And we are back... with another installment of the bi-weekly update. Wow how time flies.





Character Updates





As the Krampus Character has been wrapped up, we are now moving onto the Mad Scientist Character. This crazy guy is sure to scare with his wide range of technological gadgets and weapons. Much more about the gameplay of this character will be coming out in the future.

Mad Scientist WIP Face Sculpt





Mad Scientist WIP





Community Map Stage Breakdown





Over the next few weeks we plan on beginning work on our community map, which was promised as part of hitting our $70,000 stretch goal on Kickstarter.





The way we are approaching this is in 4 independent stages.

Stage 1: Theme Ideas

August 10th - August 24th

We will release a google survey where we will gather information from the community with regards to the overall map theme (for example... a graveyard map, an abandoned mine-shaft, a military base, etc...). This will last for a week, after which we will close responses for the survey

We will handpick ~20 themes and put them in a poll and provide a link of the base descriptions for every theme in a document for people to judge on

The winning poll option after 1 week will be determined the winner, and will proceed onto stage 2

Stage 2: Level Design and Layout

August 24th - September 7th

We will release a new google survey in the next bi-weekly update to gather ideas for 4 sub-themes / areas of the map. These are smaller "key points" in the level that players can recognize when exploring the world of Hide or Die.

After 3 days we will again close the survey, and collect our favorite ideas and release them as part of an update. These selections will be based on a few factors: Technical Feasibility, Uniqueness, and Scheduling.

From here, we enter the Level Design and Layout phase, where we will accept 2D layouts and designs for the level. We will build out our own 2D layouts internally should the need to use them arise, but the goal would be to get interesting designs from the community, and mix them with our internal design requirements.

After this, we will reveal the finalized layout in our September 7th Update.

Stage 3: Livestream Buildout

September 7th - September 28th

After the layout being finalized on September 7th, we will begin a month long process of live streaming the full buildout of the level. Starting from the 3D level blockout to the final art production. The exact schedule of live streaming will be published in the September 7th Update.

Stage 4: Promotion and Final Reveal

October 19th

We will host another livestream revealing the entire level, showing it in its final completed, and polished state.





Community Map Stage 1: Map Theme





To kick off the community map, we need your ideas for the overall theme. Here is the link to the first part of that process:





https://goo.gl/forms/tKCUMQ0fePMJ2jv13





The survey will close on August 17th, 2018. The link to the poll will be provided in our discord server on August 18th, 2018. If you haven't joined our discord server, be sure to join to get access to all our news first, and talk directly to us!





http://discord.gg/hideordie





Vacation: A Year In The Making





Swanton007 and Osok have been working together since June 2017 and have been trying to plan a trip to Thailand since August 2017, before Hide Or Die was even conceived by Sam! They finally found a way to carve out 3 days to relax. The first week of August after leaving their jobs in Singapore was the perfect time to finally make the trip. They were met with monsoon like rain when they arrived, but were fortunate enough to enjoy some sunshine and much needed R&R.









The Big Move





Early next week Osok is making the move back overseas from Singapore to Dallas. He is making a stop in Seoul to grab some stuff he left there before he left for Singapore two years ago and to visit the in-laws before the last lag of the trip from Seoul to Dallas. Packing and moving is always time consuming, but doubly so when you're making a move across the globe. As you can see below, Osok is living that mattress on the floor life now.

In the next bi-weekly update Swanton007 will be preparing for his move and Osok will have just landed in Dallas!





Menu Progress





We have a little snippet to share with you on how the menu is progressing and how we are handling all of the various sub-menus. We have a short clip showing some of the animations for switching between various parts of the menu.









Character Overhaul





When this prototype was first created in late 2017 it was a simple bool that determined whether the player should have an axe or not and be the hunter. As the prototype progressed into a closed alpha in January 2018 and the Discord Alpha in March 2018 a lot of logic was put into the character for things such as radar, hiding, heartbeat, etc. By the time the Kickstarter came around, so much of the logic of the hunter and survivor was intertwined together into the same character. When we decided to add the Krampus/Undertaker/Backer hunters we realized that the day would come when we'd have to rip the base character apart.





This is like one of those band-aids where your skin has healed intertwined with the mesh of the bandage and you know you just have to rip it off, because you can't live like this forever. This isn't really anything that will make a visual or gameplay difference to you, but will massively impact how well we can manage them and more importantly, balance each of the individual hunters.





With that overhaul we are better able to work on the clothing in a survivor only character class. We're implementing a range of clothing which requires some finesse when it comes to skinning the meshes. We have a little peak behind the curtain here where you can see Swanton007 stressing out in our VecFour Digital Admin discord chat.

Swanton007 was able to fix the issue, but as you can see, we want to hire a tech animator to work at VecFour. So if you or anyone you know wants to work as a tech animator, please send your portfolio through to us at contact@vecfour.digital





That is it for this week's bi-weekly update, we hope you enjoyed the view behind the scenes!