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Due to a dose of Real Life™, I did not have it in me to do updates or socialize much in the past few weeks. Thankfully, things have a progressed and much of the stress is gone.

On the bright side, one way I deal with stress is to distract myself by coding… a lot. I’ve done everything from updating more loadout and UI related code (booo!) to gametypes and AI (woohoo!).

As a result, you can run around with a custom loadout in a round based gametype firing off rounds in the distance and watch the bullets trajectory traced out by a debug line. It is not with out its issues (see image below) but is a great feeling to finally be shooting again.

update

Edited by Dannik
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  • 4 weeks later...

What twcrash?

There is activity, it has just not been posted here. The latest update was June 15th.

I do not really understand why you hate Ground Branch so much, but please take it elsewhere unless you actually have something solid and useful to say.

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What twcrash?

There is activity, it has just not been posted here. The latest update was June 15th.

I do not really understand why you hate Ground Branch so much, but please take it elsewhere unless you actually have something solid and useful to say

Dont get mad at me I was there as well.

Edited by twcrash
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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

For anyone who backed the Ground Branch Kickstarter, be sure to check your email for a KS update and help us out by filling in the included survey.

Ground Branch is being made. But we need a little help in getting over
this hump so that we can open the flood gates and finally get
development moving at a consistent pace and get the game we all want to
play faster.

- The BFS Team

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  • 1 month later...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – October 30, 2013 – BlackFoot Studios LLC announced today that it has entered into an agreement with Killhouse Games, Inc. to license Door Kickers for developing premiere simulations and training products for the world’s militaries and law enforcement agencies.

“Killhouse Games is a small company of passionate game developers, with the respect and knowledge it takes to create a product which properly captures the spirit of modern urban combat,” said John Sonedecker, founder of BlackFoot Studios. “We’re proud to partner with a company that shares similar values to our own.”
The Door Kickers platform is perfectly suited to BlackFoot Studios’ vision for their products. It provides both the low development costs and versatility needed to quickly iterate and deliver content.
“It’s a really clever and easy-to-learn engine, which will run on basically any machine,” says Sonedecker. “It gives us the opportunity to develop a product for quick deployment, and it affords our customers the added convenience of easily producing their own modifications and additional content. We’re really excited to deliver the educational simulation tools needed to train today’s warfighters and first responders, to safely execute some of the world’s toughest jobs.”
“The top down perspective and clear graphics in Door Kickers are designed to put the emphasis on presenting the tactical situation, and from day one we had a training version in mind” says Dan Dimitrescu, co-founder of KillHouse Games. “Having followed Blackfoot Studios for the past couple of years I knew John’s experience in developing for the discerning gamer and the military trainer alike. With their intimate knowledge of the subject matter and the solid ethics that guide them in business, we are thrilled to have Blackfoot studios develop the Simulation and Training version of our game. They are in a great position to capitalize on our technology and to deliver the maximum of quality to the end user – the man on the line.”
Door Kickers: Simulations & Training will focus on the planning and execution phases of Close Quarters Battle (CQB) employed by many of today’s military and police forces. It will allow instructors to teach and then grade the methods of their trainees, using an easy-to-use interface. BlackFoot Studios plans worldwide availability of Door Kickers: Simulations & Training to government and law enforcement agencies, in the first quarter of 2014.
About Door Kickers
Door Kickers is a top-down, primarily 2D, real-time strategy combat game, created in the spirit of the original Rainbow Six and SWAT titles. Players must use their planning skills to their advantage, and draw out both the flow plan and firing sector of each team member as they attempt to safely navigate and clear a multi-room structure. Complex actions – such as door breaches and grenade deployments – can be easily programmed and queued to hotkeys, so that players may design the ideal plan, and simply hit “Go”, as their team executes every order according to plan. As the situation develops, players are able to pause the action in order to quickly reasses and adapt as needed.
About Killhouse Games
KillHouse Games SRL, based in Bucharest, Romania, was founded in 2012 by Dan Dimitrescu, Mihai Gosa and Catalin Saitan, veterans of the Silent Hunter submarine simulation development team.KillHouse Games focuses on military themed games that offer the player an unique blend of polished experience and controls, quick and easy play, challenges for the thinking gamer and a solid essential base of real tactics and technologies.With solid multiplatform development experience and having contributed to numerous big name titles on the market, the team was able to quickly develop a solid engine and release Door Kickers to crowdfunding and on Steam Early Access, to the acclaim of players and critics alike.
Additional information about KillHouse Games can be obtained through KillHouse Games Web site at http://inthekillhouse.com/
About BlackFoot Studios
BlackFoot Studios LLC, based in Columbus, Ohio, was founded in 2004 by John Sonedecker, a veteran developer who has been involved with some of the gaming industry’s most prominent and successful realistic tactical shooter franchises.With a team of visionary programmers and artists, BlackFoot Studios’ goal is to develop simulations and gaming products that cater to the military and law enforcement space as well as the simulation and tactical games space. The studio firmly believes that it is important to balance complicated actions with intuitive interface design.With the studio’s talent for creating challenging realism while maintaining fun game play, gamers will find themselves in an immersive world of military Special Ops, with never before presented perspectives and gameplay.
Additional information about BlackFoot Studios can be obtained through Blackfoot Studios web site at http://www.blackfootstudios.com/
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  • 2 weeks later...

you're too slow Jonathan :harhar:

BlackFoot Studios moves to Unreal Engine 4

November 15, 2013/in News /by jsonedecker
We are pleased to announce that Ground Branch is being developed using Epic?s Unreal Engine 4! Don?t worry, the majority of our completed work has moved over with a little bit of effort and things are in a much better state to move forward. For now, here are some of the main reasons for moving on to UE4:
It is modern technology!
Many deficiencies and vulnerabilities of UE3 are no longer present
UE3 is no longer being actively updated by Epic (It is still supported by Epic)
More efficient art/programming pipelines
It allows us to compete better in the graphics area without needing tons of developers
Allows us to support platforms other than PC without hiring dedicated and expensive specialized programmers
Better Dedicated Server support
Infinitely better control and performance with dynamic lighting
New Material pipeline that makes use of physically-based shaders to give unprecedented control over the look and feel
Much more advanced particle systems
Advanced AI and the dynamic navigation system make it simple to simulate complex behaviors with navigation meshes that update in real time
Advanced DirectX 11 high-end rendering features such as full-scene HDR reflections, thousands of dynamic lights per scene, artist-programmable tessellation and displacement, physically based materials and shading, temporal anti-aliasing, IES lighting profiles
Moving to Unreal Engine 4 provides us a more solid foundation to make sure Ground Branch has a long life. We want to support GB for a long time and UE3 has been around for a while now? its roughly 7 years old and has lots of legacy code/methodologies that we had to continually work around. Basically, UE4 is a more solid platform to carry BFS/GB for many years to come. Oh, and it?s just a bad ass engine to work with!
We will have much more to show as we gear up for the new Ground Branch Kickstarter.
KS is projected timeline would be Jan 2014.... so don't buy your wife something too expensive this coming Holiday.
Edited by Cpl Ledanek
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  • 2 weeks later...

LMAO ....

I could see Doorkickers being a console port on the new consoles but that isn't a BFS product.

Maybe BFs needs to go that route instead of begging for cash release an Alpha via greenlight and let people buy into it that way. I have bought into a few of these that way (minecraft,ArmA3,Doorkickers,Sir you are being hunted to name a few) And its a great way to do it

From my point of view even if I wanted to support it what is the new KS going to? GB? or an "unnamed" Playstation project? with their track record of nothing to show I am very skeptical. And for those BFS koolaid drinkers dont call me a hater... because if ANY other developer took this long to come up with something you would have torn them a new one already. 3 engines, 2 kickstarters and 10 years is a bit much to ask anyone to trust and get behind.

Drop an alpha on Greenlight. Even a BAD alpha just SOMETHING that I can look at and play with. I will support it and I am sure I am not the only one who feels this way.

Edited by twcrash
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BFS Facebook Page

BFS is a Game and Simulations developer. Ground Branch is a PC title that we want to look into putting on the PS4 at some point down the road. We also have some other relationships that we are looking to collaborate on with the PS4/Vita.
So those that want GB to be a die hard PC title don't worry..... it is and will always be. For those that want to see GB on PS4 hang tight. Once the PC version is secure and self sufficient then we would like to branch it off and see if we can make the EXACT same game on the console.
Our aim is to bring the PC gameplay experience to consoles. If people like it than great! If not then we tried and we move on. We have no interest in making a "consolized" version of GB to make it more accessible and open it up to a different style of player. The aim is that GB just plays on a different set of hardware.
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2 engines, 1 kickstarter, but who's counting? :P

Greenlight is weird... no one but Valve seems to have any idea how a game actually makes the cut.

Votes don't seem to matter.

Valve early access is interesting, but I think that like you, Valve wants to look at and play with something first.

As do we, but we went and did a DNF by swapping engines :P

Worth it though... honest!

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  • 2 months later...
-------------------

Things are coming along
Posted on February 19, 2014 by jsonedecker
We thought it would be a good idea to pop our heads up for a second and let everyone know that things are moving along well. Paperwork to allow the early access is close to being done and other legal issues are being wrapped up. We are also getting in some much needed feature work as well. We will keep you posted on our timeline once it becomes a bit more clear.
Since I’m here, I might as well show off the optic choices you will have when you first start playing Ground Branch. More will be added of course, but these should cover most of your needs when getting started. And yes, we know the reticules on the holo and reflex sights are not accurate. They are the way they are for testing at the moment.
Optics.jpg
Thanks for sharing the news
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