Development Update #4

Hello everyone!

Welcome to the fourth development update for Haunted: Attack of the Dead Men. I've been quite busy this month, as you will probably know by now, as I was finishing off the first update to the demo. I also spent some time to make a new trailer, which should do a better job at showing off the gameplay.

Let's start by going over some of the things that I added to the update. First of all, I have updated some of the weapon sprites, most notable of which is the Luger. Here is how it looks now:


What prompted me to do this was actually last month's development update - I realised the Luger was the same (rather bad-looking) sprite from way back when I started this project. I had overlooked it as it was intended to be a back-up weapon, so usually you would be using one of the others instead. Of course, now that it looks a lot better, I may revisit it later on and make it a bit more useful.

Secondly, as I mentioned last month, I have added "alternate fire modes". These were the highlight of the update, and expand the options available to you to dispatch the hordes of enemies you will be fighting, which should help to keep things interesting.

So what are the new options? Well, I mentioned them briefly in the release notes for 1.1.0, but I'll go over them again in more detail here. First off, we have the revolver:


Here I'm in a duel with an officer, over who's quicker on the draw. By holding the right mouse button, I can repeatedly fan the hammer, and shoot more than twice as fast as normal! This will naturally make the revolver a lot stronger, but there is a catch - it's about as accurate as the trenchgun while doing this, so don't try it at a distance.

Next up, the rifle and the trenchgun. These have the same addition - a bayonet, which you can even see on the trenchgun when you fire it.


The bayonet is simple really - when you right click, you stab with it. This provides a melee option for the early game, before the Shashka is unlocked, and should help if you are struggling with ammo.

Finally we have the machine gun. Previously, the machine gun wasn't very strong, because its poor accuracy meant it was difficult to use at a distance, and its low damage per shot meant it took a while to kill things up close. Now, there is an option when you are at a distance:


Here, I've deployed it statically, which means going "prone" and keeping it more under control. It is much more accurate now, and a good option for sniping fast-moving enemies. You still need to be careful though, as you can't move in this position, which makes you an easier target.

There will be some more options for the new weapons, too - grenades can be "cooked" to make them detonate more quickly after throwing, but if you're too late, you'll blow yourself up. Finally, the Shashka can block incoming melee attacks.

But who's doing that? They all have guns right? Well, wrong. The other thing I was working on this month is the latest enemy:


This is the Cossack - you may remember I mentioned him last month. This enemy was quite fun to make, and he has perhaps the most complex AI behaviour of all the enemies so far.

In the above image, you can see him charging - he will do this to begin an attack, and he runs fast. He will also keep chasing you for a while, even if you manage to break line-of-sight. But when he gets close, he packs a punch. If he hits you while charging, he does extra damage - but then he will follow this up with three attacks (unless you can get away).

He might be trying to kill you, but he's got a nice hat

On top of that, he can block your melee attacks too:

Don't try to beat him at his own game, that can only go badly for you

It might be better to dispatch him from a distance.


That's it for this development update. So, what's next? Well, I am hoping to make some progress with another level for next month, which will be Map 7. For now, I will leave you with this teaser:

What could I possibly want this for?

Thanks for reading!