On a sidenote… do you all think these updates need better names? It seems a bit weird referring to this as “the next update”, versus “Version 1.0975″ or something fun like that, but maybe it’s just me. Anyway, since I can hear you all screaming at me to get on with it… I think I shall!

Here’s what’s in store for the next update:

• NEW WEAPON! Wrack’s next weapon, the bazooka, will finally be included! It pretty much does what one would expect: You fire it, and things die. Lots of things.
• NEW LEVEL! The next update will introduce a new area – the fusion plant! This area makes heavy use of force fields, which have all sorts of fun applications. The area even has a new monster – an arcturan that fires (wait for it, wait for it)… a railgun!
• CUTSCENES AND MAP INTROS! This next update of Wrack will feature both in-map cutscenes, along with fully illustrated intros to many of the maps. These will put into motion Wrack’s plot, but more importantly, the personalities of all the characters we’ve been introducing.
• VAST IMPROVEMENTS! Many areas of Wrack have been either vastly improved, or completely redone… like weapon animations, loading screens, the E1M4 texture set, and much more!

But hey, assuming you’re a human (rather than a Google web crawler), I’m sure you’d much rather be shown what’s in the update, rather than be told! So, with that in mind… SCREENSHOTS!

All in all, I’d say the biggest game-changer (pun intended) has got to be the bazooka. Why? It allows the Wrack maps to open up a bunch. Prior to this weapon’s inclusion, you didn’t really have any weapons in your arsenal that did well against far away monsters. The pistol is accurate and good for individual monsters at a distance, but not piles of them. With the bazooka, you finally have that weapon. E1M6 and beyond have lots more open rooms and bunches of monsters up on ledges – perfect for the bazooka!

Anyway, we hope to bring this to you real soon. As you can see, we’re hard at work on this and making tons of progress, but there’s still quite a bit more to finish up. We’ll do our best to make this happen as quickly as possible – without rushing things.

Thanks!

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Once Kain’s bio is posted a couple of paragraphs from now, that will be it for characters at this stage of the game. Should we do well enough to do the massive two episode expansion (seriously, make this happen people), and even a multiplayer-focused Wrack 2, there will be plenty more! Ideas are already brewing.

Anyway, to avoid teasing you too much with what’s (potentially) coming… here’s Kain!

NAME: Kain Sager
CLASS: Commando
WEAPON: Hyperblade
BIO: Kain Sager is the protagonist of Wrack, leader of the small band of characters he’s assembled, and the character you play as. Haunted by a pair of tragedies from his past that he blames himself for, Kain now finds himself shouldered with the burden of keeping those he cares about safe. Even though he lives in a time of unprecedented prosperity and peace, he finds himself unable to relax and take part in it. Instead, he does everything he can to stay prepared against possible threats: staying in shape, maintaining a weapons arsenal, and recruiting a small complementary team to do the things he cannot. When tragedy does befall Earth in the form of an alien raid, only one person is ready for it… Kain!

That’s it for the bios! Now that you know a little bit about everyone, you’ll be able to see their personalities in full display when the next update comes out. It should be here sometime between 0 and 1,000,000,000 years.

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NAME: Starlyn Sage
CLASS: Medic
WEAPON: Disruptor
BIO: Starlyn is both the medic of the group and the brains of the operation. On a team with the headstrong Kain and the narrow-minded Fabian, Starlyn fills the valuable role of keeping everyone focused on the big picture. While not possessing much technical expertise, she’s fascinated by science and by what must be out there in this vast universe of ours. Her being the only girl in the group though… complicates things.

This completes the introductions for all of the main characters thus far (or does Kain need a post like this too? Let us know!). The next update will feature all of these diverse character in action in cutscenes drawn by the same artist, Jack Love, who’s brought you all of these fantastic drawings! I know I can’t wait!

Until next time…

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He’s… probably a good guy.

NAME: Exo
BIO: Exo is the engineer responsible for the creation of the arcturans’ robot army. Being a cyborg himself, his expertise in the field of robotics is unparalleled. As the last of his race, he now travels the galaxy offering his services in the form of providing robot armies, robot workers, etc. – all while searching for a way to bring his fallen race back. Not much else is known about him at this time.

We’ve got one more left in this batch, and I’ll let you know as soon as he (or she!) is finished! Stay tuned!

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So just who is this guy? What’s his deal? We don’t want to give too much of that away just yet – you’ll learn about him as you play the game! However, here’s a small bit of info to get you started:

NAME: Fabian Long
CLASS: Engineer/thief
WEAPON: Protoclaw
BIO: Fabian Long is the best friend of Wrack’s protagonist, Kain Sager. Being highly gifted in the realms of science and engineering, he builds gadgets and weapons for Kain – including his Hyperblade! Over the years, however, his immense talents have taken their toll. Without being forced to try hard at things growing up, he’s become narcissistic and lazy – only doing things when he “feels like it”. Most of the time, he’d rather be off having a good time and being a ladies’ man. … but when he focuses and buckles down and does his job… there’s nobody better!

That’s it for him! More soon!

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Games are evolving into a storytelling medium. Why is this? For one, stories are something that we’re hardwired to enjoy, and games can tell them reasonably well. Having interesting characters in diverse environments with engaging circumstances that move the plot forward are all things a game can fundamentally do. Between better technology and developers figuring out better storytelling techniques (ex. having NPCs yell the plot at you while you run around breaking crates with a crowbar), games’ ability to tell stories have only gotten better over the years.

But that’s not the big reason! The big reason is this: It’s a way to help games appeal to a broader audience. Games have typically been about skill building – fundamentally, we enjoy them because they’re helping us develop a skill that would aid us in survival, all while in a safe environment. It’s why we humans enjoy basic hunter/gatherer games (hunt/kill monsters, while gathering weapons/supplies), and cats enjoy chasing after toy mice – in each case, survival skills are being honed in a safe environment. All while you thought you were having silly, mindless fun playing “Tag!” as a kid – SURPRISE! – you were actually practicing evading predators so you didn’t become lunch for a sabre-toothed tiger.

So what’s the problem with that? Lack of universal appeal! Developing skills isn’t for everyone – it’s primarily for the young, and more likely male. But stories? Hell, everyone likes those! Just look at who comes out of a movie theater sometime – it’s not exactly just teenage boys. Game developers want to appeal to the same vast audience, so that’s part of why you see this trend.

Starting with our next update, Wrack will start presenting the plot within the game (of course, there’s always been a plot – it just hasn’t shown up in the game much)! We’re in the middle of having more characters designed, and plan on having some really cool artwork to go along with it. I really feel like this has been a huge step towards Wrack’s completion. Between the cutscenes and map intros (basically a more elaborate cutscene that plays when a map starts), the game feels much more complete. There’s an actual interest plot here that’s finally getting presented, along with a bunch of great three-dimensional characters. I’ve been having a blast writing out all the scenes, and can’t wait for the art for it to be all done!

It’s all shaping up very nicely so far, and I can’t wait to share the next update with you all! Stay tuned!

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In fact, it’s such a big occasion that we’ve had a brand new trailer made! Check it out:

Thanks to Seth Mussey for making the trailer! Incredible job!

But that’s not all! Wrack is currently 50% OFF to celebrate our first week on Desura! The sale runs through the end of the weekend so make sure to grab it before time runs out (if you haven’t already)!

QUICK NOTE: If you’ve already purchased Wrack through our website and would like to have it on Desura as well, feel free to contact me for a key.

So what are you waiting for? Go get it!

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If all goes smoothly, we’ll be launching THIS WEDNESDAY! It’s such a big deal that we’ve even put together a brand new trailer for it! We’ll unleash it on you when the big day comes.

We’re also putting out a nice big update to get ready for it. It’ll probably be out in a couple of days. Here are some of the highlights:

• QUICKSAVES! Now, with the simple press of a button, you can save your game anywhere, and restore it at any time! Convenient if you need to leave in the middle of a game and you’d like to come back to it.
• The “Quick Play” menu! We’ve added a new menu that allows you to start a new game from the map of your choice! This includes custom maps that you’ve loaded up with Wrack.
• The “Cakewalk” skill! This new skill level basically starts the game with some cheats enabled. It also enables a cheats menu. Want to just check out parts of Wrack without getting blasted? Want to test portions of a map you’re working on? This is for you!

Anyway, we greatly look forward to all of this. Hope you are too!

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If you’ve never heard the term “ducking” when it comes to sound, it is a method of reducing background volume levels, usually when someone is speaking. You’ll hear it on radio programs, TV and on the web. The most important sound is given priority over every thing else.

So, when you’re in a very “sound active” area of a map in Wrack, you are going to start hearing the music duck under the sfx so you can hear them more clearly. This is a huge improvement for sound effect development.

Does this mean that you’ll be able to jack the volume on every effect you create — and maybe compress it to look like the waveform in my previous post on this subject?

Not really. You still want any background kind of effects to be quiet when they play all by themselves. You’ll still also want other sound effects that play more quietly than weapons and monster alerts.

How do you start creating a sound effect? Any way that works. My method is to watch the animation that needs an effect. Then I try to visualize (“audioize”?) the sound it might make. Sometimes it comes to me right away. Other times I have to wait for an idea to emerge.

Now comes the work of finding existing audio or creating audio that can be edited/mixed to bring your visualization to a physical reality. This is when your own personal collection of effects comes in handy. I’ve collected sound effects over the years that I still haven’t used because they didn’t mix well with other sounds. Most of the time you do not want sounds with their own strong personality — you want multiple sounds to come together for the personality you are trying for.

I’ve sort of stuck with CoolEdit and it’s offspring Audition. Sadly, Audition keeps backing off of the features that CoolEdit had. Many of those features were wonderful for sound effects. Maybe the reason for Adobe to do this is to support plugins, and maybe this increases their financial bottom line. But, there’s room for both native features and plugins. I often start out with CoolEdit for basic effect material and then use Audition to master the final effect. I am not recommending any of this software over what you may already have and be comfortable with.

Sometimes you have to make a sound to record yourself. Such was the case when I was working on player landing and player pain sounds for Wrack. I recorded myself jumping from a step stool and intensified my vocalization. Then I used an equalizer to bring out the frequencies that cut through. Some pitch shifting helped, too.

When I worked on Duke Nukem 3D, we needed the sound of Duke inside duct work. I had a square metal office trash can handy, put a small pillow in the bottom to hold a microphone and then flexed the walls sides of the trash can. The sounds turned out perfect.

One of the screams in Doom is me. It was the middle of the night at id’s office. I may have been the only person there at the time. Anyway, I recorded myself screaming. Problem is I didn’t warm up before that, so I had a sore throat for a couple of days.

Once I needed the sound of a spinning coin. A real spinning coin didn’t sound real when recorded. Ultimately, a large metal washer was used and then pitch shifted. It was the sound of a spinning coin on steroids and it worked great in the project.

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Well, great news! We’re now featuring a map through this system. It’s called Grange by Blarget2, and it’s a short E1M2-themed map that should prove to be both fun and challenging!

Also, it looks better than the stock maps.

What’s great is that you can play this from inside Wrack itself! By selecting “Featured Maps” after selecting “New Game”, Wrack will present you with a list of maps that we’re featuring and allow you to download it and play it RIGHT NOW! No annoying hassles of having to deal with file sharing sites or unzipping to proper folders or anything like that!

It’s quite a nice system that we hope to do more with. One thing we’ll almost certainly do is expand Time Attack and Score Attack to work with featured maps as well. Being able to have community-wide races on featured maps should be epic fun!

Hope you guys enjoy it!

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