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.
Modeling
Peter is in his never-ending quest of improving on the virus samples. Take a look at the latest from him:
Some more improvements to the virus throughout the month:
Efrain continues to add a ton of detail to buildings:
A more finished version:
NOW PUT THEM TOGETHER!
We wanted to show off even more buildings by Efrain:
How could we miss out on creating an esports arena!
Dimitry has started polishing up some buildings and adding textures:
Here's one of the buildings that will be available as an upgrade in-game (all purchased with money earned through gameplay like killing infected and not microtransactions):
Vlad has been texturing and working on a bunch of buildings:
Welcome to the Cepheus Protocol salon (all images are WIP)!
How about some male haircuts?
Peter was also able to take a break from the huge virus structure and started some work on some character models:
Programming
As always, we’ve got some awesome Derek updates! He worked on additional mechanics for base building. Now you’ll be able to see how badly damaged different sections are and act accordingly. He also built the logic of garrisoning to towers!
Continuing on the garrisoning work, Derek continued to work on cleaning up its logic. Now you’ll be able to also update the capacity when you’re garrisoning. He also worked on the how the mechanics of all of this would work and when you’d need to “de-garrison” your base.
Derek also worked on building a small widget that shows on top of the buildings you’re constructing. It also scales depending on how big/long you’re creating your walls AND updates the dollar amount in real time. You can also cancel or reduce the construction you’re working on if it gets a little too boujee for your taste.
He also updated it further to block construction if you cannot afford the current length of segments. He added a nice little animation to go along with it too! This upgrade also means it’ll smoothly roll in to the net segment of wall after confirming the current one.
One of the biggest hurdles Derek had to overcome was fixing the wall “snap” logic. What was happening before was that the buildings were ignoring collisions and still continue constructing where they shouldn’t (i.e. you could previously build on top of another building).
Not only did he fix that, but he also made it so in the new building mechanics construction wont block the newly added Garrison doors.
Also worked on small changes like having a clear “Claimed” widget once you take over a building:
He also added distance vanish to the “Claimed’ widget when you’re too far away!
Derek also built something so that buildings wouldn’t be constructed on top of each other:
The building “snap” angle has also now been set to 30 degrees. We used to have 15 and 30 degree snaps but we felt 30 was a nice in between.
Derek went over some existing UE4 code and adjusted the grenade traces. They now have an adjustable lifespan. Went with 0.4 seconds and additional polish so that you don’t see one last “line” as you actually throw it.
He also set up the widget that pops up over DNA/virus samples that drop in the world. This was also done with the usual scaling logic so that it’ll disappear when the camera is too far and scale depending on distance. Also added some fancy appearing colour and animation!
Some small UI adjustments were also done! Here you see that the FireMode button now displays “SAFE” when you’ve instructed your unit to hold fire.
NEW cursor as well!
Now you’ll be able to more clearly see whether you have your units walking or running!
Derek did work on a dossier for tracking available missions to take. It is still a WIP but it’s getting there!
Robert worked on the addition of these markers that you’ll see in the world. They’ll show you where to go or where to find civilians/NPCs.
There was also work done on scaling the health bars so depending how high the camera is, the health bars will scale as needed.
Derek also worked on Capsule Shrinking meaning when you’re moving one of your unit members around, they won't run into and get blocked by other unit members.
In our early internal playtest sessions, we were all running into the issue that sometimes our clicks would get absorbed by the world (i.e. on bridges, cranes, etc.). Thanks to Derek, you can now click wherever you want! It’s still not perfect since we still have to work on it but look at this smooth clicking in the forest:
Robert worked on some of the zone lines you’ll see in game. We hope that these give you an idea of not only when you’re entering a new zone, but also how much the infection has spread:
Derek also worked on a “Go Away” volume where infected that may be wandering will know to go away. If the infected are investigating a noise or chasing something in combat, then it wont work. We wanted his logic in place so that it’s useful for making a “safe area” for fast travel points.
He also worked on attack points on infected structures which will now dynamically block navigation if spawned in. Your unit members will aim for the most convenient sport themselves and attack (shoot) at the structure from there.
We also implemented something a little more visual to remind you when Slowmo has been activated on your HUD. As you may know, you can hit slowmo whenever you’re in tight spots or if you want to strategically throw a grenade and move around a unit member or two in the middle of a fight.
We’re also trying a new truck travel system where a truck will drive along the arrival spline then stop. Once it leaves, it will drive to the end of the exit spline and warp to the next point’s arrival spline.
We’ve also given a “day report” a first try so its definitely a WIP but you’ll be able to see a summary of your stats for each given day.
And with some TV magic…TADA! Here’s a more advanced day report:
We’re also still in the early stages of testing different ways we can make it easier for you to build your perfect formation based on different situations or by preference. Although we still have to work out some kinks, here’s a look at how it works:
Animation
Our animators have been very busy! Here's a look at some of the things they worked on:
Clara worked on the animation where a soldier goes up to a character (secret who it is!) and some stuff happens...
How would an infected look like running you ask? Check it out!
Concept Art
Ashley and team created more posters!
The art team also started playing around with some Steam graphics!
More character and other concept art as well!
One of our newest members Veeshane started doing some great concept art!
Juniardi worked on this special infected that you saw previously in the Steam WIP and additional concept art:
How would one of our main characters look like as her younger self? Check out this WIP!
Here are some screenshots of the post process volumes Ashley has been working on:
UI
Dimitry worked on some technical fixes but also the “billboards” that show off the missions. Still a WIP!
Before we had some issues with the map in that whenever you’d click somewhere on it, the cursor and map would be offset (which is very annoying, trust us!). Thanks to Derek, this problem is no more!
Level Design
A ton of Level Design work overlaps with the Modelling works we've featured above!
What’s under the hood you might ask? Take a look at this!
A couple of the Level Designers worked on the current turret you’ll be able to build in your base:
Dimitry worked on some level design with the swat car, main base generator, and more!
As mentioned before, a lot of the Modelling and Level Design work crosses over so we wanted to highlight some of the textured work Efrain has also done!
Bonus Level: Additional Things to Share
Something funny we wanted to share while we were testing a form of fast travel...
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!
Damn your updates are always insanely detailed and incredible. Great progress again.
Thanks so much! We love sharing everything and showing off all the amazing work the team has worked on :)