KatFS Alpha Devlog #10 (April 2025)

Hello all! First and foremost, happy International Labor Day! I hope you are all enjoying a well-deserved rest, and I hope someday everyone in the world shall have the right to dignified work (and the fruits of their labor!).

And speaking of "fruits of labor", let's have a look at what developments were made in April:

SOUND, SOUND, SOUND!

The bulk of new things this month came in the audio department, where my good friend Tapefilter2000 has been cranking out amazing synthesized effects for the facility's machines and tech, as well as some footstep SFX that finally give Kalia's scuttering around some oomph, and a brand new music track for the early facility chapter!

We are all eager to showcase it, however... This bunch of the audio work has been done not only for the game, but also as part of Tape's final project for his audio university course. Out of a concern that everything goes smoothly with the grading of the project, the showcase of these new SFX is being postponed until their coursework has been properly graded and finished. Then, the stage will be fully ours again!

Fortunately, there are more things to showcase!

FENG SHUI

Just giving the facility a lived-in vibe with a set of "mechanic workshop" assets. While some of these were made to be more generic and fill in empty space, I also hope to give every room in the level some sort of "backstory" with some of these. Take for example these two "garages":

Their in-game purpose is merely as a set for a puzzle involving the two heat converters and the batteries. But just dumping props in a level without rhyme or reason is not enough for me. In the lower room, you can see a whiteboard with the schematics for the converter drawn on (a little unobtrusive hint), a wire haphazardly hooking the converter to the door controls, a toolbox by the converter, and a multimeter/car battery charger inspired device near the button. The intent here is to showcase a scenario where the converter was jury rigged to the door either as experimentation or because of an emergency, and Kalia can exploit it as part of this puzzle.

The other room features a similar setup, but it also contains a battery station (hooked up to the second converter, obviously), and a discharged battery standing on the pad, ready to be recharged the moment the station is powered by the converter. You can also see dismantled and turned over batteries in that room, which is meant to suggest it to be some sort of battery repairing workshop.

This is a level of attention I hope to maintain throughout most of the game, particularly around the man-made areas. Every room, puzzle and encounter should invoke at least a small thought of what could have been going on there.

ZOMBIE HORDES!

Okay, maybe "hordes" is a bit excessive (for now). But the zombies have gained a new behavior to make them more interesting as a foe in KatFS - they are now able to form groups dynamically, and wander as part of this group. Each group will be assigned a "leader" that decides where to wander next, while the other members just try to stay close. If a leader dies, another gets picked. Groups can merge, but only up to a certain defined size. 

With this implementation, I hope to make wandering zombies more of a threat, since pulling one means pulling a whole group with it. The random nature around which these groups are formed and wander around also introduce some variability between playthroughs, albeit nothing revolutionary.

ANIMATED CUTSCENES! (SOON)

I had to get one last new thing done before this devlog was due, and it was setting up the system for movie/slideshow style cutscenes! I have previously introduced KatFS's cutscene scripting system in a previous devlog, so feel free to check it out for a deeper understanding of the underlying scripts. What I will be showcasing this alpha devlog is the first implementation of what I call "Animated Cutscene" in the game using this framework. It's still missing the actual art part of it, so for now it's been crafted with a text script slideshow and one of the previous concept arts I've made for this scene:

So, what are the tricks here? For the animation itself, it's simply an Unity Animator that gets called by a CutsceneAction. This action script starts the animation sequence and then waits for a callback when the animation is finished, allowing the cutscene to continue. The animation can be combined with in-game cutscene elements, such as the player being quietly moved to a different location in the level and having their health taken away to represent the fall into the pit.

If you look behind the curtain, the setup gets quite interesting:

The big dark block on the bottom right corner is the initial area with the rope bridge, where the cutscene trigger is. The smaller dark block to the left is the area the player gets transported to during the cutscene, representing the bottom of the pit below the bridge. And that small gray rectangle at the top right corner? That's actually where the animated cutscene plays! When the cutscene is triggered, the camera gets instantly transported to that area after the fade out, and the animation plays within that area. You could even call it a "movie screen" or "theater stage". While these cutscenes could be achieved in other ways, I feel that this is a simple and effective method, keeping everything within reach in the editor.

MEANWHILE, IN A FAR-FAR WORLD...

The adventures of a new trio are in the early stages of their making...

But that will be all for now! Thank you for reading this devlog, and we'll see more next month! Hopefully by then I'll finally be able to show everyone the new audio effects :]