I took a month break from this project to focus on my career search, as well as allowing time for friends to try out the demo and prepare feedback. I felt that I had enough to begin working on the next phase of the project. The goal here is improve the stability and functionality of the game. There won’t be much content added this time; it will be taking a backseat fixing bugs and refining the technical side.

Currently, the big feature to improve upon is object avoidance. It does exist, but is very clunky and problematic. Many of the issues testers reported stem from how units, player and enemy, handle object avoidance. This is primarily referring to obstacles on the field, but also includes enemy and allied units themselves. Next in terms of priority is working on the clickable interface with the game. Specifically, how the game manages sending commands to units based on mouse clicks.

This list will also be updated based on any feedback I get from people who have yet to test the game. For now, this is the plan of what to work on for the next version of The Roughnecks.

•  Gameplay
  • Units avoid the closest unit or obstacle impeding their path, instead of the first one in the queue
  • Units steer left or right based on which will lead to their destination faster
  • Unit selection should not also give units move commands
  • Fix bullets going through obstacles
  • Adjust click interface for tank, artillery, helicopter
  • Fix double-click required to activate units after de-selecting all active units
  • Camera zoom in/out feature.
  • Key commands to quickly move camera to cycle through list of allied units
  • Units move in formation while going from one place to another
  • Units do not overlap one another when moving to selected location
  • Unit selection should not also give units move commands
  • Alter avoid range of light infantry, heavy infantry
• Level
  • Slow down moving blocks on level 4
  • Fix collision tags on Level 5 so only helicopters can move over water
• UI
  • Mini-Map
  • Adjust unit info text placement for each unit
  • Visual feedback for unit movement click location and unit attacking
• Art
  • Redo levels with less dynamic lighting (possible cause for low frame rate)
  • Rebuild environment assets with smaller meshes (possible cause for low frame rate)
• Misc
  • Read over demo feedback surveys
  • Add comments for all variables and methods
  • Figure out why frame rate is so much lower in standalone build than running from editor
  • Learn about optimization
  • Gather ideas for other unit types
  • Cutscene fly-through of the level before start of each level