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Halcyon Winds

Are We there yet? Dev Update #25

Game Beats

A lethal virus has infected Treasure Island,San Francisco. It is up to Captain Winter, a U.S. Army soldier working with the Center for Epidemic Research and Control (CERC), to stop the mysterious and deadly Pangu Virus from spreading to the mainland. The Cepheus Protocol is an independently developed top-down RTS inspired by XCOM, Company of Heroes, and Parasite Eve.

In Cepheus Protocol, you will make decisions that will force civilians to either rally behind you or attack you outright. How you decide to combat the virus is entirely up to you. You can fire bombs and leave no trace of human life behind or you can try and save everyone at the cost of your squad’s safety. The game features a full day and night cycle and will adapt over time to make the Infected more dangerous as the days progress. The Infected will mutate and adapt to the player, creating a challenge at every turn.

You will control fully customizable teams that you will send into the infection zones to do CEDA Missions, help civilians, or just seek out Patient 0 . You will lose men if your arent careful and be forced to train and recruit from your player base. Each solider will be unique to a point with randomly generated traits and skills allowing you to tailor them with specific tactics.

You will have to use all the tools in your arsenal and research the plague to discover its origins. You will use your knowledge to cure it to stop the virus before it causes everything to spiral out of control. You will hunt Patient 0, a unique carrier with special abilities that gets stronger as the days progress. You will be confronting and fighting her over a span of main missions and side objectives riddled across the island.


Are We there yet? Dev Update #25

The development of Cepheus Protocol, like any game has had many iterations and changes from the initial idea. Our game can be somewhat difficult to place into any one genre. RTS like, but with limited resources, and resource management, in a survival like setting. Challenging with open zones to explore, yet story driven as well. What can we do to make this game fun and interesting? That question is always on the back of developers minds, just as its a question our team is always asking. Some idea’s seem to work, while others dont, and some idea’s are still yet to be implemented. One can’t truly know though what really works until its shown to the public and openly discussed, and that’s why we’re excited to say that towards the end of this month we’ll be showcasing our game more openly, discussing deeper mechanics of it, and planning for playable builds in the future which we can show off, stream, and allow you to see how, and where development is progressing.

We are very excited to be making this big hurdle, and we need you to help see us through. Regardless of how interested you are, any feedback, suggestions, and interesting idea’s are welcome, and helpful, and we will be looking at everything said by our community as we progress into the summer and fall. While we have a very concrete idea of what Cepheus Protocol will be as a whole we want to make Cepheus Protocol a game for you that our community will be happy to support and ultimately enjoy playing at its release, and we cannot do that without you.

Isaac Cudd,

Assistant Producer


Level Design

Is in the best place it has ever been in. As it stands all exterior zones have been approved to push ahead for final testing. Any changes past the 14th will be on a basis to balance gameplay.



Programming

Weapon Armory

The system for swapping between gear at the player barracks was added and setup!


Derek worked on the Land Mines and the buildable turret emplacements.


The motion detectors were also added


Animation

The various creature AI’s were created and implemented.

Across the divisions we worked on the unique classes, got the flamethrowers situated, Spiters implemented, Juggernaut & Blowup working. We setup a system for classes like the Juggernaut to summon infected to them plus add in various utility skills like jumps, acid spits and charges.

As you can see we got the Riot shield working to help protect units and form defensive walls in gameplay. The flamethrower was brought online as well over the past month.

A togglable flashlight was added for situations during the nighttime that is player controlled.

The juggernaut was giving his earth shattering ground smash!

Night vision that was added that works better as the night gets darker, but also affecting your units line of sight negatively if its still light out.

One mechanic that we are extensively working on is the ability for civilians to gather and demand to be allowed into your base for safety. This could in doing allow the infection into your base and put everything your doing at risk. But the positive is when you are exploring the world some civilians will hear of your good deeds and be less likely to shoot/engage you. In some cases these riots or gathering can turn violent or even gather a nearby infected horde to your base for chow time

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General Changes

The UI has given a new fresh paint coat in terms of layout. We are still experimenting with the colors and icons. But overall its looking pretty rad. This is the latest concept preview we are toying with and trying to figure out if it will work for what we are trying to do.


Base and Unit management was refined in an attempt to make it more user friendly who was assigned to “Away” and “Defensive” teams. Away teams are defined as units that can freely move anywhere. Defensive teams are defined as teams that can only move inside the base perimeter freely.

Base building system was refined over the last few weeks and moved to the bottom right command menu

We also chose to refine the way we give units ammo instead of automatically doing it.

Silencers are now attachable to certain weapons for added stealth


Modeling

In all there were over 100 assets modeled over the past month in the level design section below you’ll see more of that. Here are a few cool teasers!


Concept

We got a LOT done in concept but sadly i can’t show a lot of it due to spoilers. Sorry 🙂

Recruitment

Currently we are seeking talented individuals in the following roles. It should be noted the project is post launch compensation and we are incredibly willing to work with any individuals schedule that might be interested. Feel free to send me an example at with your reel.portfolio and/or website.

  • 3DMax Animators
  • Prop Modeling
  • Level Designers

Email : [email protected]

Community Discord Server

We started a Discord! Join it and support the game we’re still turning on the lights so it will be more filled in over the next few days!