Dev log 2: what the testers told us

The first testers have now played the demo end to end, and sent back what they found: their sessions from inside the game, notes, and one long written report with screenshots. We turned all of it into a list of issues and worked through it. Nearly everything below started as something a tester told us.

There's also something new to watch. The whole demo, played start to finish is up on YouTube: thirty-five minutes on release 262.

The last fight now explains itself

The clearest finding: two of the three runs that reached the Relay Mast lost it without ever touching the relay terminal. Both players fought every machine on the map, ran out the clock, and were told the squad had been defeated while all six were still standing.

Now the fight shows the rounds you have left, lights the terminal and the way out, and when you lose it tells you why. The relay also has a point in the story: working it sends the all-clear to Crossing Twelve, so the guns there stand down for the convoy. Then the squad gets back in the truck, and the truck drives off.

See what a move can reach before you make it

Several testers said they couldn't tell what they'd be able to shoot from where they were going, or how much cover they'd have when they got there. So now, when you point at a place to move, a ghost of the operative stands there and dotted lines run from its gun to every machine in reach. Each kind of action gets its own colour, with a legend, and each line shows the hit chance and damage. Hold Shift to see the lines from where the squad stands.

Around that:

• How far you can move is drawn as one rounded area on the deck, and the path as a solid line.
• The operative acting is outlined in blue, and whatever they're aiming at in red.
• Cover now comes from the objects beside you, and shows as shields in 3D.
• Everyone faces where they're looking now. Operatives turn the way they moved or towards what they shot, and machines turn towards the nearest threat. It's how the fight looks; it doesn't change what hits.

Balance, from the reports

• Mark was the strongest thing in the game, by a distance. It's now one mark at a time per Scout, and slightly weaker.
• Scan was spent even by a missed shot, which made it feel worthless. Now only a hit spends it, and it's stronger to begin with.
• Hack decided any fight that was down to two machines. Now each hack has a one-in-four chance that the machines share a patch, after which hacking is refused for the rest of the fight. A hacked Guardian also drops its shield.
• Patch draws on the Medic's supplies for the fight, instead of working once per person per round.
• Sprint is new: spend an action for half your movement again. And everyone moves further: 6, up from 4.
• Undo (Z) now takes back moves one after another, back to your last shot.

Controls

Keys can be rebound in Settings, and every hint in the game shows your binding. Right-click cancels an armed action. A single click moves you. Escape reaches the menu in one press, and Q and E turn the camera while exploring. The combat log is now a console in the corner that stays out of the way.

A squad with voices

The speech balloons are gone. In a fight the squad now speaks aloud, each in their own voice, and the lines are captioned at the foot of the board: contact, hits and misses, calls for help, the Medic at work, and "Clear?" when it's over. That's 321 recorded lines. The faces on the squad cards are the operatives' own models now, rendered live: they breathe, blink and look around.

The world between the fights

• The pump hall is built: four working pumps, and a flood that ends the hold by sweeping every machine still standing out of the hall.
• The truck drives the squad between places, and the gate lifts on camera.
• ORACLE's case now rides in the back of the truck. Go round the back and you can ask it questions, in any order and as often as you like.
• Treating the wounded happens on the map now (K). It costs time, and the machines don't wait for you.
• The radio log (L) keeps everything Captain Hale has said.

Smoother

The game used to freeze for a moment as some actions landed, sometimes for over a second. On our Windows test machine, the number of slow frames in a full playthrough went from 320 to 6.

For testers

• The bug button. There's a bug in the top-right corner of the screen now. Click it and you get the feedback panel with a screenshot of what you were looking at already attached. Give it a title and say what happened.
• Arena. On the title screen, Arena drops the squad into a single fight on a board built for cover, at one of four difficulties from easy to brutal. It's there so we can tune the balance; tell us what you think of it.

Thank you to everyone who played and wrote in. Keep it coming.