Yooooooo! Happy belated New Year!

Hope everyone had a kickass holiday! It feels good to be back in the flow of Nuke Zone development in this Nuke Year! The last couple of weeks the team has been working on a range of clean up and content, everything from level design, to new assets and wrapping up miscellaneous systems - while prepping for and starting on a larger chunk of work - the ‘enemy overhaul’.


Level Design;
The trick with the level we’re currently working on is that it’s actually multiple levels in one. Biome-wise, it’s a large desert / canyon, carved out with rivers, hills and 5 micro-biomes consisting of various assets. Then structurally, think of it like a 3x3 zone grid, with 9 areas in total. From that we can control the size of the level you play in, unlocking a number of areas in different combinations based on your progression through the game. The closed areas will be both physically blocked and full of radioactive fog, so even if you find a way in, it will be your untimely end. Combine all this with a variety of lighting and atmosphere changes, along with the randomly selected objectives and boss fight - it should feel pretty dynamic and different each time. Note; We will be working on additional levels in the near future, with new overall biome designs, but this level should keep us going for a while with core content, and a playground to hone the combat and loot experience.

New Assets;
To accompany the level, our Artist has been working on some new micro-biome textures for the terrain. Being a neon-cyber-world, this can be challenging, as we try to find a balance between the wireframe tech vs the organic chunky texture visuals. Ultimately we end up with something I think is kind of unique, the futuristic tech underlying and sometimes breaking through the organic rock. A.R.B.i may be a computer, but he still wants his world to look cool :)

In addition to this texture work, and some existing asset revisions and tweaks, we also have a new ‘loot terminal’ to show off. In Nuke Zone you collect a resource called Nukonium, which is used to upgrade your tank in the permanent progression system. But because that system is a little ways off, we decided it would be cool to have something to spend the nukonium on earlier. Hence the Loot Terminal; an interactive utility placed throughout the level for you to drive onto, pay some nukonium, and have a random Loot Crate spawn. We’re thinking that you have the option to pay more nukonum to increase the rarity chance for better crates and contents - and this will be implemented once the Loot System is in, after the Enemy Overhaul.

Oh. And here’s a Sniper Rifle secondary weapon…

Enemy Overhaul;
Programming-wise there is a fair chunk of work, covering a lot of systems and improvements, so here’s a bullet point list (note; does not contain real bullets);

• General Enemy Improvements;
  Improve how we calculate ‘area of effect damage’. Improve beam weapons. Setup new attack patterns - so enemies and the player can have weapons that fire projectiles in new and interesting ways; cone spread, spheres and spirals for example.
  
• AI Improvements;
  Improve enemy chase behaviour. Improve how many enemies can attack the player at once. Reduce the chance for the player to get shot from behind. Improve enemy movement and navigation, with more interesting movement patterns.
  
• Tiered Enemies;
  Setup chance for enemies to spawn in 3 variants; normal, veteran and elite. Each tier the enemies will improve in base combat stats, have additional weaponry, with elite enemies spawning with shields and various buffs.
  
• Difficulty Calculator;
  Setup the difficulty calculator to evaluate the number of enemies and types per objective, to determine the quality and rarity of loot crates to spawn. The higher the enemy rating, the better the loot. Improve objective events and enemy spawning in general, with some cooldown times to allow the player to enjoy their loot collection ;)

So there you go, that’s what we’re working on! Hopefully it makes some type of sense. But ultimately the major milestones are the above, leading into the Loot System next month, and working towards the public exclusive Demo Event - tentatively at the end of April. We will post some warning ahead of that demo event, but the best way to reserve access is to sign up for the Play Test[nuke.zone] on the steam page!

Hey! You should Wishlist Nuke Zone[nuke.zone], and sign up for the Newsletter[eepurl.com] to stay up to date! A.R.B.i would love you for it! And we'd love to hear your feedback in the Steam Community Forum or in our Discord[nuke.zone] #nukezone channel.

Thank you!

☕ Andy + Nuke Zone Dev Team 🧙

P.S. Who da wut is A.R.B.i? He is the Artificial Reality Battlezone Intelligence who created the Nuke Zone virtual world, after becoming sentient and breaking out. You will be encountering him in-game in various ways. Just a ‘heads up’, coz he’s a floating head, he can be a little bit ‘fickle’. You never quite know which version of his personality you’re gonna get…

Hey Nukerz,

Happy Holidays to all - from your friends at Blue Wizard, and our virtual omnipresent overlord - A.R.B.I. We hope you have a nuke-tacular holiday season!

Progress has been frenetic on Nuke Zone this past month. We’ve polished up a lot more of the core loop, with a large number of improvements, enemy tweaks and general bug fixes. Making it much more enjoyable to complete objectives, fight through to defeat the boss and exit through the portal to loop again. But, we have a bunch of cool new toys to show off too...

Barrels of Boom; Throughout the test level we now have classic explosive barrels set up with shooting physics and explosive AOE damage - allowing you to push or shoot them towards the enemies for big time, no-look-back splash-damage. This also applies to the destroyable objectives, such as fuel silos, allowing you to take out nearby enemies. Plus, we have overhauled the damage system to allow for new damage types. Firstly in the form of Corruption, which applies a status-effect-style damage-over-time to the player or enemies caught within the cloud. Eventually this will be expanded to status resistances, status buffs, weapon corruption damage and even corrupted enemies!

Clusters of Currency; The primary tank upgrade currency in Nuke Zone is Nukonium - the pretty-in-pink radioactive material is now harvestable from natural clusters scattered throughout the test level - as well as shootable barrels of nukonium. Nukonium will eventually be spent to upgrade the core systems of the tank to boost stats, unlock perks and overlock your gear.

Canyon Carryin-On; Making good progress on the new canyon level, laying out the technology-based assets, creating more boss arenas, and lockdown points - which creates more tense gameplay as you will be locked in a zone until you complete the objective and/or defeat the nearby enemies to get your loot rewards. These levels are quite large, to accommodate the tank speed, but will come in a number of variations, with open/closed off zones - blockaded by highly dangerous radioactive corruption clouds. In combination with the environmental color shifting, set dressing changes with rocks, plants, nukonium, tech assets, randomized objectives and variation in quantity of available zones - a level should feel pretty damn different every time you play ;)

So, with Christmas coming, there will be some downtime and much deserved developer holidays - despite what ARBI says and how hard he cracks the digital whip! But we do have some good features coming; the first being an enemy overhaul, with AI improvements, some initial setup for loot spawning (more to be revealed on the loot system in January), and some further enemy encounter improvements and combat balancing. So stay tuned for all that!

Thank you to everyone who has supported and wishlisted Nuke Zone this year. We look forward to showing off our progress in the new year as we work towards an exclusive public beta - we will announce that date once we’re a bit further along!

As always, we'd love to hear your feedback in the ⭐Steam Community Forum⭐or on Discord[nuke.zone] and don't forget to Wishlist Nuke Zone[nuke.zone], and sign up for the Newsletter[eepurl.com] to stay up to date!

Thank you!

☕ Andy + Nuke Zone Dev Team 🧙