Hi everyone.
I'm taking a few minutes to tell you guys I'm almost done with Barren Meadow: all maps except the introduction cut scene are done, a few tweaks might be needed here and there (thanks to everyone who play-tested the mod), and the code shouldn't need any more touch ups. I never thought I would make it in time, so it's a pleasant surprise for me too. While I'm at it, Barren Meadow fixes a few things in the original game (and probably introduces new bugs but let's hope not). It's nothing too radical:
- Cycling through your arsenal is now slot-based rather than weapon-based. In Kingpin, to go from the pipe to the shotgun, you'd have to cycle through pipe, crowbar, pistol, silencer and finally shotgun. Now, you will cycle through pipe (or crowbar), pistol (or silencer) and shotgun (with standard or acid shells). You can rotate weapons in a slot like you would in Kingpin (selecting the same slot multiple times).
- Some weapon modifications have been added: accuracy for the pistol, slowburn for the flamethrower and acid shells for the shotgun (select the shotgun twice to load acid shells).
- The silencer used to eject two shell casings per shot and made no sound when reloading. It's fixed.
- The shotgun would play one too many times the reload animation if you ran out of shells before the weapon was maxed out. It's also been fixed.
- The Ammo1 and Ammo2 categories in pawn-o-matics are now merged.
- Attempting to buy empty slots in the pawn-o-matic no longer triggers a response from Sharky. Those empty slots no longer have a price attached either.
- All pawn-o-matics will now randomly comment on your health (it used to only work in Skidrow and Poisonville; yes, I'm as surprised as you are).
- Sharky won't let you buy ammunition for weapons you don't have.
- The original pawn-o-matics stocks have been modified slightly so you can use the acid shell mod, pistol accuracy and slowburn mod in the original game.
- The note book has been modified so that hints appear in the exact order you received them. Pages are also numbered for maximum clarity (TM).
- The "give X" cheat code wouldn't apply a cap on ammunition, so you could request more ammo than you can carry. This has been fixed.
- Barren Meadow uses tons of rain particle effects. If it slows your computer down, you can adjust the "raindensity" console variable (default is 1.00, double with 2.00, remove entirely with 0.00) and reload the map.
- You can remove all cast entities from the map with the new "nomonster" command.
- If you want to take some nice-looking action shots, you can stop time with the new "freezeworld" command.
- There was a tiny bit of code missing for cast_shorty when they are equipped with the Heavy Machinegun. It's fixed now.
At some point, I wanted to include actual reaction time to enemies and remove rat bites, but I feel it would change the gameplay too much... anyway, I think that's about it. If everything goes as planned, Barren Meadow might be released a few days sooner than planned. Fingers crossed.
Have a good one and take care.
