This month marks 3 years of development on War of the Worlds and 100,000 YouTube subscribers! Thank you for being a part of the journey!



https://youtu.be/yRQ1Dy_3mWU?si=MSVMVdmEvZFklFgP

In this video we show some new survival and exterminator mode gameplay. Building and environmental destruction, new Red Weed effects, probe and alien action and more!

Thank you to all patreon supporters who have made this possible!

Closed Testing available on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/flipswitchgames
Wishlist War of the Worlds on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1898920/War_of_the_Worlds/
Discord Community: https://discord.gg/waroftheworldsgame

Credits:

Lead Developer & Creative Director - Raf
Tripod 3D Artist - EldeBH
Procedural Movement System Developer - Temno
Sound FX - Kenickie, 6ar6oyle, Legosi, Cassius
Official Game Soundtrack - Cordax, AndyFTW, & Kenickie

https://youtu.be/MPPlL_IhgTY

*Work in progress pre-alpha gameplay, everything is subject to change, nothing is final*

It’s been a while since our last public update but things have been moving behind the scenes. I wanted to have this video for you guys around New Years but I had some severe project corruption issues around Christmas that set me back quite a bit. We’re all caught up now though.

This is our biggest update video yet.

Closed Testing available on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/flipswitchgames
Wishlist War of the Worlds on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1898920/War_of_the_Worlds/
Discord Community: https://discord.gg/waroftheworldsgame

Credits:

Lead Developer & Creative Director - Raf
Tripod 3D Artist - EldeBH
Procedural Movement System Developer - Temno
Sound FX - Kenickie & 6ar6oyle
Official Game Soundtrack - Cordax, AndyFTW, & Kenickie
Tripod Concept Artist - Local
Radio Dialogue - Mili

Thank you to all the other insanely talented people who have blessed this project with their hard work and skill. This project is a culmination of thousands and thousands of man hours by only a handful of passionate people. Everyone working on the game is a huge War of the Worlds fan.
This wouldn't be possible without our Patreon supporters who are funding the development of War of the Worlds. Thank you to the community and those who support and have been following the progress patiently. We hope to create the game that we have all always wanted.

To our closed testers, thank you for your contribution and support to the project. Your feedback and suggestions have shaped the game into what it is today.

https://youtu.be/XxUWci-iXCA

New Features

00:00 Tripod Rising + Building Destruction

02:38 House Dynamics + New Distant Fights Effects

03:35 New Weather Effects

04:28 Volumetric Lighting

11:38 Nuke

12:34 Night Time Heli Attack

13:13 Volumetric Tripod Spotlights

13:40 NPC Interactions

14:58 Dynamic Rain Effects

16:52 Military Attack

18:00 Close Encounter

19:46 Tripod Controller Gameplay

23:56 Probe Controller

26:16 Downing Tripods

27:37 Backup Tripod Lighting Texturing

Closed Testing available on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/flipswitchgames
Wishlist War of the Worlds on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1898920/War_of_the_Worlds/
Discord Community: https://discord.gg/waroftheworldsgame

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhT4JekqA5U

This video previews the new ability to play as the tripods as well as a reworked tentacle system. Both are still in the early implementation phases and will undergo more improvements and potentially design reworks. Thanks for all of your patience. It's been quiet for the public but things have been moving rather quickly within the closed testers community with lots of new features, bug fix patches and optimizations. Development has been moving along and I'm excited to show you guys all the changes and improvements!

50 new screenshots all taken by closed testers!

Theres not much new stuff to show as the last 2 weeks has been spent on bug fixing and optimizing the closed testing builds. There's been over two dozen updates to the build. Here are more screenshots taken by closed testers (Note some may be using reshade or have edits done in external software)

Access to closed testing is available on our patreon: https://www.patreon.com/flipswitchgames

https://youtu.be/E7oO7BDAvik

*Everything you see is a continued Work in Progress & not final*


(Exclusive YouTube development live streams & early access to videos)
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/flipswitchgames (Closed Testing Available)
Wishlist War of the Worlds on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1898920/War_of_the_Worlds/
Discord Community: https://discord.gg/waroftheworldsgame

We just hit 10 million views on our youtube videos and 60,000 subscribers yesterday!
I wanted to quickly put together a new gameplay video showing some of what's been worked on in the last month and a half since our last video. Tune in for an action packed ~20 minutes of new gameplay showing new features and improvements!
Thank you to all our patreon supporters for making this project possible!

Team

Lead Developer/Creative Director: Raf
3D Art/Custom Shaders: EldeBH
Sound Design/Music: Kenickie
Sound Design/Music: 6ar6oyle

https://youtu.be/APAZXumBuNY

Everything you see is a continued Work in Progress & not final


(Exclusive YouTube development live streams & early access to videos)
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/flipswitchgames

Discord Community: https://discord.gg/waroftheworldsgame

There is no updated release ETA for early access. We are taking our time to improve the game in all aspects. The last 4 months the game has undergone a major rebuild from the ground up of all of its systems inside and out. It's pretty much a new game.

New Tripod Designs + Uber pod Previews

We will begin by discussing one of the main concerns we’ve heard since the conception of this idea. People have expressed their fears that the game will be shut down due to the fact that we recently created and began using a virtually 1:1 replica of the machines from the 2005 film.

I’ll be showing work in progress previews of the new machine design we have been working on. The purpose of this new design is to be our replacement for the movie accurate machines should we be denied a licensing opportunity or told to not use designs. While it is possible, it is unlikely that this will be the case. War of the Worlds itself is public domain hence why you see many different shows, movies, and other adaptations. While the idea is open for anyone to bring their own twist into the narrative, it is highly likely that the designs of the machines are property of Paramount so there is that possibility they will step in at some point. Because they haven’t yet doesn’t mean that they won’t. Our hope is to acquire official licensing to use the IP. We are continuing cautiously & optimistic but want to have Plan B ready to go & fully implemented so that should a change in the tripod designs be required, it doesn’t become an interruption to the development process and is as simple as toggling between both options. We assure you this game will be released and you will be able to play using the movie accurate designs through a separate free add on that will come separate from the game. Either way, both of these machine designs will be available upon early access release to switch between.

Across the design team, we agreed this new imagination should visually and technically resemble the original inspiration. We know most of you are all fans of the look of the tripod’s in the movie and should we need to change it for our own imagining, we wanted to make sure the tripod still gave off the same biomechanical aquatic three legged hooded machine feel and that it could still use the same rig and animations as the movie accurate model. This will end up saving hundreds of development hours from needing to re-rig and reanimate an entirely different machine. It will use most of the same animations and be based on the same AI. The switch between either or will be as simple as flipping a switch. There are many unique differences between the designs that differentiate it enough from the movie’s design to avoid issues.

The last 2 ½ months has had little to no news for the public. We felt that today, the start of a new month, would be the perfect opportunity to show you guys what the hold up has been. Work began on a new Tripod model on December 4th when I contacted the talented @EldeBH after seeing his 3D art in the artwork channel. Thanks to closed tester and supporter @Ev's , we managed to create a 3D scan of his Pegasus miniature tripod model by taking it apart and using thousands of photos of individual pieces. This gave us an obviously unusable mesh with millions of polygons and thousands of holes in it but we were able to layer it over the current tripod in game and see all of the faults, inaccuracies, and improvements that could be made. With this 3D reference, we were able to gauge dimensions and create a brand new virtually 1:1 3D model of the tripod’s in the film from scratch. This is the most accurate model of the tripod in the film ever created.

Why make a new Tripod model?

Closed testers began to point out many inaccuracies and things they felt needed to be changed or improved on the tripod’s model and animations as well as performance issues related to the tripods. In the process of investigating & addressing these concerns, it became apparent that the model was far from saving. It had a ludicrous amount of unneeded polygons & bones, and was far off from the quality and detail that we were striving for and that our community deserves in the finished product. This has been a huge and time consuming task but something that has proven to be worth the wait. While being extremely detailed & accurate down to the smallest nooks and crannies, this model has a much lower polygon count than the previous one and uses a simpler rig/skeleton which will save on in-game performance especially when performing IK calculations on the toes and legs to conform them to the height of the terrain. The more bones, the more calculations and slower framerate. Multiply this by the amount of tripods on the map at one time and it can have a huge impact on performance.

What does this mean for development & the release estimate?

Unfortunately, if I am being honest, this major change will delay any public testing release by at least another two to three months. The 3D model has been remade from scratch as well as the rig/skeleton, this means all animations will need to be made again. @EldeBH has been working nonstop to get the models game ready. He has studied every frame of the film showing the machines and crafted each little detail into the models to create these masterpieces. Thank you all for your patience, while things were moving slowly, these are big steps being taken and we are all excited to show the final product in game.

What’s next?

Work on the new animations that will replace the previous ones is well under way. In the last 2 weeks I have been recreating all the new animations to be used in game on the new rig. I've wanted to take this chance to improve on the previous animations and make them as good as I can to do the model justice. Patreon members have gotten to see previews of the brand new Uberpod model that Elde is creating and the new and improved walk cycle animations, crouching and rising animations that I’ve been working on. There are still a few animations left to do before the tripod is fully ready to preview in game in all of its glory. While @EldeBH has been wrapping up the new tripod, I’ve gotten a good start on the major NPC revamp that the game has desperately needed. The new tripod and NPC improvements as well as the new cage tentacle death sequence will all be shown in a video in the near future. Things will be moving a lot quicker as of today. Thank you all so much for your patience through this brief period of silence!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I am so thankful for all the love & support this project has received! It truly is a passion project. We hit 40,000+ subscribers, our last video has just reached over 300,000 views in less than 2 weeks, a tiktok clip of the game has reached 5 MILLION views in 2 days, and the game is really making waves across all social media platforms.

I am really honored and grateful that all of the hard work and hundreds of hours is being appreciated and I really can't wait to deliver the game to you all when it's ready.

Here are some screenshots taken by our closed testers who last week received the newest testing build with all of the features shown in the last video and more! You can find more screenshots & information on how to join closed testing on our patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/flipswitchgames

Happy holidays to all!

Want to join closed testing? Read about it more on our patreon: https://www.patreon.com/flipswitchgames


0.8.0 Change Log

Major Changes & Additions

Entire town area redesigned & upgraded

The main city area of the map has been almost completely replaced with dozens of new buildings and a new layout including more residential buildings, parks, parking lots, and more. Placed abandoned vehicles around the map, still going to place a few more.

New procedural AI physics based probe

A new probing system using procedurally animated AI with full interactable physics to randomly search through buildings. This is still a work in progress and the probe may get stuck or act odd at moments.

New Procedural Red Weed

Tripods now spray red weed that procedurally grows over anything it comes across. Staying inside of a red weed cloud inflicts small damage on the player over time. Rain will also turn blood red if it’s raining while you’re in a red weed area.

Aliens

The very basics of aliens have been added in. Note their procedural movement animations are first draft and will be worked on more. The aliens come out from the tripod after probing. If they see you or an NPC they will chase you down. It only takes one hit at the moment for one to kill you. The aliens have idle sounds, attacking sounds, and growling sounds. They are scripted to spawn and then search the same areas of the building that the probe did but for some reasons they choose not to sometimes. This will be patched soon.

New game settings menu

A new menu has been added to configure your game before starting a new survival mode game. This is for closed testing so people can tweak how quick or long they want their game to last, start on a certain day to test certain mechanics, and tweak other settings. More were added but got deleted when my SSD died last month. I’ll be adding the ability to choose your spawn point in a later patch.

New lightning storm sequence

One of the new game options added lets you begin the game before the storm to witness the lightning storm and first tripod rising. The storm effects have been redone from scratch and include wind effects that blow the grass and trees and new ambient sounds.

New tripod rising sequence

A new rising sequence where the first tripod will rise from the ground with complete custom sound effects and animations and blends into an AI Tripod that will wander the map.

New tentacle system

A new tentacle system is in the works, currently tentacles will only pick you up, not other NPCs or vehicles as I still am implementing this new non IK, more dynamic physics based system which looks a lot better and has collisions.

Tripods will now crouch down to pick you up

If you have been spotted by a harvester tripod it will attempt to chase you down and once reaching you it will crouch and chase you with the tentacle before grabbing you. This new tentacle has physics and collisions meaning if you run inside you can avoid being picked up but if you are stuck outside you won’t have as much luck. Once grabbed a new animation has been done where the tripod picks you up, brings you in front of its main spotlight to inspect you, then puts you into the cage with a new cage opening and closing animation.

New cage death sequence & tentacle animations

The cage sequence has now been added and includes an animated tentacle that comes out and grabs people from both cages. If you are in the cage you will be pulled into the machine and a new death sequence will happen. New animated humans have been added to the cage and can be observed being pulled into the tripods even from the ground. These animations will be improved overtime, hopefully with motion capture.

NPCs re added with various improvements
NPCs now spawn by default. I still have a lot of work on the NPCs to get them working as expected.

New Fire damage added
Fire damage has been readded and reinvented to work as expected

New lighting, weather and skybox & major graphical improvements

The entire weather, lighting, and skybox system has been replaced and has many new features such as improved rain effects, rolling cloud shadows, new dynamic volumetric fog with light shafts and density based on the weather.
Tripod textures & materials improved

Tripod lighting improved

The tripods textures & colors have been improved as well as the night lighting and spotlights now illuminate the grass and trees.

New Sounds

A ton of new sounds have been added, replaced, and improved with distant variants for a more immersive audio experience. This includes heatray sounds, horns, tripod actions like spraying blood, probing, and more.


Bug Fixes

Fixed basement door that wouldn’t let you walk up the stairs

Fix tripods getting stuck and walking in place on cliffs

Fixed loud noise at start of game

Fixed missing desks in prison

And like 100 more I can’t remember but plenty new bugs :)