TDOR Top News
TDOR Top Patch Notes
The Death of Rebirth™️
The Death of Rebirth: A Reimagined Experience
Set in the hostile environment of Europa, the moon of Jupiter, The Death of Rebirth thrusts players into an underwater dystopia reminiscent of the haunting depths of Europa's dark and decrepit ocean. In this gripping first-person action RPG, players assume the roles of Precision Pathfinder Zealots (PPZs), who are reformed prisoners of war and disenfranchised Imperial citizens genetically altered to endure extreme damage and obey the Empire's commands.
June/25th/2024 Patch Note 0.0.0.0.0.0.0.1
As of this patch, The Death of Rebirth (TDOR) has been in development for 1 year and 6 months, interspersed with work on Snatched and Pillars of Fog. Our three-person development team is now reallocating most of our resources back to TDOR's progress. This is the first of many devlogs and patch notes, which will also include recorded updates on Steam. In these updates, I will cover concept art, the development time for cosmetics, maps/levels, and other aspects such as building functionality in Unreal Engine 5.4.2 using both Blueprint and C++, including replication for the game's 4-player co-op feature.
Initially, we planned for TDOR to be a single-player game, with development beginning in 2023. However, after seven months, we decided to revamp and rethink the concept, transforming it into a multiplayer experience.
While reworking the concept and lore of TDOR, we shifted some of the gameplay mechanics to Pillars of Fog to explore procedural generative climbing and movement. I (Dans_Tip) had already developed an enemy spider with simple procedural movement, using a plugin to assist with the base code. Only two animations were added to the spider, with the rest being procedural. Although it’s uncertain if we’ll use this spider in TDOR, we plan to code our own procedural movement for the game. This task will become a main focus for our team member, The Talking Deer, starting late June or early July. Meanwhile, I will concentrate on motion matching, C++ coding, Blueprint scripting, replication, animating weapons, character animations, and more.
TDOR has evolved into a looter, FPS, action RPG, survival horror, sci-fi, adventure, open world, trial-based game, transitioning from single-player to multiplayer. This significant change requires us to learn more about replication, utilizing Smooth Sync, and furthering our knowledge of C++. We are also exploring plugins to enhance the development process.
Our first open beta on Steam is planned for October. Beta keys will be distributed through Steam's random selection method, making the beta widely accessible. Currently, we have one trusted QA tester. If you join our Discord and achieve level 3 trust, you may also become a QA tester, provided you are in the same time zone as our team.
Stay tuned for more updates, and thank you for your continued support!
To wrap up this devlog and patch notes summary, I hope anyone reading this is intrigued by what we have planned. The rough notes above help keep track of our progress. While I have more detailed notes, I encourage you to check out the current version of our Section 1 Map of the Imperial-controlled sector of Europa, which serves as the main war map for the first season.
Developing these maps will take some time, and there is a possibility we might extend this content into Season 2. We'll make that decision as we progress further into development. Stay tuned for more updates and thank you for your support!
Endlog...
June/30th/2024 Patch Note 0.0.0.0.0.0.0.4
In the upcoming patches, our primary focus is on refining the Motion Matching system and enhancing its current functionalities. We have introduced several new animations for the Sprint mechanic, now integrated into our Motion Matching system. Despite ongoing bugs in Unreal Engine 5.4.2, such as issues with Lens Flare and Niagara Effects, we continue to work within this version, hoping for fixes from Epic Games soon.
We've also added crouching mechanics, both systemically and with corresponding animations. Currently, our focus has been solely on unarmed animations and systems, so no weapons or weapon animations have been added yet. Additionally, we've improved the parkour motion matching system, allowing characters to parkour on any feasible and reasonable objects. Characters can also catch themselves mid-air if they miss a jump but are close to another flat surface.
In the next patch, we will reintroduce splines to enhance the parkour system further, enabling interaction with spherical and rounded surfaces. Our solution involves using the spline system to ensure smooth interaction within motion matching. The parkour system is complex, and splines will integrate seamlessly, ensuring players experience consistent and fluid gameplay.
Once we have programmed rounded surfaces into our motion matching free-hand parkour, we'll focus on adding ledge holding, hanging, and more parkour elements and animations. We are currently facing challenges in adding more animation montages to the parkour system to introduce dynamic movements. I'll be collaborating with another team member to resolve these issues.
We also need to implement rolling in four different directions and decide whether to use motion matching or traditional state machines and animation montages in the player's Blueprint. Sliding mechanics will be incorporated using our existing system from Pillars Of Fog, with improvements to recognize slopes, adding more physics and realism to player movements.
Overall, there is still much to be done, and we are not close to our first beta release. We will continue striving forward, and once the unarmed movement systems are in place, we will begin development on the first maps and levels.
Endlog...
Oct/11th/2024 Patch Note 0.0.0.0.0.0.0.5
At this current point in time, well before hand, were pausing development on TDOR to
move our work towards another game we have in mind well searching for a publisher willing to advertise and get our next game more sales. Not much too this log after some PC repairs and such, no other updates as of now, Follow our X (formally twitter) to understand fully where we're at with TDOR's development.