging problem to solve while keeping things optimized using the current drawing method.

I've also been working on a melee weapon that functions like a close range slash so you can sneak up behind enemies and do stealth takedowns. Well, as stealthy as a two-story mech exploding can be.

New missions

I've been working on some new areas. Below is a construction site from one of the new missions. One of the most rewarding parts of development is detailing these little vehicles and structures, it's like making a scale diorama.

Every single object in this scene is destructible, of course.

I think that a few of the missions right now feel kind of empty or not lived in enough, so I'm trying to increase the amount of small objects and details to bring a bit more life into the world. Maybe I'll add some roads with automatically spawning cars that drive down levels. They could be robot taxis so you don't have to worry too much about civilian casualties depending on the mission.

You can also now crash right through small building structures, you won't get stuck on car sized sheds anymore.

There's a lot more art and features that I'm very excited to share with you all, but they require a bit more polish before they're ready to show off. Some content such as new enemies and artwork I'd like to keep as a surprise when the next update is released. I hope it'll be worth the wait.

FAQ

The link on the game's main menu doesn't work.

Turns out this wasn't the fault of the game engine, but rather that browser technology has evolved and no longer supports the protocol that it uses to open the link. Everything has moved on and is forced to run on ManifestV3. I'll find a fix for it though.

Why are you using an old game engine?

Simply put — I like it. I figured if I'm going to be spending years working on a project, I'll use the engine I'm most comfortable with. The newer engine runs fine on my computer and is superior in terms of optimization and features, but I'm not a fan of the completely redesigned user interface or all the unnecessary animations. There's a small holdout of people still using GMS1.4 and even GM8 from the early 00s for the same reason. It's just nicer to use.

A small upside to using an old engine is that the tiny minority of people out there still running legacy OS and 32-bit hardware have told me they can boot the game up and it runs great.

I'll most likely be porting the game to GMS2 when time comes for final release so I can have a few extra compatibility settings - particularly support for 120hz monitors and the newer Steam SDK, but for now I'll continue using GMS 1.4.

Is the game 2D or 3D?

Completely 2D. Nothing uses actual 3D models, just stacks of sprites and billboards when possible.

It's both a blessing and a curse...

What's up with the size of buildings? Will you make some city levels that have realistically sized roads and traffic?

Most of the levels so far are basically scattered clumps of buildings without roads or paths clearly connecting them together. I had experimented early on with more realistic scaling and roads, but I found that things were either A: too large, or B: not very fun to play in.

If I was to scale the buildings realistically, a good chunk of them would fill up more than half of the view, and levels would be so massive that they just wouldn't be fun to play in. You can imagine how tiny and insignificant the player's mech would be if you were in the traffic here:

This would be a cool game for about 3 minutes until you realize most of it is just going in a straight line on massive stretches of empty roads. There's a reason few top-down perspective games have realistically sized city levels - they're pretty, but not fun to play in. 

Some of the scaling in the game is thus greatly exaggerated in order to keep things readable and fun to play. Due to this it's also very difficult to put clear roads and highways on the map, unless everything is aligned into a grid like the first mission. That works fine for a few levels, but if all of them are like that it'll get old fast.

Who's the redhead who pops up in the corner?

Her name is Val. You'll be seeing a lot more of her soon.

Is there going to be a story? Other characters?

Hopefully. I'm trying to avoid the mercenary angle. It's very easy to do the whole "you're an employee of company X, you've been hired by company Y, go kill Z for them" but I find it to be overdone at this point, especially after Armored Core VI's release. I'd like to do something different, but I haven't come up with a plot that I find particularly compelling.

I'll probably have an option when you start the game to just turn the story off and auto-skip everything regardless. I realize some players probably don't care in the slightest about a plot or setting, so I don't want to bore them with it.

When's the next build coming?

It'll be out when it's ready. I'd like every release to have major changes to the game rather than incremental tweaks where you get just one new weapon and maybe a couple bugs fixed.

Why not push out a build now with just the quality of life improvements?

I had considered doing this since some of these features have been hotly requested (high contrast reticles, mission scores not overwriting, etc) but the issue is the settings menu is intertwined with many other new features that aren't fully finished, so it's not really possible for me to just go back to the current build and drag over the new controller assets and call it a day. Sorry.

Are there any plans to localize the game into other languages?

Definitely. I think I'll probably do it when the game is nearly finished rather than going back and changing a bunch of separate scripts every release.

Thank you all again for your continued support and interest!

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask below. I'm always happy to answer.