27 May 2024Developer post

New instruction, Help Grandma cross the road!

New content update! New instruction available! Help grandma cross the road Fixed so Go Fishing can be completed Fixed a soft-lock Help grandma cross the road In this instruction you'll need to help grandma cross the road. But as you progress, you'll need to do stranger and strang

13 May 2023Developer post

New enemy!

There are three new enemies in the game! Let's talk about the first one. It's called the "jumper," and it jumps around on walls, following the player. The jumper is designed to solve a few gameplay issues. First of all, it's nice to have as much variety in enemy design as possibl

There are three new enemies in the game! Let's talk about the first one. It's called the "jumper," and it jumps around on walls, following the player. The jumper is designed to solve a few gameplay issues. First of all, it's nice to have as much variety in enemy design as possible. But the jumper is specifically designed to encourage teamwork while also working in a single-player setting, here's how it looks:

How do you encourage two players to tackle an enemy together? One way is to create a classic aggro mechanic so that while the enemy has full focus on one player, the other player is able to do other things since they are not being targeted. With the jumper, this is represented by an impenetrable shield aimed at the player who has aggro. It looks like this:

Watch on YouTube

So the player not being aggroed can shoot it from a different angle. Although it will jump away the moment it gets hit, so make the bullets count and wait for the next opportunity.

Watch on YouTube

How do you kill it if you are playing alone? Well, first of all, when it jumps from one place to another, it flies over without any shield. So if you are fast enough to aim, you can catch it in mid-air, which is very satisfying. But the easier way is to catch it just before it jumps. That's when it lowers its shield right before flying over to the new point. Here is how that could look:

Watch on YouTube

Another mechanic that encourages cooperation is its actual attack. On every fifth jump or so that the jumper does, it will fly into or through the player. The player can dodge the attack with timed movement, but if the jumper hits the player, the player will be "constrained." This means they will be semi-stunned, with limited aiming and movement, although they can still use the gun and make slight adjustments. In single-player mode, it's possible to break free by rapidly moving the mouse for a few seconds (making it very challenging to handle other enemies simultaneously):

Watch on YouTube

In multiplayer, you can free your friend by shooting at the constrainer that is literally stuck to the player's feet, and that looks like this:

Watch on YouTube

It's mechanically similar to hunters in Left 4 Dead, but here they are a bit easier to dodge, although there can be a lot of them.

That's it for this little update! Next time, we'll take a closer look at the player's health system, such as what happens when you reach 0 health points and how teammates can revive or save you.

Stay tuned, and don't forget to sign up for our beta!
www.Knackelibang.com

/ The Knackelibang Team

Original post

28 Apr 2023Developer post

And we're back!

So it's been a while. It's been a while since we last posted anything, but we're back and it's time to start sharing our progress on the game! Lots of things have happened, and we are going to go through all of them over the coming months and show off all the shiny new things add

So it's been a while. It's been a while since we last posted anything, but we're back and it's time to start sharing our progress on the game! Lots of things have happened, and we are going to go through all of them over the coming months and show off all the shiny new things added and improvements in the game.

First of all, the core game idea has not changed. It's still set in a simulated reality, and you are tasked with just reading the instructions and trying to figure out what exactly you are supposed to do. Every time you start a level, it's procedurally generated with a unique layout, making it always fresh and interesting! Finally, there are still a ton of enemies that will attack you at the same time, and your weapons are still very overpowered. Oh, and everything is still a bit surreal.

But let's talk about the new stuff! The biggest change yet is that the dust that is left when enemies die is not what hurts the player anymore. We changed this for a couple of reasons, but the main thing was that it was really hard to keep track of where the dust was, and that made it just not satisfying to handle, just annoying. So now the things that hurt you are enemies exploding in your proximity or enemies flying into you and exploding. Which is sort of the same thing really, it's just that some enemies are more aggressive than others.

And what about the enemy types? When we left, there were two different: crawlers and pillar beasts. There are now three more (and probably more than that eventually). We're not going to spoil them here right now, more details will come in later dev blogs, but just naming them will give some idea of what they do:

Crawler
Pillar Beast
Jumper
Boomerang
Shifter (boss)

All these behave radically differently, and we can't wait to share more about how they work!

Let's look at another thing: the graphics. That's where the biggest upgrade has been, we think. Here is a short clip of how it looked when we left you:

Watch on YouTube

And here is how it looks now:

Watch on YouTube

There are three major upgrades that make the difference. The actual graphical assets are completely remade. There are now real-time reflections of the enemies and effects. Finally, we've added better lighting to all levels, baked indirect lighting to be more specific. Remember, every map is fully procedural, so we cannot bake the light on a static level to improve the light quality; there is no static level. Instead, we've built our own baker that does this baking in the loading screen every time you start a level. It's not as accurate and detailed as if we could have baked it for a long time on a static level, but it certainly improves the look over no baking.

Take a look at the difference:

The feeling of the alleyways between the houses is quite different, a much more appropriate amount of light.

That's it for now. In the next episode of "What the Heck Were You Guys Doing for Almost Two Years?" we're going to take a closer look at one of the new enemies!

Stay tuned, and don't forget to sign up for our beta!
www.Knackelibang.com

/ The Knackelibang Team

Original post

30 Jul 2021Developer post

Now You're Thinking With Portals

Into the Matrix While we don’t want to spoil much of the story or lore about the world, it is quite easy to see where the inspiration comes from regarding how the players start and end a level in Just Read The Instructions. This white room where everyone gets ready for the fight

Into the Matrix

While we don’t want to spoil much of the story or lore about the world, it is quite easy to see where the inspiration comes from regarding how the players start and end a level in Just Read The Instructions. This white room where everyone gets ready for the fight is a small hint to what is actually going on for the characters in the game. It’s obviously a reference and homage to The Matrix, although the cinematic version might have a leg up on visual quality... In any case, the players start off in this seemingly infinite and empty room. They grab the weapons they want to use and then they go through a portal, a door, a rip in spacetime or whatever one might call it. These are our portals and they play an important part in the game.

Neo and Trinity grabbig some weapons

Watch on YouTube

The player starting the level in the white room and then goes though a portal

Guns are always good to have

The players get to equip themselves with a few guns in that first white room where everyone starts. Then they need to use them effectively and sparingly, because as mentioned in a previous dev blog, the weapons break when they are used enough, especially when they are used with high power. The portals then come into play again when the players need more weapons. Because at the start everyone gets one portal to use later in the level for whatever problem they need to solve. When this “portable portal” is placed in the level, it leads back to the first white room and now there are more weapons to pickup. This really encourages cooperating and sticking together so that when one player uses one portal, all four players can go back together and bring new weapons.

Watch on YouTube

The player going back to the white room for more weapons

The ‘design-rabbithole’ of portals

There are quite a few intended and unintended consequences of these portals. One intended is that the players can temporarily hide in the white room to catch a breath or to heal a bit. But there are other consequences that we did not first think about, but are quite intriguing to keep in and see how players will use and abuse. For example, if there is a portal open and someone else opens another one, the new portal will replace the connection to the white room, rendering the previous portal non functional. So if a player enters through the first portal and waits in the white room for a new one to be placed, going back out will now be through the newer portal, wherever that is. Lastly, an important limitation of the portals is that they are active for only 30 seconds, so one better return before that, or else who knows where one might end up?

We hope this huge wild card turns the design just enough up side down to make it feel really interesting!
And don't forget to sign up for our beta!
www.Knackelibang.com

/ The Knackelibang Team

Original post

07 Jun 2021Developer post

Roadblocks and their purpose

Roadblocks Last update we presented the first look on the games procedurally created levels, on these levels the players will have to navigate to find and ultimately solve the various instructions. We will discuss the instructions specifically in a future update. The levels so fa

Roadblocks

Last update we presented the first look on the games procedurally created levels, on these levels the players will have to navigate to find and ultimately solve the various instructions. We will discuss the instructions specifically in a future update.

The levels so far are quite straightforward with relatively logically structured streets and paths (especially the current city theme) for the players to walk through. While we have a lot of space within the procedural tool to change the exact structure of the level-layout, we also need some minor hindrances to make it more challenging to navigate, one of the solutions are roadblocks.

Roadblocks are essentially what the name suggests, in its simplest form a wall that blocks a specific path, forcing you to find another one, thus making navigating the level a bit more difficult by creating maze-like paths. However, just blocking a path can be quite boring, it really does not present you with much of a choice as there are no solutions to such a hindrance other than picking another path. So aside from strait-up blockage we have several types of roadblocks that can be bypassed.

Watch on YouTube

A simple example of this is a destructible wall, the wall has a small hint that it can be damaged, and with a bit of firepower you can bring the entire wall down. However, this does force you to use your weapons extensively, which leads to wearing-down your gear.

Another type is more of a “puzzle-light” blockage. For example a wall with 3 doors, where only one door leads to the other side. You still need to spend time opening them, something that is risky while surrounded by enemies. Finally we a password protected door where you need the correct combination to open it.

We also have a few other concepts of roadblock-types that we hope to have in the game:

Summary

Roadblocks will, as the rest of the level, be procedurally placed around the level. The goal with roadblocks is to make the levels more interesting to navigate, as well as create a way to control the difficulty depending on the type and number of blocks. It also creates smaller continuous choices where the player has to evaluate if its worth the time and effort trying to solve them or completely bypass them.

More updates in the coming weeks!

And lastly, don't forget to sign up for our beta!
www.Knackelibang.com

/ The Knackelibang Team

Original post

Updates & announcements

Help grandma cross the road

Hello, dear gamers and fans of Just Read The Instructions,

What's in the Demo?

Tutorial:

4-Player Multiplayer:

When Can You Play?

Your Feedback Matters

See you at the Steam Next Fest!

Gameplay trailer done!

Your purpose

Into the Matrix

Guns are always good to have

The ‘design-rabbithole’ of portals

Is originality always good?

The death of a Crawler

The fun counterplay

We need more power!

The technical aspect

Power when needed

Is that balanced?

Roadblocks

Summary

Our very first news post!

Going forward