Project Venus [version 0.2.2]

v.0.2.2
Content

New loading screen – yes, we are fans of Alien.
In the first town, a certain fat guy might pay you a visit in the attic if you decide to sleep there.
Almost immediately after arriving at the church and receiving the first quest, Jillian can visit Sarah (the doctor) and see something.
While sleeping in her room, David might visit Jillian to check on her.
For the Survival mode, we’ve added an option to get a discount if you’re willing to show your body to Crow.
Added a story scene in the police station where Jillian meets the game’s new boss – the Sheriff.
Added a conceptually new boss. Before this, we only had Mr. X, but he was too primitive. Now that our technical capabilities have expanded, we decided to add a boss fight with the Sheriff in the police station. Be careful, he’s quite resilient, has an ally, and uses various attacks.

Technical Stuff

implemented a plugin and added unique equip sounds for every item and weapon.
Added a lighter. Well, it was already in the game—you get it by completing the events in the sewer—but now you can equip it to light up the area around your character.
Grenades create a flash of light upon explosion.
The fire from a Molotov cocktail now works like real fire—it illuminates the surrounding area! Have you ever seen an RPG Maker game that has this? I haven’t.

Bug fixes

fixed a wall’s layer at Malene’s house, which was covering player

Upcoming features:

Gallery: Although it’s technically complete, we will release it in the next update because we’re not sure if it displays all the scenes correctly. There are quite a lot of them, and triggering each one to check the display is a very time-consuming task.
Physics: The game will get the ability to move objects pixel by pixel, and you will no longer get stuck in zombies. We decided to implement physics a bit later because it’s needed for an enemy that can perform a running attack.

Brutal patch

Since now all harsh content will be available only in Brutal patch. To access new ending for loosing a bossfight at police station, install Brutal patch.

v0.2.1
Major Updates and New Features
Act 2 has arrived:

10 new maps added (Act 2)
Farm themed zombies added
A new character – Fiona
Abe and Sarah received new clothes for summer
Farming crops. Right now it provides food, which will be usable in next updates.

Optional events:

Help david in the barn. If you are corrupted enough, he’ll give you a reward. This scene is repeatable
David might peek on you when you wake up if you have helped him in the barn

Interacting with Liam near the windmill will start a side quest:

Help Liam to fix the water pump
Help Liam to apply some oil to windmill’s blades
You can notice a huge hole in the barn’s wall if you’ll take a walk alongside barn’s right wall. This scene is a placeholder for future events.
Interacting with sofa in the living room now skips time to evening. Right now this is a placeholder with a small dinner event for immersiveness. In future updates a night version of the farm will contain a lot more events.

Combat, Visuals & Effects

Camera core added (the camera now moves smoothly with a slight delay)

Blood Particle Effects:

Added blood particle effects when enemies take damage. This effect is displayed only for enemies marked with the blood effect in their note tags (for example, humans and “bloody” zombies).

Pickup Animation:

Introduced a new animation for the player character when picking up loot, making the action more immersive.

Weapon Idle Animation:

The character now remains in a holding weapon pose after using a weapon, until movement resumes.

Dynamic Mouse Facing:

The character and equipped weapon now dynamically turn to face the mouse cursor, providing more responsive controls.
Weapons, Items & Status Effects

Molotov Cocktail Improvements:

Overhauled Molotov mechanics: creates a fire zone on impact with realistic burning effects.

Burning State:

Both the player and enemies can now catch fire when entering burning areas. The player can extinguish themselves by using a water bottle from the inventory.

AI and Survival Mode

Pathfinding system has been improved and optimized (the number of simultaneous enemies on the map has greatly increased. FPS on older PCs should improve during high-load moments).
AI for allies has been significantly improved.

Survival Mode:

Fully implemented wave-based survival mode. The next wave does not start until the player visits the shop. Between waves, there is a prep phase for restocking and recovery.

Dynamic Skill Progression:

Player skills and stats now improve through use
Running increases stamina.
Using melee weapons increases strength stat, which adds damage

Mini-Games for Training:

Lock picking mini-game has been created
Added mini-games for “barbell squats” and “push-ups” that allow players to train and boost stats faster. These are implemented as interactive events/QTEs.

Interface and Miscellaneous

Inventory and Hotbar Improvements
Hotbars and inventory can now be temporarily disabled during cutscenes and important events.
Weapon reload logic has been reworked (reloading is interrupted if the player starts shooting).
RMB (right mouse button) logic has been revamped: now holding RMB causes continuous firing until the ammo runs out.
M249 weapon has been enhanced (visual and sound effects).
Movement while firing automatic weapons is now blocked.
Spawner logic has been reworked.
Added a load button in the ESC menu.
Cheat menu for ammo has been created and added.
Adrenaline duration doubled.

Optimizations and Bugfixes

Improved zombie pathfinding and overall AI performance, especially with large numbers of enemies.
Multiple small fixes and improvements across the UI and item pickup system.
Save becoming suddenly corrupted was fixed. Now it should be ok, but trying to edit the save file will still break it
Shops working again
Intro cutscene was skipped previously, now it is back
Fixed an issue where elevators triggered a transition during the fight with Mr. X
Moved one zombie in outskirts which was spawning right at the entrance of warehouse causing players to get stucked
Bug with medkit prices at sewer traders has been fixed.
Bullet trajectory logic has been reworked. Now bullet starts it’s way from gun’s barrel, not from MC’s legs. This makes shooting a bit easier.
Added a new “ABSonDamage” feature that plays a sound when damage is dealt. You can notice it while using a baseball bat. You hear a hit sound only when you actually hit a zombie.
Fixed minor visual bugs.
Loot generation logic on the map has been reworked.
Loot system improved (sprite sizes reduced by 50%, dynamic ID pooling system added to prevent ID loss in loot objects).

In Progress & Upcoming

Expanded hearing system for enemies with new reactions to noise.
Additional mini-games and skill training mechanics.
More status effects
New enemy types with unique behaviors
Some zombies on map now have moaning sounds. It is experimental and will be expanded in future.
Added a new item search mechanic. You’ll face it while looking for wood and glasses for Fred. It’s experimental and will appear in future in some places.

v0.2.0

Fixed an issue where elevators triggered a transition during the fight with Mr. X.
Save problems have been resolved.
Resolution error has been fixed.
Bug with medkit prices at sewer traders has been fixed.
Bullet trajectory logic has been reworked.
Shooting accuracy has been significantly improved.
Weapon reload logic has been reworked (reloading is interrupted if the player starts shooting).
RMB (right mouse button) logic has been revamped: now holding RMB causes continuous firing until the ammo runs out.
M249 weapon has been enhanced (visual and sound effects).
Movement while firing automatic weapons is now blocked.
Added a 3D sound system.
Added a new “ABSonDamage” feature that plays a sound when damage is dealt.
Zombies on the map now have voice lines.
Pathfinding system has been improved and optimized (the number of simultaneous enemies on the map has greatly increased. FPS on older PCs should improve during high-load moments).
Added a new item search mechanic.
AI for allies has been significantly improved.
Fixed minor visual bugs.
Camera core added (the camera now moves smoothly with a slight delay, zooming and other features are now available).
Spawner logic has been reworked.
Loot generation logic on the map has been reworked.
Loot system improved (sprite sizes reduced by 50%, dynamic ID pooling system added to prevent ID loss in loot objects).
Save system core created (autosaves every 5 minutes to the first slot; all saves, except autosaves, now display the map name and a screenshot).
Added a load button in the ESC menu.
Cheat menu for ammo has been created and added.
Adrenaline duration doubled.
Lockpicking mini-game created.
10 new maps added (Act 2).
New zombies added
The renders are still in production.

v0.1.9
Changelog:

Act 1 is finished (19 map pieces). You can now play through the shopping mall and escape the city.
New throwable weapon – molotov.
Slightly improved AI for friendly NPCs. They are still stupid, but we are working on it.
Shooting mechanic was changed a bit. Weapons has much lesser projectiles now. It was done on purpose, because bullets were hitting various objects too often.
Shotgun has less spreading.
Zombie spawner was completely rewritten. Now it shouldn’t cause performance drops. Heroes wear no capes.
Zombie book was added. You will receive it during the plot at cinema’s WC.
Quest journal was added! Now every (if my memory serves) task in game has a quest log. I can’t tell how huge this task was, but it is here.
Bug at status window was fixed, now ass picture shouldn’t disappear. Also vagina and ass statuses are working separately now.
Fat zombie received increased health and a chance to blow up.
Red zombie’s regeneration is working properly now in Project Venus.
Global fog effect. You’ll first notice it on new maps. New global effects will appear more in future updates.

This update brings story only. We are sorry if you’ll find it small, but we had to finish this part of the game to move on to freeplay part.
IMPORTANT: new maps can cause crashes during saving. You can resolve it by reopening the game. We are working on fix.

v0.1.4.1
Changelog:

Continuation of the story. Now you will be able to visit the police station (22 map pieces)
Added second outfit which you will obtain at police station
Introduced new NPC with two conversation scenes. You can talk to her and learn what her story is. She will appear later in story
Added new type of zombie: hunter
Added human enemies (12 variations)
3 new variations for generic zombies
New main theme in the menu
Added first melee weapon in Project Venus
Added explosives: grenades and land mine. Molotov is in progress.
Technical: added animated status effects. Now every single npc and PC are able to bleed, burn and get poisoned with visual effects
Created spawner, which will be used later
Added regeneration passive in skill tree
Added stamina increase in skill tree
Added max carrying weight in skill tree
Increased shooting rate for all weapons
Implemented AI teams. It allows us to use NPCs as friends. You will notice that when you arrive at police station for the first time. Later in the game there will be neutral NPC which will attack both PC and zombies
All existing scenes are reworked for second outfit. They will change depending on which outfit do you use at the moment
Cassie got additional scene with animation from 3 angles
Forest man received a different scene if you wear the second outfit. He also received a new scene, which you can trigger if you corruption is high enough
Added scene with the boy at the confession booth right after you get mission to infiltrate the police station
Added hints for some lewd actions. Now you’ll see how much corruption do you need

Bug fixes:

Fixed broken shops at the sewers
Fixed limitless running option
Fixed oldman’s animations in the gun shop

v0.1.3.1
– Added 3 missing scenes which were supposed to come with previous update but they were deleted due to incompleteness. 1 additional scenes for Cassie sequence. 1 additional scene for Greg(forest man) sequence, 1 additional scene for peeping on David with slutty girl(randomly appears near the pond after bringing barrel).
– Reworked final battle street from the demo. Map received completely new visuals. Also previously zombies were spawning and that cased lots of lags. Now all zombies are there from the beginning.
– Status menu received nude version of main heroine.
– Updated game’s core. Now you shouldn’t have fps drops like before.
– Reworked shooting. Now bullets don’t have range limits, which means they will fly through the entire map. That should exclude “misses” while using pistols and shotguns.
– Moving plugin was rewrited to reduce spontaneous zombie shaking.
– Fixed minor bugs/missing icons.
– Added loot at the sewers right before toxic zombies.
v.0.1.3
Over 100 new renders
– Main story progress
– New Cassie scene after bathing at lake.
– 1 bad end at main quest
– One side quest from the priest
– New locations: sewers, factory, second street, apartment building
– Traders at the sewers
– Hunting minigame in Project Venus
– new type of zombies: toxic zombies, armored zombies.

Technical changes/additions:
– added leveling system. Now you will find virus samples, which can be spent on improving your stats.
– Reworked eventing framework. Now most fps drops should be gone
– added bleeding from zombie attacks
– added poisoning from toxic zombies
– added new usable items: antidote – prevents poisoning for 5 mins, water – removes poisoning, adrenaline – boosts stamina and it’s regeneration
– added hotkeys! Now you can drag and drop weapons and items to hotkeys and press them to change weapons/use consumables
– Changed healing system. Now bandages and first aid kits remove bleeding.
– Reworked reloading system. Now you can move during reloading.
– temporarily changed zombie reaction to getting hit. They will jump away a bit. We will change this back to moving away once we fix our code in plugin.

– IMPORTANT: fps drops are still there, because we are in process of removing them, but it takes a lot of time and reasons vary from time to time. If you encounter fps drop, then reload.

There is a lot more minor technical stuff but I don’t want to fill the changelog with meaningless text. You’ll notice overall improvement, and probably some minor bugs.

v0.1.2
The beginning of first chapter.
Much more story this time
New NPCs
New locations
+1 new outfit
+1 new weapon
New loot type in Project Venus
Inventory categories overhaul
Slightly different gameplay approach at first chapter

v0.1
Project Venus – Initial release

Move – WASD
Interact – space, left mouse button
Inventory – I
Shoot – right mouse button
Reload – R
Menu – ESC
Status window – T
Quest journal – J