Welcome back to the weekly update encompassing all things VecFour and Hide or Die. The past few weeks have been super busy with bug fixes for dedicated servers, hunter gameplay development, backer reward fulfillment, audio pipeline improvements and additional character art creation.





Character Art





This week we have an all new hunter to tease. Krampus. This terrifying amalgamation of a goat and demon taken from European folklore is sure to terrify its victims as it stalks them through the worlds of Hide or Die.





Krampus Highpoly WIP





Last Update we shared our work in progress fisherman and his weaponry. This week, they are in game fully rigged and textured and we are beginning work on polishing it and adding additional details - like character physics assets, simulated cloth physics, blood effects, and more.

Fisherman Hunter - Rigged and Textured





The Harpoon Gun









Core





Dedicated Servers

Lots and lots of bug squashing this week for dedicated servers. We transitioned from hosting dedicated servers on our backend from a test project, to the actual game, and setup a proper build system to build both client and server versions of the game. We now have dedicated servers spinning up in the Singapore region from a single button click in the menu. We have also implemented a basic matchmaking system to find games in the selected region.





Work will continue on squashing bugs related to dedicated servers, as they introduce a ton of new complexity, as well as fleshing out the menu and matchmaking parameters in the coming weeks.





Razer Chroma Integration

We have integrated the Razer Chroma SDK into Hide or Die - allowing for Chroma effects across supported Razer Devices. Right now this is exclusively tied to the player's heartbeat, but we plan on supporting additional Chroma effects down the line.





Hunter Gameplay

We have begun prototyping the Fisherman's Harpoon mechanic. Allowing the fisherman to shoot and reel survivors close to them for the final kill. Survivors will have a chance to escape when being reeled in, so hunters must be quick to finish the kill.





Very much work in progress.









UI





The UI for the game has made some solid progress in the last few weeks as we build out the main menu in tandem with dedicated servers. These mockups will be translated into functional game menus in the coming weeks, as we take these design documents and build out animations, and core functionality for them.

















AUDIO





We have begun to rework some of our core audio systems to allow for better handling and attenuation of audio in indoor vs outdoor spaces. Audio is a huge component of crafting a realistic and terrifying horror environment, and something we will be focusing a lot more on going forward.













Backer Updates





Discord Roles

Over 80% of our discord roles have been handed out. YAY!





If you still haven't revived your role please reach out Swanton007#6089 on discord. To speed the process up, and make sure you receive a role quickly and easily:





1. Make sure to be on our discord server. We cant give you a role on our server, if you aren't on the server. http://discord.gg/hideordie

2. Be sure to provide us with BOTH the discord username, and tag (the little number next to your discord name). In this format: HideOrDie#0117

Backer Shirts

We have begun work on the highpoly assets for all backer shirts - both male and female variants. We will be overlaying backer provided images onto these in the coming weeks.





V Neck Variant





Crew Neck Variant





Hoodie Variant

Along side the shirts and clothing items we have begun to build, we are overhauling our existing assets to work with a color selection system for our clothing item. In short, we are building masks for all our assets so primary, secondary and even tertiary colors can be selected and customized for your character. An example of this masking and color selection can be seen here. More updates on this in the coming weeks.









Tombstones

We have begun work on a new actor to allow for the creation of over 300 tombstones for the game. We have developed a this actor which allows for quick implementation of tombstones by taking in our backer data and quickly generating game ready tombstones., and takes in our existing backer data and creates game ready tombstones, ready for placement within the game.









Work will continue on these tombstone actors to integrate the respects variant, and the animations and effects associated with them.





Graffiti

So many talented artists! So far over 150 backers have submitted their graffiti. Here is the batch of artwork that still has to be integrated into the game. We are super happy to have all of these turn out so great, and finding them scattered throughout the world will surely be a true joy for everyone.





That concludes this weeks update. Thank you all once again for the incredible support!

<3