I wanted to write this to give everyone an update on what's been going on with the game lately. Because what's coming next is a lot of busy-work on what needs polished before I'm comfortable with releasing an early build (most of it I'm not even joking is the menu/options and other quality of life features). Most of the core systems that im most excited about are in place and in good working order. It just needs about another month or two to cook, but were ready to start sharing some of the stuff that is in-game!

So..? What's new in the game?

The first month of development was all about getting the game to run as lean and mean as possible. There are a lot of systems running in the background(AI logic, World Simulation, Military and Invasion Management)and if I didn't build these to be fast running and scalable early, things will buckle later. So, everything I did was in service of making sure this version of the game can handle the chaos that’s coming. - The game in its current state has far more going on than the legacy version and runs faster than it too!

Big change: I took a page out of one of my earlier projects Trench Foot, terrain now takes real damage. When a Martian cylinder slams into the ground, it doesn’t just sit on the surface. It punches a crater into the Earth. Artillery shells create smaller impact zones too. The world isn’t static; it’s constantly being chewed up by the invasion and resulting conflict, and I want players to feel that destruction creeping in with every second.

This time around, the Martians aren’t just faceless operators inside a tripod—they’re full-blown NPCs. When they’re not piloting the fighting & handling machines, they crawl around on foot (well, tentacle), dragging themselves across the map exploring, investigating towns, even grab people—including you. Every machine has one of these brains inside, making moment-to-moment decisions. The machines themselves cannot even operate without having one of them in the seat doing the input.

One of the other substantial changes to immersion: all human NPCs are always loaded, everywhere. No fake loading tricks where people only exist because you’re near a town. Wherever you go, survivors are out there too, plenty of them—panicking, scavenging, surviving. Just like you. As of now they have their own individual stats like health/hunger that they will try to manage on their own. Which can also turn them into somewhat competition for the player. You’re not the center of the universe here. You’re just one more person trying to survive.

In the previous version the Military would spawn a handful of cannons some-what close to a tripod is. Now they have their own locations around the map that will eventually resemble forts. They will spawn there and move towards the nearest cylinder sites to fight the Martians. This whole function is dependent on a attrition system, Every cannon/trooper spawn counts and when they run out of points the game will move into phase two of the Invasion (Earth under the Martians).

There are some things that are not currently in the project because I feel like developing it at the moment would take time away from getting the core of the game as strong as possible. This isn't an official road-map but they will be getting my attention once I get some smaller things taken care of.

The Naval Evacuation : No boat escape just yet—but the plan is to make this a high-stakes, mid-game event triggered when the military starts to fall. You'll have to figure out when and where it's happening through NPC dialogue, found letters, and word-of-mouth. If you miss the boat... you really miss the boat.

Vehicles : The train and horses have not been added yet I have some code made for vehicles & AI vehicles that can move from town to town. I'm not dead set on adding a train again but if we get some time to do the models and adjust the map a little it could be added in the future.

Multiplayer : I love the idea of letting players control Martians and hunt their friends, but Photon’s pricing makes it a no-go. To make this work in the future, I’ll need to restructure a lot of the code and switch networking solutions. Definitely not off the table—but not a priority right now.

Thanks for sticking around and reading this absolute unit of a devlog. From here on out, expect a lot more showing than telling. In the next devlog, Brunnski will be chiming in about the level design & Ill be showing some of the tools that I built to help him out with level design. We’re aiming to get gameplay footage out soon so you can actually see these systems in action. If you’ve got questions/concerns or feedback, drop a comment—I’ll be treating those as a direct line between me and you.

- Nick