Open world top-down tactical shooter for Windows, Mac and Linux

Hey there runners!

RWR 0.96 is done and available in Steam now, soon in Desura and BMTMicro. Check out the full change log here.

This time, the soldier level AI has been extended with the ability to determine spots where to deploy sandbag barriers to provide more cover in the battle area. I had had this one on the radar to implement for a long while, feels great to see it in action now!

On the general usability and indication improvements, the map view now visualizes troops distribution using squad size based cloud visuals rather than the numbers. This effectively also makes squad movement visible in the map view, enabling you to anticipate better where the troops in the faction are moving to and how long is it taking.

We’ve also extended the badge / award system a great deal. Campaign now comes with an initial set of ranked medals and titles that are granted to the player when reaching specific milestones. Currently there are vehicle destroying, sabotaging, general killing, stealth and exploration focused paths, we’ll likely see plenty more of these in the following updates. In one sense the awards feature makes a nice feedback system of what’s your typical playing style, but it may also hint new players of what you can / should do in the game.

Some new destroy targets have been placed around the maps, namely water tanks and mortar ammunition crates, but also an anti-air weapon emplacement in campaign for one of the enemy factions with an ability to prevent air drops until destroyed, making it a hugely important sabotaging target.

Finally, a feature requested by many since the game went to Steam Early Access a few months ago, the campaign now features the possibility to play with any available faction in the game!

Alrighty, 0.95 is now available in Steam and BMTMicro, Desura soon to follow. View the full change log here.

To summarize the bigger changes, plenty of new items, vehicles and targets are being introduced in this update. We’ve got
* flares for spawn point placement
* suppressed pistols as secondaries
* mortar and minigun deployments
* mobile armory truck
* a few different prison break targets scattered around in campaign
* fuel tank and radio jammer destroy targets
* hidden special item crates

Also, the elite “miniboss” soldiers are making their way now into the game in a properly controlled manner, so from now on all the rare weapon wielding soldiers are equipped with super vests and they always drop some valuables when killed, and they look properly different as well. Some fine-tunings will still come in the following versions, they’ll aim better than the common soldiers and see a bit farther, for example.

The usability revamp work is progressing nicely as well, in this version the chat log now comes with scrolling and some filtering options and the inventory view should be a bit more obvious about the stuff on the left side, or lack thereof. The scoretable is planned for a rework for the next update, also map view will be going through some changes.

Hey there runners!

RWR has finally appeared on Steam Early Access, awesome! We’ve also prepared a new trailer to highlight what’s going on in the game these days, see for yourself!

The about 20-month old demo also received a needed update, not sure how we justified postponing it for that long. So newcomers, head this way to get a feel of how the game actually plays.

Earlier Desura customers should keep their eyes on their Desura collection for a Steam redeem key, it will appear under Keys menu on the row for RWR. In plain English, there’s no need for you guys to re-purchase RWR in Steam.

Most of the BMTMicro customers should’ve been converted to Desura customers by now, and hence get the Steam redeem key through Desura similarly from Desura collection. If you’re one of those BMTMicro customers who never moved on to Desura, contact support@modulaatio.com to get your key and state your e-mail and your full name used when you made the purchase in BMTMicro so that I can verify the info.

The transition from 0.93 to 0.94 took quite a while, but we wanted to ensure the game plays as well as possible now that we’re entering the new frontier in Steam, making most of the changes bug and balance fixes and visual tweaks. The changes you might consider major since 0.93 would be
* map and faction names getting renamed
* AI now attempting to use the shield
* AI squad members chatting spontaneously
* adding flying visual junk when vehicles are destroyed, and vehicle ricochet impact sounds
* usability improvements, control helper visual, vehicle health indication, menu help text
* team elimination PvP game mode script for servers and a small scale PvP map
* deathmatch game mode script for servers

Makes me glad that we’re done with the tweaking period for a while now as we get into some new feature development again – the fun stuff! Expect to see some form of campaign final/boss battles, several new maps, we are also have plenty of objective ideas that would need to be added in the campaign. Also, I’m especially looking forward to get the AI deploy defense structures, as it might change the battle scene happenings again in a major way.

As said a few weeks ago RWR 0.93 was coming in a few weeks and now it’s indeed here! Most of the crucial changes were covered that time, go check it out if you’re eager for a refresher. A cleaned up and probably incomplete change log can be seen here.

On other news, my Mac mini has finally arrived, so completing (read: starting) the Mac port gets closer every day. We’re also preparing a new demo, so if any of you, the beta-testers, stumble on any crashes or critical launch issues, would be gold for us to know about it. We of course know each and every other bug the game has, so we’ll process the other bug reports a bit later, obviously they are welcome too Just stop by at the forum and speak your mind!

Any feedback on the current state of campaign would also be highly useful for us. We’ve obviously played the game for a long time, and to keep the campaign challenging for us, it can become unbearable for newcomers. Campaign difficulty settings are also coming, but aren’t there yet. We haven’t finished balancing the campaign, far from it, and especially the maps you see in the later phases might be a bit so-so in terms of balance, depending on which route you take. Also writing (faction, map and base names, dialogue, item naming and descriptions) can be considered placeholders at this stage, that is something we will start working with with a clearer mind for the Steam Early Access.

Speaking of which, RWR Steam Early Access release should soonish follow the release of the demo, the biggest time sink being the promotional video. The last ones are starting to look dated by now so we’ve got to step up in that department as well.