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Project Haven - dystopian tactical RPG where you lead mercenary company striving for survival

Bester

⚰️☠️⚱️
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The truth is out! I've renamed a file on my desktop from "New Text Document.txt" to "to do list.txt". Its name now represents what it stands for.
#ToDo Same file - just a different name! :dance:
 

Infinitron

I post news
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Joined
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Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/443190/view/3050606670501212451

June Development Update

Greetings Steel Dragons!

It’s been a while since we’ve given you a peek at development on Project Haven on Steam but if you’ve been following us on social media or our Discord then you may have already seen some of these exciting details. We’ve been hard at work making sure that this gritty dystopian story is as fun, immersive and nerve-wracking as it can be. Project Haven is our attempt to fill a niche that has gone unfilled for decades now - a story-rich, immersive squad tactics game with co-op, PvP and all the simulation-style details you’d expect of the classics.

If you’re dying to dive into the world for a closer look, there will be a playable demo available from June 16th to June 22nd during the Steam Game Festival Summer Edition. We are also honored to have discovered that our game Project Haven has been featured in the Strategy game section by Steam! Watch the Feature on Youtube:

Everything you’ll see in this Alpha Demo is a work-in-progress but will contain the first three campaign missions as well as a taste of Project Haven’s 4 player online co-op.

In the meantime, here are just some of the updates we’ve been working on:
  • Updated Aiming System

    We’ve updated our aiming system so now you can spend extra action points to increase your merc’s accuracy incrementally up to a maximum determined by your character’s skills, weapon and mods. This allows you a more fine grained control over your aiming and action points, while also opening up opportunities for further customization of your characters!



  • Updated AI Behaviors

    We’ve also updated the AI, one of the most significant changes is if an idle enemy spots one of your characters from far away now they can go investigate, opening up a whole world of sneaky ambush tactics!

  • Destructible Cover

    Not all cover is the same. Some types will deflect bullets, some can be pierced and some just blow up when shot, so be careful when choosing which one you get behind.



  • Improved UI

    To improve readability of available options for the player we’ve added some new features to the interface, including adding an icon on nearby vault/mantle points, highlighting usable objects and visibility indicators between the enemies and the player mercenaries.



  • Cameras

    We recently revealed a new challenge that you and your Steel Dragons will be facing. In Project Haven cameras can pose as a roadblock for your path, but can also be an opportunity with the right skills.
With all these new and updated features Haven City is just waiting to be explored. The Project Haven campaign will feature handcrafted maps each telling a story about its residents and its history. Illuminated by flashes of firefights, you can expect to feel as though you’ve just stepped right into a warzone. Explore clogged streets, broken down slumburbs, dark alleyways and more.



We’re incredibly pleased with what we’ve accomplished with Project Haven so far and seeing the gaming community enjoy our game as much as we do is incredibly exciting.
We’re also incredibly pleased to share you with the recent accolades Project Haven has received:
  • The Big Indie Pitch, PC Edition - First Place (2020)
    • By participating in this event we hoped we would receive some valuable feedback but coming away the winner of The Big Indie Pitch left us incredibly pleased.

  • Epic MegaGrants Recipient (2020)
    • Epic Games awarded us a MegaGrant, a fund which will help us continue the work that we’ve been doing, and we were absolutely thrilled by their support and recognition.

  • WN Dev Contest Best Game Winner (2021)
    • Project Haven is the squad tactics game to keep an eye on, according to the judges of the WN Dev Contest. We were super happy to have earned two Best Game awards out of more than 550 entrants.
e625f88c3955f9637a3dce5def5aa16ecaae6a29.png


Thank you!

We can’t thank our community enough for your continued support for Project Haven and we can’t wait to show everyone more and continue to impress!


108711a5cd423ddc4be25dcf1902a07aab4244a1.png



Don’t forget you can also join our community on Discord or Reddit, along with following us on our social media:

Twitter:
@code351

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/code351games
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/code351games/
 

Infinitron

I post news
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Joined
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Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Tomorrow:



https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/443190/view/4624614923952708723

Play the Demo and watch the Dev Livestream!
Greetings, Steel Dragons!

The contract is signed, the intel is verified - it’s time to lock, load and earn your slice of the pie in the Project Haven demo, available from June 16th. Let’s see what you’ve got.

93f2c88a98f5eb28bbc1d12565aa7e10134c2695.gif

What's in the demo?
Launching as part of the Steam Next Fest, the demo represents an early (Alpha stage) slice of what you can expect from the full game. You’ll be able to enjoy some basic merc training, three hand-crafted story missions (playable solo or co-op) and really dive deep into our advanced combat engine in Skirmish mode.

What about Skirmish Mode?
Yep, we’re letting you loose on the procedurally generated streets of Haven city. Playable solo, co-op or in PvP, Skirmish mode will provide you with near-infinite combat scenarios featuring four of our starting mercs and no shortage of Brotherhood goons to ventilate.

What's different from previous demo?
For those of you who played our previous pre-alpha demo, you’ve got an updated tutorial and two new story missions to look forward to, as well as new gameplay mechanics, a second NPC to get missions from, and a bucketload of smaller tweaks and fixes.

9602e8f1cb97a5182edd90ff42ce7679522e02c5.gif

When is the Livestream?
We (the dynamic duo known as Code Three Fifty One) will also be streaming the game on the 16th. Be sure to tune in on our Steam store page at 7pm BST, 2pm Eastern or 11am Pacific, depending on where in the world you’re tuning in from. Set a reminder and come see how badly our own AI wrecks us.

We appreciate all your feedback!
As this is an early demo, we’re hoping to hear feedback from players on what works, what you love and what needs improvement. We’re only a two person outfit, but we reckon that we’re punching well above our weight here; throw down the gauntlet and we’ll see what we can do.

Where to find us?
Lastly, if you haven’t already, please join our Discord channel to connect with us and like-minded mercs, and (of course) wishlist the game on Steam, and tell your tactically minded friends to do the same. It really gives indie studios like us a boost. Thanks!


See you on the mean streets June 16th. Don’t forget to pack extra ammo.
2a8b8a923782e8333cd985809650da6289eafac2.png


Code Three Fifty One
 

Harthwain

Magister
Joined
Dec 13, 2019
Messages
4,691
I played the demo a bit. Some thoughts:

  • It turns out your character can't do 360 degrees spin in place. You have to spend a point to "look" the way you want first.
  • Having long weapon close to an enemy will make you unable to fire it (which means you want short guns for CQC).
  • Sometimes characters would get stuck when trying to cut the corner during movement.
  • Double L-click to move is kind of annoying. I'd prefer a single click instead.
  • You can run, but then you have to "prepare" your weapon after, meaning running'n'gunning takes extra action points.
  • In general I like how in-depth your AP management is. Reminds me a lot of Jagged Alliance. Visually it feels a lot like Phantom Doctrine, which isn't bad comparison in my book.
  • AI appears to not be brain-dead. I had one enemy run away and thought I will need to search the whole map. At some point I decided to keep one character covering the VIP and guess what? That clown I was looking for showed up right after I set up the overwatch next to the VIP a turn before! It could be a fluke though...
  • The dialogues are stiff and the humour is even worse.
 

Beowulf

Arcane
Joined
Mar 2, 2015
Messages
1,963
Ok, installed it and gave it a go - seems like it's the same levels (at least it's starting with the same one) but with more polish?

EDIT:
Ok, got my answer:


What's different from previous demo?
For those of you who played our previous pre-alpha demo, you’ve got an updated tutorial and two new story missions to look forward to, as well as new gameplay mechanics, a second NPC to get missions from, and a bucketload of smaller tweaks and fixes.
 

udm

Arcane
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Messages
2,752
Make the Codex Great Again!
Feedback in case re.var ever comes back here:

- The UI is still atrocious; information's still all over the place. It looks cool in screenshots and all, but it's so disjointed in-game ("how much AP do I have left? How many bullets?"). It doesn't help that the font sizes are so small. This is the biggest turnoff IMO.
- I'm starting to get annoyed by the snapping to cover, which is unnecessary given the mechanics the game already has. It forces my character to turn rather than face straight ahead when I want them to, and yes, I do know that you can turn manually, but every AP counts. You also can't peek when not in cover, which is annoying.
- Camera is hard to navigate and confusing when you have characters on multiple floors. There should be buttons/hotkeys for navigating them.
- Stealth is... eh, it's ok, but I don't know why sometimes melee attacks take 2AP, while other times it takes 5AP. The other problem I see with Stealth is that you can easily juke and cheese enemies once you've memorised their locations, like a partial auto-win. I don't have any solutions to this though, so I'd love to hear what the rest think.
- Feature request: please implement a button and hotkey to initiate turn-based combat. Freeform Mode is clumsy and my mercs keep tripping over each other.

Apart from what's been said, I still have high hopes for this being the Finnish game that we may never get. :P
 

Infinitron

I post news
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Messages
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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth


One of the most requested quality of life improvements was the ability to move and look in a single action. And now it's implemented! As an added bonus you can combine it with strafe for some 'slice the pie' action!
 

Abu Antar

Turn-based Poster
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Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth


This week we've adjusted the cover mechanics of Project Haven. When leaning out of cover characters will now expose less of themselves, and they can now take a side step in aiming mode without having to go back to top down view!
 
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Glory to Ukraine
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Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming!
I played the demo and the game certainly has good foundations, though there is still a huge amount of clunkyness. Whether the devs can polish it enough will be decisive factor here.

Characters and diaglogues are a huge problem (I guess the devs think they are funny... well they are not), but I would be able to stomach them provided the gameplay is good.
 

Abu Antar

Turn-based Poster
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Joined
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Messages
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Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/443190/view/4184391141858882719
July Development Update
Greetings Steel Dragons!

It has been a few weeks since the Steam Next Fest, and we hope you’ve had fun playing the Project Haven demo. While still relatively early in development (we’re officially still in alpha and almost everything is still subject to change), we feel it represents our vision for the game going forward, and we’ve been overjoyed with the positive response to it so far. We’ve been relatively quiet since the festival, as we’ve returned to our natural, subterranean home in the Code Mines, slowly excavating the bits and bytes required to construct the final game.

You talkin’ to me?
From the feedback we received on the demo, we’ve identified and squashed a lot of the biggest issues with the game already. Check out our Twitter feed to see some of our smaller updates. Still, one element clearly stood out as especially divisive among players - our combat bark system. While it’s functioning as intended, players are split on whether it brings flavour to the battles or just adds unnecessary noise to the battlefield, and player response varies a lot between characters.


While we’re tweaking some lines of dialogue to better represent battlefield conditions and our thematic intent, we’ll be taking a hard look at ways for players to control the frequency and intensity of combat chatter.

Move like you mean it
Beyond that, we’ve been focusing on character pathing to make sure that characters no longer wiggle into locations that they can’t path their way out of. On the subject of movement, we’ve implemented a whole new advanced technique - a combined ‘slice the pie’ command that allows characters to strafe their way around an obstacle while maintaining aim on a fixed point. A great technique for passing a potentially deadly doorway, as you can see in this clip:


We’ve also improved how characters move when leaning around cover. Characters can now take a half-step out of cover to get a better look around a corner at the cost of a single action point, or just lean slightly to minimise the amount of meat you’re exposing to incoming lead.


And because you should never skip leg day, we’ve added more Crouch and Prone options to the UI. You can now perform these actions through the radial menu or via the action bar. Of course, true operators have their hotkeys memorized to keep that workout going all battle long.

741832287d259bf405aa60a064de193913333143.gif


On the subject of UI improvement, your character’s planned movement path is now fully visible during Free Mode. You’ll see a continuous line drawn along your planned movement path, instead of just the dashed version during Turn-based mode.

7e929fca0103073efeaafb6201704363fd95849e.gif


And one frequently requested quality-of-life improvement: You can now hold the Middle Mouse button to open up a whole new world of camera movement options, for when you absolutely need the perfect angle on a firefight.

05d7aa1865621bcfcb7b11edd741d21f236afb29.gif


The Future Of Combat, Tomorrow
And we’ve got plenty more changes in the pipeline. The UI is getting some more love across the board to both make it quicker and easier to use, but also present more pertinent info to players at all times. We’ll also be implementing a way to control camera visibility especially within buildings to better navigate in those situations.

We’re massaging the brains of our AI grunts so that they’ll have a more natural range of behaviours. Right now they’re either very deadly who’ll set up the perfect shot, or blind to the easiest opportunity. Plus, some bugs have been identified causing NPCs to play less-than-optimally.

And we’re really going deep into the brains of our characters to tweak their combat barks. We’ll be adding new lines to cover more possible scenarios and reduce repetition of dialogue, and increase the amount of interaction and combat banter between characters. Plus, some clumsier lines are either getting axed or rewritten to better convey the tone we want to project.

These are only some of the improvements we’ll be making, but stay tuned for more updates!

(Dream)hack the planet
Some of you might have noticed that we’ve taken our Steam demo down. Don’t feel bad, though - it served its purpose well, and it has been safely recycled. A new and updated demo featuring some of the improvements mentioned above will be rolling out on July 24th, coinciding with our appearance at Dreamhack Beyond! Fans can claim free digital ticket events here, or just return here on Steam to try out the latest version.
e4822c4bc85714b23efb80d360f6a8c9714f5df7.gif


We’ll also have an even further improved version of the demo ready for you all to enjoy later in August, where we’ll be making a (digital) appearance at Gamescom. Stay tuned, wishlist and follow Project Haven on Steam for updates as and when they happen in your news feed. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and join our community Discord either. It’s where all the cool kids hang out.

We’re doing numbers
And to wrap up, some interesting statistics from our time at the Next Fest:
  • Almost 700 of you left us comments. We love to hear from you!
  • Most players (72%) played the demo in Normal mode. 20% played on Easy, and only 8% challenged Hard or Insane modes.
  • 74% of you turned off the profanity filter. You clearly like your mercs rude and crude.
  • A mere 5% played the demo in co-op mode. Next time round, give it a spin! The game is designed for co-op from the ground up, so share the fun with a friend.

Thanks for your time, and we’ll see you all at Dreamhack!
 

re.var

Code Three Fifty One
Developer
Joined
Jun 23, 2020
Messages
27
Feedback in case re.var ever comes back here:

- The UI is still atrocious; information's still all over the place. It looks cool in screenshots and all, but it's so disjointed in-game ("how much AP do I have left? How many bullets?"). It doesn't help that the font sizes are so small. This is the biggest turnoff IMO.
- I'm starting to get annoyed by the snapping to cover, which is unnecessary given the mechanics the game already has. It forces my character to turn rather than face straight ahead when I want them to, and yes, I do know that you can turn manually, but every AP counts. You also can't peek when not in cover, which is annoying.
- Camera is hard to navigate and confusing when you have characters on multiple floors. There should be buttons/hotkeys for navigating them.
- Stealth is... eh, it's ok, but I don't know why sometimes melee attacks take 2AP, while other times it takes 5AP. The other problem I see with Stealth is that you can easily juke and cheese enemies once you've memorised their locations, like a partial auto-win. I don't have any solutions to this though, so I'd love to hear what the rest think.
- Feature request: please implement a button and hotkey to initiate turn-based combat. Freeform Mode is clumsy and my mercs keep tripping over each other.

Apart from what's been said, I still have high hopes for this being the Finnish game that we may never get. :P

Didn't get notified of the tag, but I saw the message on the backend :salute:

- UI will get a overhaul closer to release, we've been cramming stuff into it forever now, but we still have a few more things to put in there, so we want to make sure we don't run into the same issue twice.
- We've added a new mechanic so you can control the end-of-movement direction without having to use look. Check the "Look and Move" video on the post above. Should solve most of the issues with that.
- As for the camera, we have the floor visibility planned, similar to Silent Storm.
- Melee should always takes 5AP, maybe a bug? That stealth missions is pretty scripted since it's just a tutorial essentially, with patrolling enemies and random spawning locations it'll be harder to cheese it that way.
- Free Mode will be a toggle when available! But we're fixing the mercs tripping over eachother though :)
 
Joined
May 31, 2018
Messages
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I had forgotten about this. It looks outstanding. I normally prefer my RPGs medieval, but this looks like it will be a thrill ride to play.
 

udm

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 14, 2008
Messages
2,752
Make the Codex Great Again!
Feedback in case re.var ever comes back here:

- The UI is still atrocious; information's still all over the place. It looks cool in screenshots and all, but it's so disjointed in-game ("how much AP do I have left? How many bullets?"). It doesn't help that the font sizes are so small. This is the biggest turnoff IMO.
- I'm starting to get annoyed by the snapping to cover, which is unnecessary given the mechanics the game already has. It forces my character to turn rather than face straight ahead when I want them to, and yes, I do know that you can turn manually, but every AP counts. You also can't peek when not in cover, which is annoying.
- Camera is hard to navigate and confusing when you have characters on multiple floors. There should be buttons/hotkeys for navigating them.
- Stealth is... eh, it's ok, but I don't know why sometimes melee attacks take 2AP, while other times it takes 5AP. The other problem I see with Stealth is that you can easily juke and cheese enemies once you've memorised their locations, like a partial auto-win. I don't have any solutions to this though, so I'd love to hear what the rest think.
- Feature request: please implement a button and hotkey to initiate turn-based combat. Freeform Mode is clumsy and my mercs keep tripping over each other.

Apart from what's been said, I still have high hopes for this being the Finnish game that we may never get. :P

Didn't get notified of the tag, but I saw the message on the backend :salute:

- UI will get a overhaul closer to release, we've been cramming stuff into it forever now, but we still have a few more things to put in there, so we want to make sure we don't run into the same issue twice.
- We've added a new mechanic so you can control the end-of-movement direction without having to use look. Check the "Look and Move" video on the post above. Should solve most of the issues with that.
- As for the camera, we have the floor visibility planned, similar to Silent Storm.
- Melee should always takes 5AP, maybe a bug? That stealth missions is pretty scripted since it's just a tutorial essentially, with patrolling enemies and random spawning locations it'll be harder to cheese it that way.
- Free Mode will be a toggle when available! But we're fixing the mercs tripping over eachother though :)

Thanks for going through the feedback. I look forward to trying out the next build!

One more question: will lean be made usable by characters that aren't in cover? If no, what is the motivation behind that? When I played the first public demo, I didn't think much of the need to lean when outside of cover, but in the second public demo, I ran into a situation where I was close to a wall but wasn't in cover. Leaning would have been able to take me around the corner to get a shot at the tango, so I was bummed when I found out I couldn't.
 
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re.var

Code Three Fifty One
Developer
Joined
Jun 23, 2020
Messages
27
Thanks for going through the feedback. I look forward to trying out the next build!

One more question: will lean be made usable by characters that aren't in cover? If no, what is the motivation behind that? When I played the first public demo, I didn't think much of the need to lean when outside of cover, but in the second public demo, I ran into a situation where I was close to a wall but wasn't in cover. Leaning would have been able to take me around the corner to get a shot at the tango, so I was bummed when I found out I couldn't.

We actually used to have Lean without cover, but the uses were fairly limited, and it sometimes caused confusion as it made you think you were in cover. With the new implementation of side step while in aiming view, this should all be much more fluid though. The updated Demo - with these new mechanics - will be available starting this weekend (for Dreamhack Beyond), if you have a chance to test it out, let me know what you think!
 

udm

Arcane
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Joined
Aug 14, 2008
Messages
2,752
Make the Codex Great Again!
Just downloaded the new demo. I'm going to give it a more thorough run tomorrow (especially Skirmish mode). Anyway, just my quick 2 cents: I think snap-to-cover should be removed, and Lean should be made usable anytime, anywhere. This is a system that boasts non-grid positioning with multiple stances, with a strong grognard appeal. Snap-to-cover just seems to run counter to this philosophy.

To quickly illustrate a scenario where the existing movement mechanics are problematic, if you are snapped to cover at a corner and decide to turn around (say to shoot at a bogey behind you), you can't access Lean anymore unless you leave that spot and re-snap to cover. Call me autistic, but this sort of design inconsistency really grates my cheese, adds no value, and in fact can be more confusing to vets and newbies alike. I really can't see how the previous system, in which you could lean anywhere, could be seen as inferior to the current movement mechanics.

I know it seems like a storm in a teacup, but it just sticks out like a sore thumb in what could be a fantastic system reminiscent of the best tactical games like Silent Storm.

EDIT: I just realised you actually can sidestep when in Aim mode. That's pretty cool, and I guess that does kind of provide a good alternative to not being able to lean when not in cover. But still, the alternative seems more preferable IMHO.
 
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udm

Arcane
Patron
Joined
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Messages
2,752
Make the Codex Great Again!
Fuck it, I decided to play some Skirmish mode before hitting the sack. Random map generation works well, though more prefabs would surely be welcome! Overall skirmish is a lot of fun (but my complaint above still stands heh).
 

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