The Last Stand: Union City – Beta v0.5 is now live for my closed beta group. Yes, the game is still in closed beta, but I can say now that an open beta is not far away. Sometime in June, there’ll be a short open beta, most likely run over at Armor Games.
The current version of the game is probably the most stable build yet. I spent quite a bit of time knocking out some of the more persistent and frustrating bugs. The Newtown and Uptown areas are mostly done now, with just a few NPCs and side quests to go in. For the moment though, I’m concentrating on the main storyline path and getting that done.
Additions to this version include:
- Achievements
- Store system
- New skill “Smarts”
And much much more, I went through around 150 items on my to-do list for this current version. There’s a more detailed change list after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »
Implemented into The Last Stand: Union City in the last few days is something that a lot of you have been asking about / for over the development. What’s all this cash? What’s the point of it? Well, here it is.
King-o-Pawn is a pawn shop franchise run by the King himself. After the city started failing apart, King being the generous fellow that he is decided to continue to operate his chain of stores as a service to anyone left alive in the city. Costs are at an all time high though as supply is zero and demand is huge. Thing is, he doesn’t accept trades and he isn’t buying, something about anything outside the store being “infected”.
Design wise, given the randomness of the world and to ensure that players have alternative methods of getting the items they need, the game really needed a store. It was a simple build, taking just over half a day. Here’s how it’ll work in-game.
- There’ll be multiple shops, with 9 different items available in each store.
- Ammo, weapons, health items and armor will be the most common items.
- Books, clothing may be available in some stores.
- Stock won’t change in any given store.
- Stock doesn’t run out, so you can buy as much as you can afford.
- You can’t sell items (too much work putting prices on 400 items)
- Cash drops / finds will be higher to increase player cash.
- Prices in the screenshot aren’t final.
- It’ll be in the next beta.
“In these uncertain times, friend. Cash is King” – King
As promised, achievements will be part of The Last Stand: Union City. Who doesn’t love that little ding sound and some text appearing? I’ve added 41 achievements so far, with at least another 13 or so to come. The remaining few will mostly be to do with reaching different areas on the map and some late game stuff.
Instead of these achievements being meaningless, there’s an XP bonus attached to every single one. On top of that, there’ll be a reward for completing them all. The other thing is that the achievements are character dependent, so if you share a PC, your little brother / sister won’t be stealing all your XP goodness!
You’ll also get on screen updates as you’re playing, to let you know where you’re up to with certain achievements. It’s always good to know how many more zombies you need to kill to hit that Annihilation achievement. There’s also a handful of secret achievements. You won’t get updates for those, or any clue how to get it, you’ll have to stumble across that for yourself.
If you don’t want some stuff spoiled, don’t read the list I’ve posted after the jump. Otherwise, go forth!
Read the rest of this entry »
New BETA, finally. I have to be honest it doesn’t add a whole lot of new stuff, but there’s been some fairly big steps toward me steaming through the rest of these areas to get the game done. Enough waffle, here’s what’s going on. Firstly THIS GAME IS CURRENTLY IN CLOSED BETA, YOU CANNOT GET ACCESS TO IT. Selections were done months ago, I’m sorry if you missed out.
Additions
- Lockable doors. Very handy for crafting story situations and restricting player access.
- Keys. Not just keys really, they’re items that let players through locked doors, can be anything.
- Triggers. This is the biggest addition, they basically let me trigger ANY game function, from sounds to quests to events.
- Storage. The universal storage system is in place, it lets you drop items into it and pick them up from any safehouse.
- New Quests. A few new quest lines, including the beginning of the main story quest.
- Wood Board. New early melee weapon.
- Additional Help text, early in the game.
- Street level of the new area, Newtown.
- Player world “speech”, little story texts to add the characters commentary to the world.
Changes
- Changed zombie drops to be based on time rather than a set amount per room.
- Big changes to the start of the game, in terms of story flow.
- Increased rarity of welding mask.
- Locked out Stadium until it is complete.
Fixes
- Collision with dead enemies should be fixed now.
- Other misc fixes
That’s about it for the moment. I’ll be full steam ahead on creating areas for the next week, so for my BETA testers, look out for another update later this week with a more fleshed out version of Newtown and possibly the next area above it, Uptown and Stadium.
