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 you aren’t 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.
Make sure to follow us below for the latest updates, funny bugs, or simply come chat with us:
Twitter: Twitter.com
Discord: T.co
Instagram: Instagram.com
Twitch: Twitch.tv
Facebook: Facebook.com
Art Department
We have two insanely amazing sets of art that you’ll see throughout the world. Our talented Art team worked on a few billboards for real estate and fictional movies that you’ll see on bus stops, near the theater, and around the game world.
Movie posters!
Ashley worked on detailing one of our main promo images a bit more. Winter looks a little angrier than usual and ready for battle!
This super cool splash image was also given a little TLC with additional details and a made a little bit brighter than before.
The Art team is so talented, we wanted to show even more concept art. We can never have enough concept!
Juniardi worked on the hospital entrance concept art. Although we already had something planned for it, we thought it needed a bit of a revamp and he made it 10x better!
Are you following us on Discord? Our Art team worked on some really cool promotional images that we’ll be using on social media. You might catch these out in the wild pretty soon!
Modeling
Efrain channeled some IKEA vibes with these cabinets that will be used in Chelsey’s house.
Vlad worked on some police car models. Here we have some before and after shots after adding some textures.
Peter worked on what the dropped pod samples might look like. He’s still adding some finishing touches to make them as repulsive and creepy as possible.
With some texture added we get this - voila! On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being stomach-churning nasty, what would you rate these sample drops?
Building on the pods that Peter worked on, here’s a look at what the meshes look like underneath all the nasty flesh in the above images.
If we do a bit of a deeper dive on sample pods, we wanted to show the concept art that they are based on. We also wanted to show the texture set for the pods. We think they look pretty awesome!
Efrain shared what the Sonar Pulse might look like – although it is still a WIP!
A wider shot of the Sonar Pulse:
Animation
Tyler had a super busy month with the medic animation being one of his priorities. The “healing” animation for the medics looks pretty good even in its rough draft!
We took a lot of inspiration from Starcraft medics, ours have been programmed so that they will come over if heal mode is ON and will start healing without having to tell them so.
More work was done on the medic animation throughout the month!
He also “mapped” our all the animations which are also a work in progress.
One of the last thing we wanted to highlight was Tyler’s amazing work on the special infected animations. These are still a Work In Progress and still need some polishing.
Programming
Derek further worked on the flamethrower animation. Won't fire unless in range (though will see targets), deals damage over time, leaves flame effect on the target as they're burning/dead. Then he tweaked the damage so it’s not as overpowered as before.
Robert has been working on the coop module but even with some odd technical hiccups, he’s got some good stuff working so far! He’s been working on the HUD and making sure they properly sync.
The team will be focusing on longevity of the game so that we can incorporate mods and allow fans to replay the game in different ways.
Robert worked on the shooting accuracy of the main units so they actually hit their targets and are less like Stormtroopers.
Derek worked on the riot shield against special infected attacks and got the basic riot shield working. It sometimes fails to block melee attacks if the attacker gets SUPER close to the player such that his melee attack's center is 'inside' you, but mostly works. He’ll work on tweaking melee attacks to be wider but closer to the attacker as that should resolve it.
Nonetheless, they have functionality now - work quite well against projectiles!
Derek worked on the UI including the small details like what the interface will show when a unit has the riot shield equipped. What do you think?
Speaking of some cool features, Derek worked on the Sonar Pulse that reveals units in the Fog of War!
Derek then dug a little further and figured out some issues with the stenciling (basically that sort of static look so you can see where the characters are). All allied units are visible through walls and sonar pinged units are clearly visible as red outlines for the duration of the ping.
Derek worked on some power updating! Certain building will require you to power them with electricity or they will be useless/unusable. Their shops are rendered useless without power but some of the initial building don’t require an exterior power generator.
He also added the logic so that shops update when a building’s power status is changed.
To go along with the external power update, Derek also created some basic images, made a basic animation, and hooked up a new widget that displays when the building has no power. Now you’ll know exactly when a building is calling for power!
Derek had to go back to some old logic to figure out why stuff wasn't working, but in the process was able to update more buildings and started a Food Tracker on the Civilian Hold! He will be working on populating the food logic (ability to purchase it and try to get some basic ‘unhappy civilian’ rep loss and animations if out of food).
Derek also worked on the Stealth ability and was able to work on hiding the weapon while it’s active, fixed the ability’s cool-down logic as well as its cancellation logic.
UI
GIF Team Selection Derek cleaned up the HUD and Away Team Panels quite a bit. The 'selection borders' around each panel will no longer glitch out, but now (tied to delegates properly) should update only on unit selection/deselection. Additionally, buttons on unassigned panels are no longer “activate” on hover.
There's a pretty tightly-programmed Select button added for the current team display: press it to select or deselect the current team.
Level Design
We live streamed some things like getting the boat ready with some blood splatter and a dead body this week! Make sure to follow us on Twitch to see it all happen live: Twitch.tv.
Dimitry worked on changing the selection circle to give it a nice revamp to what it was before. We think it looks super clean and modern!
Added a post process effect for obscured units. The cool thing is that it scrolls slowly and is not just static.
The team worked really hard on these modular wall assets we’ll be using in the game (we showed a bit of this in the last update). The numbers are to show whether or not we’re gridding right when we’re building and acts as a texture test.
Firebases will be used as rally points, save missions, side missions, or start primary missions. It teleports all your units in there. We’re also using it as a mechanic to ensure people don’t cheat by leaving units around the world and finishing missions really fast.
Efrain posted some sketches of the basic hospital layout. Here’s a sneak peek at the second floor: Its a very rough layout, we are going to look them over, pick them apart and decide on a final layout during our next Leads meeting.
Bonus Level: Additional Things to Share
You made it all the way down here! Your reward is that you get some extra little tidbits that we didn’t share in the above update or on social media.
Dimitry implemented a proper wind system. It was surprisingly complicated to do since instanced meshes needed a very specific way to get the coordinates right. We can’t wait to show more of this!
Robert and team worked on doors in-game. Trying to figure out how they open, close, and how characters go through them. It took a long-time guys…
Recruitment:
We’re currently seeking talented individuals in the various roles. It should be noted the project is post launch compensation and we’re open to flexible schedules depending on each individual. Please apply with the links below (Please note that roles where you need to show work requires you to provide us with a portfolio or website. Submissions without proof of work will be dismissed).
- 3DMax Animators: Forms.gle
- Modelers/Environmental Artists: Forms.gle
- Level Designers: Forms.gle
- Concept Artists: Forms.gle
- Character Modelers: Forms.gle
- UI Artists: Forms.gle
Questions? Email us here: recruitment@halcyonwinds.com
Community Discord Server
Got questions, suggestion, or just want to chat about the game? Come join us on our official Discord!
