RETROSPECTIVE OF BKTESTS 01-03
We've put together a few thousand words and a video about the first three test builds for Brigador Killers.
At the
end of last month’s post
, we mentioned that there have been a number of Brigador Killers test builds (or BKTESTs as we call them) put out over the past eight months. In this post we’re going to cover some of what appeared in the first three BKTESTs with a series of clips of each in the video below. Each section is timestamped and a short explainer is provided.
Caveat as before that what you see is not indicative of the final product; this is us lifting the lid up and letting you take a look at the less glamorous side of game development. That means you’ll see jank like clunky animations and weapons not mounted properly, a distinct lack of things like new sound FX, while veterans of Brigador will recognize reused UI elements.
Please also note that some of the things mentioned in the previous news post, such as the in-level item acquisition or threat response escalation systems, are not yet implemented either. However, careful listeners keep an ear out –
you might hear something new in the first section
…
Lastly, in terms of timeline, BKTEST01 was pushed in December 2021, BKTEST02 was March 2022 and BKTEST03 was June 2022.
WATCH THIS IN A SEPARATE WINDOW SIDE-BY-SIDE WITH THE TEXT
BKTEST01: ALLPROPS LEVEL (00:00-01:37)
Various video games tend to have some form of level like this. In our case we refer to them internally as “zoo” levels (other games may refer to them as
dev rooms
depending on genre). In our case they are specific maps populated with every single type of a “thing” according to a particular category. This particular zoo map is every single “prop” (environmental assets like buildings or light poles) in every orientation needed, hence “allprops”. Most big props seen here are in four rotations, though smaller ones like signage (that we refer to as “minis”) will get more. The sprites for the props are rendered at a greater level of visual detail compared to the first game, though at this point in development there were no destruction sprites, so the buildings here are invincible despite being shot at occasionally.
As for the on-foot player character, this is
Tactical Dennis
, who currently serves as our placeholder for a plainclothes Brigador Killer with a temporary gun equipped.
BKTEST01: RACE TRACK (01:38-02:31)
As the name implies, this level is a small loop to drive around in. Visually it’s not very interesting, but this is the first implementation of two major things:
- Vehicle entry/exit
- Wheeled vehicle movetype
In BK you will be able to get into and out of vehicles like cars, tanks, mechs and so on. Currently the player character merely “teleports” into a vehicle provided they are close enough, which is indicated by the green debug circle around a vehicle (eagle-eyed viewers will also note the change in camera zoom upon Dennis entering a vehicle – a hint of things to come later).
Concerning the implementation of wheeled vehicles in this game’s engine, note that previous vehicle types were either tanks, stompy mechs, or floating agravs. Those of you who might be typing “
But what about the treadbikes?
” – sorry but those were technically just very narrow tanks. This is not the case for the muscle car in the footage.
With the new wheeled vehicle movetype we can do things like configure its mass, speed and acceleration as well as set the friction coefficient, the offset of the vehicle’s center of gravity and the stiffness at which it takes corners. In other words, we can recreate vehicles to handle as if they have front wheel drive or rear wheel drive. However, in this footage such specifics were not yet dialed in, so the cars appear very floaty and frictionless and can even be pushed around by the player character as if they’re on ice. It does not help that there are no engine sounds or visual effects like tread marks either. That said, because of this movetype we can do things like make the muscle car pull a somewhat convincing J-turn, which was not possible in the first game.
BKTEST01: CITYSCAPE (02:32-04:20)
This cityscape is a number of props placed down on top of new ground tiles such as the pavement and cracked tarmac, road markings, as well as grass tiles. The player character knocks over a few lamp posts, shoots a muscle car to destroy it and leave what’s called a “hulk”. They also get into an odd-looking vehicle that we use for testing purposes. Despite shooting at various things and crashing into objects, outside of the “mini” lampposts, the player can’t currently destroy anything because at this point neither trample damage nor destruction sprites are in the game.
BKTEST02: CITYSCAPE (04:21-11:25)
This build introduced a few things that may not be immediately apparent, chiefly:
- Player suit choice (which later affects incognito status)
- Infantry scale weaponry
- Running and crouching animations for on foot characters
- New road vehicles
- Morale system
We’re still reusing the old UI as a means to load our level. We have a new pilot portrait (whose face you’ll see on the video’s thumbnail) of “Kermit Carthew” which currently has no effect. The “vehicle” choice in the Freelance menu allows the player to choose what sort of suit they want to roll out in (plainclothes, police tactical rig, or Carmine Suit), which will affect what’s called their Incognito status upon loading into a level, although only the next build will show off non-hostile NPCs. Primary and Secondary are now weapon slots the player can switch between, and this BKTEST contains a selection of infantry-scale weapons to choose from (yes, even the Mãe Dois).
Initially the player picks out an RPG and an SMG, enters the level and we immediately see that we have actual night-time lighting compared to the previous build. The player blows up some new destructible props to drive a van through (because trample damage is still not in, so we can’t drive through), then comes across an NPC driving a muscle car. The player gets out, shoots at the vehicle and the NPC driving it bails from the vehicle, giving the first glimpse of the effects of the morale system.
WHAT IS THE MORALE SYSTEM?
In BK, NPCs and vehicles will have a morale threshold. A simple way to think of this system is as a separate invisible health bar that, when reduced by “morale damage”, will set off certain behaviors like escaping from a vehicle or fleeing from an area. Weapons or other effects like explosions can reduce a target's morale "health". In the footage the player damages the vehicle's morale (alongside inflicting regular damage), so the driver immediately bails, freeing up the muscle car's pilot slot and allows the player to take control of the vehicle.
The plainclothes player then comes up against a small police road block, unable to run them over (because, again, this build does not have trample damage in) and gets into a brief gunfight with pursuing cops.
The player then loads in with a police tactical rig equipped with a rifle and a
blooper
, and drives back to the same checkpoint to make quick work of it, before driving off to find more cops to deal with, and briefly finds a police motorbike to drive before switching to the Carmine Suit.
The player loads in with the suit, a Mãe Dois and an RPG, and sets about dealing with the level’s garrison of cops using both weapons. At one point in the footage infinite ammo was toggled on in the debug panel which is why the ammo counters go into the negative values towards the end.
BKTEST03: SHOOTING RANGE (11:26-14:44)
This build specifically contained:
- A shooting range and another cityscape nicknamed the “Broken Grid Arena”
- Uprezzed playable versions of the Spacer Arlo agrav and Rounder tank, and the Loyalist Betushka
- Mousewheel zoom
- “Threat” indicators
- “Flinch/flee” behavior
- Trample damage
- “Incognito” mode and non-hostile NPC behavior
- Destruction sprites for props
Much like the race track and allprops from BKTEST01, the shooting range is a test level that deliberately has a bunch of NPCs and props lined up so that we can test various things like weapons. We also see the new Arlo, Rounder and Betka lined up.
Most of the NPCs in this test level will not attack the player because of how we have their AI configured, save for the three boxed-in Rounder tanks that do a pretty good job of killing the player very quickly on sight, which signposts another major divergence BK is taking from the previous game. Those of you used to the higher difficulties of the first Brigador will be accustomed to being fired on immediately – and how we made that “fair” was to give enemies with high lethality weapons like the Zeus a very broad aim cone – but reproducing this same behavior in BK has turned out to be extremely unforgiving. So, at the edge of the screen in BKTEST03 we’ve provided threat indicators in the form of yellow “Caution” icons to telegraph danger to the player. Other things, like firing delays and weapon spin-up/spool up for guns to simulate more “human” reactions are being worked on in order to dial back the lethality of engagements.
Lastly, in a separate pen we have a number of Dennises and Nospol cops standing around. Although they are passive, when the Betushka opens fire you will see the Dennises scatter and Nospol crouching down - this is an instance of the flinch/flee behavior, which is tied to the morale system mentioned earlier. In short, depending on what sort of combat is going on, the crowd and cops may either attempt to run away or crouch down to lower their profile.
BKTEST03: BROKEN GRID ARENA (14:45-22:30)
The theme of Broken Grid Arena is a first attempt at making a level suitable for vehicular combat. Our objective is simple - take out a number of enemy Rounder tanks. The level's layout simultaneously allows for long sightlines as well as several chances at irregular intervals to break line of sight and flank.
For this final clip the player initially starts in plain clothes to demonstrate non-hostile NPC behavior. One thing we intend to do in BK is to allow the player the ability to scout out a level’s layout without entering combat. So, the player hops on a nearby motorbike, comes across an enemy Rounder tank that doesn’t fire on us… but does run them over (because trample damage is now in the game). Oops.
Restarting, the player jumps in the Betushka provided at the spawn, demonstrates the new mousewheel zoom function, does some prop destruction and takes another route through the level. Another Rounder ambushes the player off screen so the player deploys smoke, strafes around and gets some rear hits in. The encounter is brief but just one main cannon round from the Rounder was enough to take off all the player’s shields and deplete a chunk of the Betushka’s armor, so they go hunting for another vehicle.
The player finds an Arlo agrav beside a building, so they dismount from their Betushka and hop in to encounter a second Rounder and attempts to ambush it from the rear using its superior speed.
Restarting the level, the player finds an empty Rounder hidden inside some bamboo scaffolding. With this, the player immediately ambushes an idling enemy Rounder, taking it out with one well placed shot to the rear (for those not familiar, in the previous game, enemy vehicles will take additional damage on side and rear hits – though so will the player). The Rounder is bulky, can roll through props without too much trouble, and the player proceeds to ambush a second enemy Rounder from the rear. The player then gets into a straight one-on-one with a third Rounder and restocks some lost shields.
Elsewhere in the level are a number of other vehicles, such as the Tuk Tuk, which the player briefly takes a spin in. Around the 20:10 mark, the player drives the Rounder from side-to-side in front of some props to deliberately demonstrate the lighting system the game engine has. We won’t dwell on this point, but if you’d like a little more insight, feel free to
check out this brief twitter thread on the topic
.
Lastly, the player takes out a police checkpoint and two more Rounders, making use of the staggered layout of the props to juke the AI. In one instance you can see that an enemy Rounder “drops” two policemen fleeing from a destroyed Rounder that the player mops up with some MG fire. With the garrison of this level eliminated, the player ditches the Rounder, finds another Tuk Tuk, and races to the exit.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT AND WHAT’S NEXT
As said in the introduction, the first three BKTESTs have not yet covered the intended loop we want prospective players to engage in. However, that does not mean we didn’t learn anything from the BKTESTs. What is not mentioned in all of the above are the various hurdles that were involved just to ultimately produce such footage.
In terms of the art pipeline, several changes to the previous Brigador workflow had to be made in order for the assets to look “good” at the increased output resolution – but this doesn’t just apply to the static props. Coupled with the different zoom, the initial attempts at processing the new vehicles (“vehicles” here also includes the playable on-foot units) at 64 sprite rotations would often give the vehicles a sort of “jerkiness” as you drove them round corners. So, in order to produce “smoother” turns, vehicles like the muscle car are actually outputted at 128 rotations. It’s for this reason that no mechs are present in these builds yet because the animations for their lower halves are going to take time to get right. On the upshot, as a result of all this new work, the speed at which outputted sprites can be added to the game is significantly faster than what it was like for Brigador.
In terms of scope, we didn’t demonstrate it in these builds but the introduction of the pierce/penetration system for weapons that was briefly mentioned in last month’s post (but is explained in more detail
in this dev stream archive
) has added significant breadth to the amount of data work required. We knew this was going to happen and it’s important to do the due diligence because we’re establishing a foundation for a lot of other aspects of gameplay. If we did not, it would be
much
harder to alter such things further down the line.
BKTEST04 was recently pushed in August 2022, and it includes what we hope is a robust implementation of the pierce and penetration system for both various weapon and unit types. To give you an idea of what was involved, look at this abridged table by our designer that reflects the current implementation of eight tiers of damage against respective armor types.
The first BK alpha is our next milestone, which we’re currently looking to deliver around Halloween this year.
Finally, you may have missed it but we’re running another community survey among our player base. It’s seven short questions that’ll help us get to know you better, with an optional form at the end to leave your email address if you’d like to be entered into a raffle to win something from our merchandise store.
You will only be emailed if you win.
Be quick, you only have until Thursday, September 1, 2022 to leave your response.
Take Survey
ENCOUNTER 1 (00:00-05:11)
ENCOUNTER 2 (05:12-08:53)
ENCOUNTER 3 (08:54-12:08)
A FESTIVE ANNOUNCEMENT
