Update B0.11.1, Sound Effects and Future Proofing
Darkness and a Crowd has undergone many iterations, some necessary, and some not so much. The recent changes of the game although not terribly important, do make a difference in the feeling and environment of the game. Let’s go over a few of those changes. Recently we’ve added a
Darkness and a Crowd has undergone many iterations, some necessary, and some not so much. The recent changes of the game although not terribly important, do make a difference in the feeling and environment of the game. Let’s go over a few of those changes.
Recently we’ve added a new attacking animation. I forgot which video it was that I saw someone mention this, but I was asked, what exactly is the Character doing when he attacks an enemy. It now spawns a quick little animation I made of a dark entity being formed, whipping the enemy and disappearing. Along with this tiny change, we’ve also added some more environmental changes to the game to make it more obvious when an enemy is nearby.
Now you will hear slimy squishy jumping noises every time a Spickle jumps. Although not a big change, it’s something that makes me really happy. I spent a solid afternoon just squishing and throwing slime around to get the noise just right.
There are also sound effects for a few other things. Jumping through one way walls creates a sound effect of a higher pitched squishy noise repeated, and breaking objects creates a rather loud, satisfying crack.
Most if not all sound effects are easily controlled with the sound sliders in the settings menu, which was a process to include but extremely necessary for the easability of others recordings. Speaking of making unique recordings. If you find something cool in the game that you want a simple picture of, feel free to hit the back slash button on your keyboard to toggle the UI. “\”. This is how the trailer is being recorded, and it doesn’t remove too much from the experience strangely enough.
On top of all of this, there was also a new area added above where the bridges were spanning over the wave location. It leads to an empty room that is currently being used to test new objects and enemies before I get working on even more maps, It also loads in a nearly empty location and gives you a sneak peak on it’s name.
I hope these updates get you excited for what’s to come. If you haven’t tried out the game in some time, I do encourage you to do so. There have been many changes, most involving around the tutorial of the game, and I find myself getting lost in its gameplay. Please don’t hesitate to record the game to provide feedback for me, and post your recordings or screenshots for the community to view so I can watch it and make any necessary changes to improve the experience.
Thanks so much for reading this, and as always, keep playing Darkness and a Crowd.
- S
Original post
Recently we’ve added a new attacking animation. I forgot which video it was that I saw someone mention this, but I was asked, what exactly is the Character doing when he attacks an enemy. It now spawns a quick little animation I made of a dark entity being formed, whipping the enemy and disappearing. Along with this tiny change, we’ve also added some more environmental changes to the game to make it more obvious when an enemy is nearby.
Now you will hear slimy squishy jumping noises every time a Spickle jumps. Although not a big change, it’s something that makes me really happy. I spent a solid afternoon just squishing and throwing slime around to get the noise just right.
There are also sound effects for a few other things. Jumping through one way walls creates a sound effect of a higher pitched squishy noise repeated, and breaking objects creates a rather loud, satisfying crack.
Most if not all sound effects are easily controlled with the sound sliders in the settings menu, which was a process to include but extremely necessary for the easability of others recordings. Speaking of making unique recordings. If you find something cool in the game that you want a simple picture of, feel free to hit the back slash button on your keyboard to toggle the UI. “\”. This is how the trailer is being recorded, and it doesn’t remove too much from the experience strangely enough.
On top of all of this, there was also a new area added above where the bridges were spanning over the wave location. It leads to an empty room that is currently being used to test new objects and enemies before I get working on even more maps, It also loads in a nearly empty location and gives you a sneak peak on it’s name.
I hope these updates get you excited for what’s to come. If you haven’t tried out the game in some time, I do encourage you to do so. There have been many changes, most involving around the tutorial of the game, and I find myself getting lost in its gameplay. Please don’t hesitate to record the game to provide feedback for me, and post your recordings or screenshots for the community to view so I can watch it and make any necessary changes to improve the experience.
Thanks so much for reading this, and as always, keep playing Darkness and a Crowd.
- S
The game is now released in early access so if you've been waiting for it, you can play it, and if you've been waiting to buy it, well its on a massive sale for Christmas so grab it while you still can!
I want to make the game as community driven as possible, so if you encounter any issues, please feel free to send a message my way whether its in a comment or a discussion thread. I want this to be as community driven as possible.
ALSO! New updates are coming soon to add some new graphical improvements and fix some bugs I'm already aware of.
Enjoy!
New:
The new Element Buying Menu
Equipping other abilities example
I have plans to further simplify it with an on screen button to say hey, were done greenlighting (whether that be you finished it or gave up) and allows you to walk away or whatever you choose to do. But since that's not in the current edition, just re-talk to the switch when your ready to test out the
Using a fire ball (a fire ability)
Using ground slam (an earth ability)
Outside of this, I also got my hands on some sweet 3D modeling software, so on the bright side, I can 3D model anything I want, once I learn it… on the not so bright side… we aren’t using much 3D modeling in our 2D game over here, so blender is probably going to remain my goto software for now.
That should be it by now. The major updates revolve around what's being added to the closed beta, with much more area being added, many more tasks, puzzles and creatures! It truly is a lot of fun! I can’t wait to see you all in the next update!
I ALSO want to get in a new enemy but that might be thinking a little too far ahead. We’ll see how much of this actually gets done but I think I have a decent track record for getting the things done that I originally plan on. It just normally takes 10 times longer than originally planned. However with all of that out of the way. I think we should get onto what HAS been added to the game!
When it comes to updates towards bug fixes, I honestly can’t name all of them. It should be nearly impossible to get stuck in the ground or break the level itself. There are a ton of collectables to follow in-order to make sure you never get lost or too terribly confused and the missions themselves should have a lot of fixes with grammatical errors.
Just kidding… There will be no battle royale for the foreseeable future… HOWEVER. There is a new level cap that you can play around with instead.. So when prior you would be locked at level 9, it’s now level 20 that’ll cap you, in order to give you room to test out the new abilities, a little longer. The first one being the new Fire Explosion ability.
ALSO GOOGLE HAS A LITTLE POP UP FOR THE GAME! OH MY GOODNESS!!!!
I highly recommend when starting out the game again, to start it from a new save with the left click button as its the safest way to start out the game at any giving moment, especially after an update.
Finally after a couple weeks of working on this system, the greenlight system is finally put in place for testing. Each button you press will toggle a certain set of switches in certain positions, your goal is to make all of them green.
Now although this can be simplistic at first, I promise you when multiplied by even 2 or 3 more lights, it'll be more of a challenge than you'd expect. However for beginners purposes, I'm leaving it simplistic for the ideologies of "everyone wins" in current modern titles. Just wait until you get further in the game.
After completing the greenlight system, you'll next be faced up against an even higher leveled Big Spickles and two of its harder minions to face. However don't worry too much, your gained experience both in game and in knowledge should make these creatures much easier. Just don't forget to save.
After all of that, you'll be placed in front of a generator with a bunch of placeholder graphics, this is the next system I wish to work on. Generators will be made to shut down electrically reinforced locations, whether it be a locked door or a forcefield of some sorts, but there will always be more where those come from. The reason for generators importances while surrounding them with massive amounts of enemies is to give the player more incentive to actually defeat the harder creatures.
It's a weird style of gameplay, and it's quite repetitive, but at the very core, the game is a puzzle game. When you get to the end you should get a sense of accomplishment. I got the biggest sigh of relief finishing off the final level 6 Spickle. I want everyone to feel that. Upgrading your character will start to make you feel accomplished and over powered in some areas but worried in others. You can make yourself the strongest creature alive, but I dare you to get hit once by the larger and more leveled spickles.
I really hope you all enjoy the game, and by the way, I DID add another achievement, it just doesn't seem to appear after the games already been released, so the achievement hunters have finally won... this time -_-
Seriously though, have fun playing the Demo. It's free so there's no reason NOT to download it. And in the long run, no reason to pirate it either :guard:
I'm so proud of this and I hope you all see the amount of work going in to this. Good luck and have fun. Be sure to tell me if there's ANY bugs what so ever for me to fix in the discussions or just a simple screenshot. I stalk the pages CONSTANTLY.
- Seth Albertus