Dragon Sector (The Remake) v0.70 Is Here! news

Hello once again, Doomers!

It hasn’t been all that long since we released version 0.66a9, but we have been making a good deal of progress, and we thought it was time to release another update.

We’ve seen some feedback about how little Ammo and Health there is now.

Trying to balance the play experience is one of the biggest challenges for any game developer. In our case, it is made even more of a challenge, because there are only two of us. Moreover, I, BarefootMapMaker, am the only one doing the play-testing. We have a few in-and-out play-testers and folks who help us once in a while with error-correction, but it is only me who does any of the real testing. And, likes or nots, when only one person does most of the testing, they tend to fall into play patterns, which leads them to missing stuff, and to another extent, gives them a case of tunnel vision.

Which is what happened to me.

The only feedback we ever got, also, was from watching folks who made videos of them playing our game. And as the years have passed since we started all of this, the videos folks have been releasing of it, have been fewer and fewer. Which has pretty much left me at my lonesome, doing my best to formulate the play balance all by myself.

The end result of all of that, everyone can pretty much see for themselves.

However, I have taken to heart what the few people who have made videos, have told us. So I went back in, gave everything a new thinking over, and did my best to add ammo and other stuff, to help tip the balance over to the player more.

So, with this release, the scales are more in the player’s favor. Hopefully this will make it less of an exercise in conservation and let players have more fun. The only way we’ll know though, is if folks tell us. So if you have the aptitude for it, and the inclination, we’d really very much like to see videos of your playthroughs. That is the only way we really get to know that what we are doing is right. With that, I digress and move on to what this update has in store.

This release also brings you Map 7, the Power Ambiation Hub, which is a gigantic Tesla Tower! And is it ever a fight! Navigate the tower and watch your step, and face off against several waves of increasingly challenging monsters. The original concept for the map is Doom II’s Dead Simple, only we’ve put a spin on it that will almost for-sure, have your jaw dropping and make you blurt, “Hell yeah!”

Along with that, we’ve been doing a lot of polish and detail work throughout, cleaning up, optimizing, just trying to make everything as good as we can. We’ve still got a lot to go, but things are super-highway-cruising in the right direction.

We’d also like to thank Kyle Misko, for allowing us to use some of his music. You can check out his awesome work over at his website.

Below you’ll find a list of the changes we’ve made. It’s a pretty substantial one.

New Additions

• Map 07 - The Power Ambiation Hub!
• This map takes inspiration from “Dead Simple”, but it is anything but simple.

Fixes

• Added functions to all of the automated assets (bot, drone and all the turrets) that help prevent them from becoming target-locked. Meaning, they no longer remain focused on targets if they lose sight of them. They will now immediately select new targets.
• Fixed an issue with the Security Bot which could prevent it from coming out of its Idle state until the player was really close to it.
• Poison Resist Powerups now stack.
• Renamed the Mega Power to Health Regen Upgrade, since that’s what it really is.
• Renamed the Damage Absorb to Damage Shield.
• Renamed the PowerUp Extender to PowerUp Overcharge.
• The PowerUp Overcharge now doubles the time of all time-based powerups. Its icon has also been changed.
• Increased the chance of reflecting a projectile when you have the Damage Shield and Health Regen Upgrade.
• The Item Magnet now requires at least one point of Armor to operate.

Improvements

• The Security Bot can now crush corpses. It’s a big heavy thing, after all. Moreover, when playing using Project Brutality, some corpses, when squished, offer up more pickups. So trailing the bot along over them can often net additional pickups.
• The bot’s health has been reduced, to help improve play balance.
• The In-Wall Turrets have been dramatically improved.
• Improvement of the “Target Dummy” activation systems, which resulted in greatly improved and more reliable effects handling.
• Improved the HUD Icons for powerups and moved them out of the way of PB’s other HUD elements.
• All new HUD brackets.
• New Title Image.
• New Menu Logo.
• Intermission and Introductory text screens.
• Dragon Sector is now its own episode.
• Visual Tweaks to most maps as we start to implement particles and other effects.

Map Changes

• Map 01 - Executive Complex
• More Ammo Added.
• Optimized some of the map’s elements, to help promote smoother playthroughs.
• Visual elements added in keeping with Dragon Sector’s story.
• Map 02 - Resources Reclamation
• Further optimization to the cauldron/final reservoir area to help improve performance.
• Light added to the front of the tower lift.
• The sign says “No Swimming”... Nasty surprises await those who ignore the sign.
• Map 03 - Skyway
• Optimizations throughout to improve performance.
• New Secret Area added.
• More Ammo added.
• Removed one of the Light Amplification Goggles.
• Changed out some turrets with our new improved turrets.
• Map 04 - Fuel Refinery
• More Ammo added.
• New monster surprise area was added, which delivers a substantial amount of ammo when defeated.
• Substantially more items added to Yellow-keyed “Armory”.
• Improved the lighting in the area of the Cyberdemon encounter.
• Map 05 - Nuclear Station
• Reworked the reactor to make it look more like a real nuclear reactor.
• The reactor now does “floor” damage when climbed up onto.
• New radiation suit pickup placed.
• Reworked the texture on a secret door, to help make it more noticeable.
• Changed the items in a secret from all health bonuses to armor bonus pickups and a light amplification pickup.
• Added lighting to the front of a 3D lift.
• Fixed an issue with the 3D lift in the reactor chamber that would sometimes trap drones and bots.
• Fixed some issues with sector problems.
• Reworked the lighting system in the reactor chamber to help optimize performance in that area.
• Map 06 - Facilities Support
• Added lighting to the taller 3D lift in the thermo-turbine chamber.
• Fixed the turbine in the thermo-turbine chamber, so that it now spins at a “Turbine’s” speed.
• Map 09 - Sewage Processing
• Reworked all of the “Well Lifts” to make them stand out more and to be more in keeping with Dragon Sector’s overall design.
• Fixed two doors which weren’t working as intended.
• Added lighting to a few key areas which were much in need of it.

That’s all for now. Thank you all for going on this journey with us.

Now, hit that download button and let’s get to the action!

BarefootMapMaker & DarynS