Welcome to our second update post. If you haven't guessed, we're committed to making Occlude absolutely fantastic for everyone.
I hope we've shown this by doing two updates in four days alone!
You can read about the changes we made in the first 24 hours to the demo here.
If you're a fan of studios who listen to feedback and games with this level of love in them, please consider wishlisting the game.
Each wishlist boosts us in the Steam algorithm and helps us reach an audience on an increasingly crowded Steam.
Our second update brings more highly requested changes to the Occlude demo. Lower down you can read what we're changing for launch based off your feedback.
Demo Update 2 Changes
Undo/Redeal Hints
Players have been requesting help for when their game gets 'locked' - Either when they need to undo a move or can't make any more moves.
For both of these cases the Redeal and Undo buttons will now animate. We hope this removes the frustration some have felt not knowing if they can advance or not!
Players have also requested a wider Hint system which may take more time. We'd like to see if this change helps before committing to a kind of larger, more design fiddly change such as that.
We're a small team, working on an even smaller amount of time, so we sadly have to pick our battles.
Snappier Cards, easier movement
A number of players find that moving cards is sluggish and difficult.
So, we've sped up the movement of cards when being dragged. Fling those cards around and please do tell us how it feels!
This was a great first step, but we also got feedback that shifting cards to the Foundation was laborious. No more - You can now double click to send a card straight to the Foundation.
This has meant we've swapped marking cards to a right-click. We know this many make one Ritual marginally harder, so let us know if you like/dislike this change.
Cards coming off screen
Players found that with extra big Tableau piles, cards were wandering off the screen and became unclickable.
Like we said in the last post, we had a fix in mind for this, and now as of today Tableau piles will resize when lots of cards are placed on them.
This works for all game resolutions and is weirdly really fun to do.
Wrong Rituals fixed
A bug we started to track after posting our last update was players continuing or loading back into games to find they are playing a different Ritual.
This was actually a fun bug - The players weren't actually playing different Rituals, just the asset for the Ritual Card wasn't updating properly. Joy.
This update fixes this, so now you won't see the wrong Ritual Card when returning to a game.
There were a few other places this was occurring that weren't reported we also fixed, because we're nice like that.
Launch changes based on feedback
This responds to 3 of the 5 major bits of feedback we mentioned in the last update. The other 2, plus the many suggestions, ideas and input we've received, are going to take a bit longer to respond to.
Some have forced us to redesign the game and do so very carefully, but we're confident these changes make Occlude better for everyone.
"Casual Mode"
Though a lot of feedback liked the current difficulty, many felt it was too punishing.
Many more specifically asked for a casual mode and we're now working on this.
Our current thinking is that this would have an unlimited undo and two purgatory slots, as well as its own set of seeds that are easier to complete.
Naming to be confirmed, as "casual" sounds a little derogatory for our liking.
We also realized that lots of players simply didn't expect the 'Occlude Experience' - A tricky game of Solitaire where Redealing is encouraged and failure expected. That's on us.
We're look at messaging to make it abundantly clear to players what the game is about, while pointing to this "casual" mode as an option they may be interested in.
By doing this, we don't affect the many players who like the current challenge of Occlude, who still get the difficulty and chewy version that's closer to this demo.
RNG Difficulty/Balance
For both modes of Occlude we're generating new seeds to go into the game using a much altered seed generation system.
These new seeds will be solve-able for all combinations of Final Cards. Our original thinking was that players wouldn't mind an occasional Redeal, but feedback has shown quite the opposite.
These will also allow for simpler first moves so you can get a game started faster.
For non-"casual" mode the seeds will be slightly easier than the demo but still tough, and for "casual" mode these will be considerably easier all round.
We're also looking at detecting when players are struggling and throw them a bone with an easier seed.
This is a massive undertaking and has taken us away from the many other features we want to add to Occlude, but we're confident it'll improve the game for everyone.
Tutorialisation
Our current very basic Tutorial is not cutting the mustard! Feedback was really clear about that.
We're allocating time to work on a more in-depth Tutorial that will guide players through the start of a game better.
Tutorials are generally awful to make in games, so how extensive this will be down to how much time we get for it. Tiny team, tiny budget, tiny amount of time.
Review screen
You want somewhere to see how many Coins you've earned, a few stats and even revisit old narrative that showed up? Sure thing!
We had planned this for launch, but your feedback has made us change how this will look - You clearly want lots of information about your runs and we want to give it to you.
Meta-Narrative/More Rituals
Players want both more of a meta-narrative to the game and more Rituals to complete.
That's a nice and easy bit of feedback to answer - We have both, but you'll have to wait for the full game to see it.
Happy? Wishlist us!
Thank you all again for your feedback.
I can't lie, it's been tough read in places, but most of you have been wonderfully polite and understanding about the difficulties of indie game development.
That feedback has made Occlude fundamentally better - Better than when we first released the demo and better for launch.
We now have a clear path to follow when Occlude hits your Store page on the 10th of July.
If you appreciate what we're doing, go wishlist Occlude. Like I said above, it helps us more than you can imagine.
I'll keep up the updates and let you know how your feedback shaped the game.
Thanks again,
Sam
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