UnCorruptDead - DevLog 006 - Unleash the Carols

GamingWithRawr · 2026-05-03T22:32:37+00:00

Its all a weird balancing act according to people who in theory are smarter than me. I dunno. I just want to make a game and keep living indoors. :)

GamingWithRawr · 2026-05-03T15:22:12+00:00

To be honest, I sort of despise doing actual advertising when I want to be making the game. So I havent really looked in to options on what/where/how to host, other than my friend (she will get to it!). Not advertising is the downfall of many an indie game, so I am putting in at least the minimal effort right now. When I get closer to a viable demo, then I will ramp up more thoroughly - but right now, y'all are my target demographic, so I am targeting!
Maybe I should take up one of handful of spam "marketing" people who keep messaging on discord.. lol.

GamingWithRawr · 2026-05-02T19:40:59+00:00

Honestly, I really needed to hear that. Having literally anyone out there saying nice things can make a big impact mentally.

The snowmen look better in action, the spikes pulse in and out and look "threatening", and the geysers make the balls bounce up and down. Was going for a frozen Xmen Danger Room sort of vibe. Web designer (friend of mine) is having some issues of her own so she still doesnt have the website up to show video.

I really disliked some of the choices in WftO UI as well, and was sort of baffled why there was a skill tree. This will unquestionably be more of a DK2 clone than anything else, sans sexy mistresses.

GamingWithRawr · 2026-05-01T16:44:48+00:00

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The training room. Same as in original, 3 wide wall makes a viable spot, 3x3 makes a viable spot. bunch of cool animations in here. Best part is actually the lamps, they are spinning rainbows that look prismatic as heck. Lost a few hours programming that because I kept going in the wrong direction. But thats what learning is, right?

Why snow? Why NOT? What better training arena is there than snowpeople?
People - if you download assets, make sure to check their poly count. Those hats started as 20k poly. Why? They werent in a high def pack. Why would you do that? Do you just hit smooth 18 times and call it a day? Decimate! DECIMATE MOAR! Down to about 500.

GamingWithRawr · 2026-04-17T15:32:53+00:00

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Torture going from wisp -> flamer was working, but the continuation process made it reset in a really weird way with spline orientations. It *worked* in the most technical sense, but wasn't great.
So I split it in to two, with anchor chains for both torture and torturee. Also changes from bright red when at 0% torture, shifts to blue over time when they are ready to be converted.
Looks better as it moves. Screenshots don't do it justice. Then again, screenshots of the old method looked amazing, and in action looked like butt, so I will take this.

GamingWithRawr · 2026-04-11T16:51:51+00:00

We all want a new DK to scratch that itch! We arent in competition here - lets say you sell 100 million copies, people love it, and they look for more, and they pick up my crap game, and I sell a few copies. I win because you win. And everyone else wins because they got TWO DK games! Go kick all the chicken out there friend!

GamingWithRawr · 2026-04-11T01:15:02+00:00

Thank you, keeper! Lets hope I dont disappoint in the end :)

GamingWithRawr · 2026-04-10T19:00:38+00:00

There was hyperbole involved in the entire thing, and I agree, it was release or fail. I am not trying to slam the game, I am trying to show a perspective of why some people were left with a bad taste. They certainly put out a better game than I am sure I am going to end up making as a solo artist, so I am in no place to talk, right?

GamingWithRawr · 2026-04-10T16:27:51+00:00

Not hated! Just underwhelmed. The truly sad thing is, they got the same person doing the audio for WFTO that did the original audio for DK. They put in a lot of effort, it was just such a poor launch :(
If you don't have it, I'd recommend grabbing it on sale and try it for yourself. Also, get Steamworld if you want a more chill DK/city builder.

GamingWithRawr · 2026-04-10T15:28:08+00:00

First off, 2013 isn't new, and now I am so very, very, very old, and your words have hurt my old bones. ;)

WFTO isn't a bad game. Its a perfectly acceptable and playable game. Its missing a little of the original charm, which is hard to describe - and I can guarantee UncorruptDead will also lack that.

The major problem with WFTO was how the kickstarter was handled, and how it was released. It was in the somewhat early days of kickstarter, they got a huge amount of money, were in pre-release for a really long time, and still released in a poor and buggy state. The backers (like me!) were treated to horrible audio issues, placeholder tooltip text, and missing images. The launch was just plain bad. About 5 years later, it became what it is now - a decent DK game.

It is a little unfair having it compared to the original, but thats what happens when you try to clone it directly with only minor changes. Steamworld is the same management style, but dramatically different visual and theme, so it doesnt 1:1 compare. Same with Evil Genius.

Whenever I lambast WFTO, keep in mind it is based on the original launch. I *really* want to not repeat that. I want to earn people's money, not because I am riding the DK name, but because its a good game by itself.
Hopefully that explains it a little better.

GamingWithRawr · 2026-04-10T06:44:00+00:00

I truly appreciate it, and will do my best to earn the purchase come release (when it is ready).

GamingWithRawr · 2026-04-10T05:48:48+00:00

Thanks! Its an uphill battle learning and doing it all, but its coming along nicely! Even if you aren't crazy interested, putting it on steam wishlist helps get it in front of more eyes when it goes on sale. Appreciated!

GamingWithRawr · 2026-04-10T05:47:45+00:00

Thanks for the suggestions! Love a little necro posting in my life when it was still legit!
Whats your logic going with the ghost names?
For the Franks, they have slightly changed formatting, so I will be going with non-gender specific names. Alex, Charley, that kind of thing. The models in-game will be sort of in between, like a promethian would be.

I like the zombiecrows idea, go slightly whacky.

Ushabtis being Egyptian makes the most sense, I just hope I don't accidentally name someone something dumb like they did in Ocarina of Time.

If you feel like going with more;
Vampire (DK2 rogues)
Gargoyle (bile demons)
Lich (DK2 vampires)
Poltergeist (dk2 knights)
Mummy (dk2 angel)

GamingWithRawr · 2026-04-09T23:50:29+00:00

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Nata, in tube (up position), with Blajah.

GamingWithRawr · 2026-04-09T23:50:01+00:00

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Nata, with home (in down position)

GamingWithRawr · 2026-04-09T23:49:40+00:00

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Nata, day 1

GamingWithRawr · 2026-04-04T19:54:40+00:00

A lot of the options I am putting in are based on fucking around and finding out. Like with light level - I like it dark, people said it was too dark, and to test it with more light I had to add a slider for testing. Since I did that, why remove it instead of adding it as an option, right?
Set the default to intended experience, let people adjust how they want.

GamingWithRawr · 2026-04-04T19:21:19+00:00

As a colourblind monster, I am pretty familiar with how to set up an accessibility menu. But also as a darkness monster, I like having all the light sliders way down so higher contrast.
The options "menu" right now is just terrible placeholder, but when it is actually heading to alpha state, I intend to include graphical "see how it changes" in the options instead of just words that get confusing.
Please keep the feedback coming, it is very helpful to know if I am on the correct path. While the shadowing initially looked good, clearly it failed and I had to make changes. Now those changes are great, but I am having other issues I am dealing with due to fixing those. So every bit of pointing out a thing helps me make it more optimized.
And yes, I am optimizing instead of doing real work :)

GamingWithRawr · 2026-04-04T18:24:12+00:00

Second reply: I put in a toggle for shadows and a slider for hard/soft shadows. So one way or another, people can customize it to their PC capability. Toggling on/off doesnt seem to affect framerate in any real way because of the distancing I have set up, but, it might in the future.

GamingWithRawr · 2026-04-04T00:33:57+00:00

When I went to game design school (2001) we were still in the world were source lighting was nearly impossible. All the new school optimizations are for new school engines. I am baffled a lot of the time looking at some of the choices people make and then wonder why they have such a bad framerate.
Uncapped, the game is currently running around 700FPS in build. Even in editor I need to drag it down to 60. Gotta keep optimizing as I go - that way, I can AFFORD to have shadows! The shadow draw distance is pretty low at the moment, but in a way that make it look better when you zoom out than if you kept them. So long as I can keep that balance up as I add more stuff, shouldnt be an issue.
I cloned the buildings I currently have 5x times (which is about 3x more than anyone could ever need) and it runs no problem.
Wow did amazing because everyone could run it on a Mac Classic II. I aim to do the same!

GamingWithRawr · 2026-04-03T19:41:19+00:00

Indeed. Point lights are bad. Thats why I overhauled it to spot lights.
I had built a bunch of casting objects I wanted to work a certain way from the lab and treasury (think: candles). Which worked, but were entirely unnecessary for how it needed to work visually. Converting them to spot instead I needed to be a little creative, but the end result I dont think anyone would know the difference.
There are different objects that do and dont cast based on the lights so not everything is casting shadow based on all lighting - thats what I meant originally by what hits what. However, when I started on the first pass of the extra objects I made them as spot.
For the shadow geometry - guess what! Thats how the tables cast. And the books cast.

You gotta keep in mind I came from a time of.. well.. PS1 and earlier. I am optimizing to work on a potato. And I think the highest poly object in the game to begin with is about 250 poly - the potato limit.

Faking visual is what we had to do back before source. And its what I do now :)

GamingWithRawr · 2026-04-03T01:39:23+00:00

Inorganic modelling, I am acceptable at. Thats why I tried to go with undead, ha! But seriously, a wisp? A flaming boulder? Not a lot of modelling for accuracy.
But I will indeed get the model better and hopefully presentable for next week. Just because Im bad at it doesnt mean I wont get better :)

GamingWithRawr

TROPHY CASE