The battlefields of Saustralasia are certainly looking lovely this time of year, be it with quite a few extra touches to boot!
2025 is well and truly in full swing as we charge full speed towards our team's goal of getting the remaster ready for release (hopefully before Christmas this year!). Such a battle plan is an ambitious one at that, but as the development pieces start to fall into place - we are getting closer and closer to achieving that goal! So whats left to do exactly? Lets break things down into their simplest components:
Pig Models - perhaps the most obvious of the lot, our new models are indeed still cooking in the oven, but it won't be long before they are ready! The trickiest part is not actually the modelling itself, but rather attaching the hog and all its potential new polys to the original game's animation rig. All the game's animation sequences for the pigs stem from here, so we need to ensure everything is properly paint weighted to our new mesh! (and get all the new hats attached!)
Maps - our scouts are pleased to say that all the levels (visually) are close to completion, with prop passes entering their final phase before we get the decals in! Lighting will still need touching up in places along with our water and grass, and we also intend to get some new visual features added in as a bonus, the likes of which we hope to show you in an upcoming dev log episode! We've been making a note to expand on those blank map spaces, building new structures where possible (both within and outside of the playable space) and, ultimately, bringing this world to live more!
Particles - You'd be surprised at the depth the original game went to with certain effects, from different coloured sneezes and melee hits, to the pigs brushing off dust and radiating heat particles after being hit by the flamethrower, the list goes on! With that in mind, you can then understand how we've had to go one step further in assigning that detail, for example in Lardcore - each explosive weapon receives its own individual explosion effect, calculate that into how many different explosions you can get in hogs and that equates to just a fraction of the work that needs doing! A good particle is one who's components blend together seamlessly, and that's what we aim to achieve here!
Menus & Localisation - HQ has recently reported that all our menus, including the new ones, are fully designed and down on paper, so the next step is to connect those functional dots with the visual ones! The game flow in both single and multiplayer will follow the same path as the original, so that means the inclusion of the usual suspects - mission briefings, map screen, newspaper screen etc.
On top of that we're also getting all the text together for the additional languages of French, German, Spanish and Italian, not to mention all the new translations that are needed! (shout-out to the Hogs community Localisation Team!)
Online Multiplayer - this section is very much 'the programmers dugout', and for good reason! The original online multiplayer for the PC version of Hogs was primarily designed with LAN to LAN play in mind, so translating that simple framework 25 years later has been quite the undertaking! The most important part of online play to us is in ensuring visual consistency across the board, most notably when it comes to dealing with controller inputs and damage dealt. Hogs of War Lardcore will look to offer up 4 players multiplayer for both online and offline play, because how could we forget our couch multiplayer roots, eh?
Testing - Perhaps the most time consuming of all, once the entire game is stitched together it will need to be rigorously tested. This section goes hand in hand with online networking, as that is where the biggest bulk of issues are likely to arise from (after all the offline stuff is checked off!). As a side note, we do appreciate the outreach we've received from the community regarding testers, and should we ever need such assistance in future we'll be sure to get the word out!
So, its full speed ahead for development of Hogs of War Lardcore! We'll be keeping our heads down and getting on with the tasks at hand, though you can be sure that we'll continue to do our best to bring you the latest updates (when we have something new to show you!). Releasing this year is the goal, but should the outlook change or delays alter the timeline then the community will be first to know. Massive thanks as always to the community and everyone's continuing support for the project, we've come a long way since 2018/9, here's to making this year's big push!