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In this Developer Log, I am going to talk about our plans for how the controls in Space Dingus will work. This includes sections on how the Special Weapon Slot will work, which is tied to the Right Mouse Button.

But first, I am going to have a section for progress towards the Steam Playtest.

Since last Developer Log, we did a lot of work on the Special Weapon System. I will talk about that in its own section in this post, below the our plans for the control scheme!
There was a lot of miscellaneous work on small objects and furniture. New container looting types. Tweaks to the physics of explosive barrels. We added the ability to dent and damage many objects, instead of outright destroying them.

Finally, a lot of our efforts were spent on the Derelict Space Station location we were working on. It has several variations now, so I think we're mostly set for the Playtest in terms of locations. We are doing a couple more experiments on new locations to see how they go, so we may have a couple more locations for the Playtest instead of just going for one.
My estimate for the first playtesting: Likely very early next year. I was feeling more ambitious before, but I always forget that the holidays tend to slow everything down.

WASD for movement.

E to use or pick up things.

TAB to open the menu.

T to CHAT.

R, F, and ZXCV as different quick commands for AI, that I will reveal in a future developer log.

NO RELOAD BUTTON, though there are reloads. They're automatic based on not shooting.

Shift to Sprint. You can't shoot while sprinting, or change directions easily. You have to skid to a stop.

Space does a useless hop. We may make this less useless later.

Shift+Space to SWAN DIVE. This is the big dive that you have probably seen from the first trailer. This lets you avoid some enemy attacks, but then you're stuck on the ground for a bit, depending on your stats.

Mouse for aiming, with a crosshair that spins to indicate headshots.

Left Mouse Button to shoot or attack.

Mousewheel to switch between 3 weapons, or 1 2 3. Q to quickswap to previous weapon.

Right Mouse Button to use your Special Slot.

There is a 4th weapon slot, that is tied directly to your Right Mouse Button. This has various special properties:

• You can't easily swap it, like you can the 3 main weapon slots. Typically, you can switch what's in it only in the safety of your Spaceship, or when first finding it in a mission.

• You can switch to it and shoot it very quickly, using the Right Mouse button. Faster than if you used the mousewheel to switch. This makes it great for slotting an emergency melee weapon.

• Some weapons get new bonus effects, that only work if they're in the Special Weapon Slot.

  • These effects usually have some kind of cooldown, counter, or other condition you need to fulfill to use the bonus effect.

  • These effects may also have a requirement, such as skill amount needed or Profession type.

The Special Effect of a weapon could even be completely different from its use in a normal weapon slot. These could include things that seem more like a "Special Ability" than a Weapon.

These are examples of the bonus effects that can be in the Special Weapon slot. Most involve just tapping Right Mouse Button, but some require you hold the right mouse button instead. Those that require a hold will also let you tap it for the weapon's usual attack, like it was just in a normal weapon slot.

• Kneon Knife: Hold RMB to do a fast stab + dash, that can be aimed 360 degrees. This passes through enemies and does damage to them, while also letting you phase through enemy projectiles safely

  • Cooldown timer based

• Trickshot Revolver: Hold RMB and you'll spin your gun around, and then let go and you'll instantly fire a faster-traveling ricochet shot that 50% more damage and double the piercing

  • Recharges based on the damage you do to enemies, with any pistol-type weapon

• Frenzy Shotgun: Tap or hold RMB, and your next shotgun shots for 3 seconds fire twice as fast, and do 1.5x more damage with 1.5x more piercing

  • Recharges based on melee damage you inflict on enemies

• Mop: Tap or hold RMB and you'll do an underhand sweep from behind you (like an uppercut), and this can hit double the enemies with double the knockback/knockup power

  • PROFESSION: JANITOR only, for using the bonus effect

  • Cooldown timer based

• Riot Shield: No actual special move, but if it’s in your special slot, it will regenerate durability over time instead of slowly and permanently breaking

• Baseball bat: Knocks away physical projectiles if it's in the Special Slot

  • BAT CRACK SOUND

  • Bean enemy with projectile, HOME RUN blurb, glitchy sound of audience cheering

• Old Boot: If it's in your main weapon slots, it's a mere throwing boot. If it's in your Special Slot, it turns into a big kick ability, that can send an enemy flying into other enemies.

  • Cooldown timer based, with the timer being reduced by your Strength and Agility

We will have a lot of these Bonus Effect weapons. This gives us a lot of things to play with for the loot table. As an example, we could have similar weapons in the loot pool, but with different variants that all have different Special Weapon Slot Bonus Effects.

Next Dev Log will be on December 26th! I'm hoping to have a solid idea on when the Steam Playtest will first start, by that point. The main topic for the next developer log will be all the location types we've been making, with pictures.

You can see more frequent news posts in the #future-preview channel of our Official Discord[discord.gg], and on the site formerly known as Twitter.
Thanks for reading!

Hello! As promised, this is the start of our monthly news updates for Space Dingus development. I'll be posting big summaries of what we've done in the previous month.

This update was on the last Thursday of the month, but future Developer Logs will be on the last Friday of each month. The next one will be on November 28th.

You can also see more frequent news posts in the #future-preview channel of our Official Discord[discord.gg], and on the site formerly known as Twitter. We've posted a bunch of things over the last few months, especially on that Discord channel.

Let's begin!

Currently a lot of what's keeping us busy is getting the Playtest started.

Our goals for the first Playtest:

1. A selection of weapons, showing off a new weapon system we haven't talked about much yet.

2. Functional co-op multiplayer with easy drop-in.

3. Showing off one location, but with a lot of good randomization and variation. Also, as much polish as we can do!

4. Decent placeholder UI. It doesn't have to be perfect, but it should show the basis of a powerful and easy to expand User Interface.

5. Optimizations, so we can fit MORE ZOMBIES onscreen in multiplayer. The group can spread out now, so it means I'd like even more stuff onscreen so everyone can get swarmed.

#1 is something I'll talk about in the next Developer Log. #2 is something that didn't exist in Death Road, but we already have a really solid basis for. #3 and #4 are what's taking most of our time at the moment.

In Death Road to Canada, we ran into tons of problems in updates due to how simple yet hard to change our User Interface system was. In Space Dingus, I want a UI that is easy for us to add things to, very slick overall, and mouse controlled with lots of options.

Here is our placeholder UI so far, which will be our version of the Swap Meet / Inventory menu:

The first segment is showing off the mouse controls for moving the weapons around. Now you can also quickly drop weapons and items by dragging them to the ground, outside of the inventory window.
The second part of the video shows off the new "Stash Section", which is the window on the right. The Stash is a shared inventory for your group, both AI followers and in Multiplayer. The second player shown has someone controlling it, in our tests with online multiplayer on.

Dragging something to the Stash means that anyone in the group can see it and use it. It has 9 slots that everyone shares. This also means that you have a much bigger list of things you can drag out of each mission, instead of having to show up with empty inventories and place things in the Trunk like in Death Road.

We have a lot of things to work on for more of the UI, such as the different tabs, menus, and right mouse button support for extra features. I think what we have is a really good start, though it will likely change a lot in its presentation as we keep developing the game.

Another big thing in Death Road: It was really hard to make new locations. We have an all new map generation system now, and we're focusing on making one good first example location: The Derelict.

Derelict Missions will involve looting an abandoned space station, then getting out before the Monster of that location starts to swarm heavily. There will be a lot of different types of space station. The one we're making right now is more of a general "work, rest, and light research station" type. Aka: GENERIC STATION.

There are a lot of plans for more specific themes. We also have a bunch of different plans for sub-types for the Derelicts for locked doors, and how to open them. Each of these will have both a hard way to open the doors, that doesn't require any special skill. And then various shortcuts for this, involving Hacking skill, Mechanical skill, or other methods.

An example is the LOCKDOWN ALERT mission type. The location has gone on lockdown, You can disable this lockdown by finding a console deep in the location.

However, you could also do things like go through the maintenance tunnels and mess with the wiring with Mechanical skill. This will cut the power completely, forcing the ship into low-power mode, making most doors open. Or you could go in there without mechanical skill, and blow up power nodes and generators.
The mission info would give you a warning on what the mission type is, and a possible shortcut method. Example: LOCKDOWN mission, with a HACKING skill icon and info mouseover saying you could maybe remote disable the Alert from various computers if you brought a skilled Hacker (because their wi-fi password is just the Captain's dog's name).

We want as much meaningful randomization of each location as possible, so that you can be surprised after 1000 hours of play. This was a big goal in Death Road, and we want to expand on that for Space Dingus.

It starts with a simple first step: Have each room have a lot of little variations. The picture above is the same room, but with randomly placed furniture and wall covering.

We've also been working on having the total structure of a Derelict have more randomization. That is, the overall shape of the hallways, and how the rooms are arranged via the hallways. There's also been a lot of experiments on maintenance tunnels: How common should they be, how they should be handled. Current thought is that they're somewhat rare, and a big indicator that there's stuff in there for a Mechanic to mess with.

Each Derelict will also have special rooms that can only show up once. Things like the Head Engineer's Office, Captain's Quarters, Medical Research Lab, Genetics Lab, Anti-Space-Ant Pest Control Room. The mission info may show you the existence of one special room as a preview, but sometimes extra ones can be generated.

As we build on this, we'll add more rare rooms, and super rare rooms, and 1 in 10 thousand ultra rare rooms.

That's it for the first Developer Log! This one was a little rushed, as I just got back from a trip. I originally also wanted to do a bigger retrospective of work so far, but I ran into filesize limits for Steam Posts. I'll plan ahead of time for this next Dev Log.

In Developer Log #2, I think I will mostly talk about the new weapon system and control scheme. There will be a lot to cover for that. I will also have a section for how close we are to the Playtest launch at that point.
Let me know if you have any more questions or comments, I'll be checking them!