EGX was a great opportunity that was given to us by Epic Games. There was a competition a few months ago, to submit a game that showcases Unreal Engine 4 and we were one of the lucky projects to be chosen. I know there were some great projects that unfortunately didn't get chosen.
Epic had their Unreal Engine stand upstairs, next to the Rezzed area and next to the Developer Talks stage. It was a good placement, even though it wasn't directly in the path of the crowds, but actually worked pretty well in getting the right people to see the game.
We were sharing the Unreal stand with a selection of really great projects:
- Red:Out, a fast-paced racing game from 34BigThings. View pre-alpha gameplay footage.
- Eclipse, a multiplayer cat and mouse game via the Alacrity Falmouth startup program.
- Ether One by White Paper Games. Check out the trailer and visit the Steam page.
- Seek, an exploration game from Five Pixels. Watch the Dare to be Digital trailer.
- Pneuma: Breath of Life, a puzzler by Deco Digital and Bevel Studios. See Epic's interview.
- Tiki Galore, a tribal action game by Abyss Studios. Preview test gameplay.
- Pool Nation FX, a realistic pool playing simulator by Cherry Pop Games. See the E3 trailer.
Probably the best part of the whole experience was getting the feedback from both the players and the other developers. We have (and are going to!) be adding a lot of the features that we discussed with the people and we totally believe it's made a better product for everyone.
Some of the changes we have made:
- When you shoot fuel cans, the fuel leaks out all over the floor. Can still explode but is no longer moveable
- Camera is now orbital, rather than fixed behind the player.
- Monster behaviour improved.
- Compass. Players who have picked up a compass have a compass displayed.
- Pick up logic. When you try to pick up another weapon, while carrying two. You drop the current equipped weapon and pick up the new one.
- Picking up a weapon while having fuel equipped means dropping the fuel
- GUI improvements.
- Inventory now expands when more objects are picked up (will later be applied to a pickupable object such as a rucksack).
- Players now need to have at least one Revive needle in order to revive fallen teammates.
- Monsters prioritise killing you, before destroying objectives.
- Generators can now be filled up by multiple fuel cans. More fuel, longer time. Rather than a fixed amount of time, which resets when fuel is put in.
- Problems with collision and objects falling through the floor is fixed.
- Tonnes of minor bug fixes and optimizations
So this leads us to the next point... When is it going to be released?? NOVEMBER!! We have set ourselves a strict deadline and hopefully Congo will be out on Steam Early Access by the end of November!
The current release will feature one map. More content will be added soon after.
So if you have any thoughts or questions, I'd love to hear them! Send us a comment below!
