Game Beats
A lethal virus has infected Treasure Island, San Francisco. It is up to Captain Winter, a U.S. Army soldier working with the Center for Epidemic Research and Control (CERC), to stop the mysterious and deadly Pangu Virus from spreading to the mainland. The Cepheus Protocol is an independently developed top-down RTS inspired by XCOM, Company of Heroes, and Parasite Eve.
In Cepheus Protocol, you will make decisions that will force civilians to either rally behind you or attack you outright. How you decide to combat the virus is entirely up to you. You can fire bombs and leave no trace of human life behind or you can try and save everyone at the cost of your squad's safety. The game features a full day and night cycle and will adapt over time to make the Infected more dangerous as the days progress. The Infected will mutate and adapt to the player, creating a challenge at every turn.
You will control fully customizable teams that you will send into the infection zones to do CEDA Missions, help civilians, or just seek out Patient 0. You will lose men if you aren’t careful and be forced to train and recruit from your player base. Each solider will be unique to a point with randomly generated traits and skills allowing you to tailor them with specific tactics.
You will have to use all the tools in your arsenal and research the plague to discover its origins. You will use your knowledge to cure it to stop the virus before it causes everything to spiral out of control. You will hunt Patient 0, a unique carrier with special abilities that gets stronger as the days progress. You will be confronting and fighting her over a span of main missions and side objectives riddled across the island.
Modeling
Peter has been working on some body models:
We’re also working hard on different hair styles!
Programming
Robert has been hard at work with the infection zoning mechanic. Here are a few of the latest screenshots. Still a WIP!
We finally have a rotating minimap! Ok, well sort of – we’re almost there! Derek also worked on having the minimap rotate to match the player camera rotation. Let’s give Derek a huge shout out as the minimap was way more complicated than you think!
Also implemented a Horde Attack timer:
Derek has been testing out different ways your unit formation can be changed. We want to give you the option to have Captain Winter near the back in a “safer” spot or have her at the front. Tons of work has gone into the formation logic including:
- Your team will technically “follow” the earliest position unit (with 1 being the earliest one) while in motion, protection an offset to the formation “lead” position based on the closest lead position
- If you already have someone in the lead position, they just follow like they are used to
Here’s an example:
We’re still testing internally to see if it’s what we’re going to be going with so let us know in the comments below what you think!
Derek also added a “call for help” for spawn pods. When they take damage, they’ll call out for infected spawned by that node to come assist! It has a cool-down and it won’t affect infected that are already chasing someone or in combat.
There were also some updates to the wall building and they’re now 500 length each (leading to a max length of 100 units between towers).
One of our favourite features when it comes to squad movement is the ability to use a “rotational arrow” to move your squad in a more strategic way. If you’re running away from a horde of special infected, you’ll be able hold right click, move them to where you want them to go, and purposefully make them go into formation in the direction of where the horde is coming from. Here’s a look at this feature:
We also added some numbers above the formation so you can double check who’s in which order (and maybe send Captain Winter back for additional protection!):
The numbers have also been added to the unit member panels:
Derek worked on some weird shadow issues we were having when buildings were constructed:
He also fixed some ground height problems with the buildings:
We added an easy to use pop up asking “Are you sure?” when you’re about the destroy a building, wall, or unit!
Civilian selection has now been fixed up. We were finding it was very hard to select civilians during missions (i.e. if you had to move them to a safer place), so Derek worked on making it easier to click on them!
Still a WIP, but here’s a bird eye’s view of the map!
Walls are also now fully online with the gates as previously they could be built misaligned depending on what angle they were built:
Derek continues working on the wall system so it’s nice and smooth for you guys to build bases! In the second image you can see how the system now tells you how many walls you’ll upgrade and how much it’ll cost you:
Medical facilities now also heal! Derek made a fancy schmancy animation for it:
It’ll also heal the infection!
Derek also worked on reducing the melee attack cool-down for infected against structures:
We’ve been playtesting the current build internally and felt like we needed to add spotlights to provide extra line of sight in places like your base. Now you’ll be able to buy these and will work as long as they’re close to a generator!
Derek also worked on a smoother wall builder! Once you enter “rotate mode”, it’ll allow you to change its position without having to click on the wall button again.
Additionally, after confirming the wall placement, the next wall segment will auto-start on the last segment which will allow for quick wall construction.
There was work done on the mortar strikes which can be pretty vicious. Although it’s pretty fast, it’s not as fast as you see in the GIF (it’s been sped up!).
Derek also worked on adding multi-mortar compatibility meaning that now they will “claim” their targets while auto firing. This causes the shots to spread out and cover more ground (this one has been sped up too!).
There’s also now a simple notification queue that will hold messages and display them in order (5 seconds each):
We also did some work on the minimap legend so you know exactly what everything is:
SWAT outfits are in the current internal build – this was a true team effort!
Finally, in order to ensure we don’t have too many corpses in the world after you’ve taken care of them, Derek worked on a “Corpse Registry”. This helps maintain a healthy amount of them in the world and “respawn” new ones once some get deleted as you move throughout. A similar system was also created for civilians!
Concept Art
Once again, showing off some of the absolutely amazing work from the Art team!
Level Design
As always, we’ve got some awesome buildings to show off that you’ll see throughout the map! The world is coming alive!
A textured city = an even more beautiful city!
Bonus Level: Additional Things to Share
Welcome to the matrix…after the art team moved the original file (don’t worry, its safe!) we ended up getting this super cool looking corrupted file.
Recruitment:
We’re currently seeking talented individuals in the various roles. It should be noted the project is post launch compensation and we’re open to flexible schedules depending on each individual. Please apply with the links below (Please note that roles where you need to show work requires you to provide us with a portfolio or website. Submissions without proof of work will be dismissed).
- 3DMax Animators: Forms.gle
- Modelers/Environmental Artists: Forms.gle
- Level Designers: Forms.gle
- Concept Artists: Forms.gle
- Character Modelers: Forms.gle
- UI Artists: Forms.gle
Questions? Email us here: recruitment@halcyonwinds.com
Community Discord Server
Got questions, suggestion, or just want to chat about the game? Come join us on our official Discord!
The environmental stuff is coming along nicely
Thanks so much - the team is killing it right now!