Hello mercenaries! We haven't checked in too much since launch. We were extremely happy to release a game on Steam; it felt like a big life event and something we could cross off our bucket lists. After release, the usual life events got in the way of any further updates for a bit.
We're elated to announce that we are back working on Flashlight! We have had time to collect some feedback from players and discuss many changes that we personally would like to implement. On top of that, we are designing and implementing brand new features that we think will make the Story Mode of Flashlight more immediately engaging and accessible!
We are still doing heavy development and testing of new features and fixes, but are ready to give a little preview of some of our work in progress. If you want the quick and dirty bullet list, check it out below. After that is a more thorough explanation of each bullet point.
Changes
- Gameplay loop changed and improved player engagement
- Zombies are changed to be slower and have less health, but to have more of them on-screen
- Score multiplier system revamped
- Buildings in Story Mode now have roofs and need to be entered to see what secrets they hold
- Inventory system revamped
- Enemy mercenary AI toned down on Easy and Normal modes
- Various performance tweaks
We wanted to change the overall gameplay loop and immediate engagement of the player when starting up a fresh Story Mode playthrough. To that end, we are revamping the flow of the first level to get players into the action more quickly without overwhelming them. The subsequent levels will also be changed by giving the players a task to search for items marked on the mini-map. These items will drive players into buildings, giving them more of a reason to explore beyond just grabbing a crate of ammo. Buildings will now have randomized events in them, mixing up the player experience when they enter a building. Our goal is to keep players on their toes while also moving them forward.
We are changing zombies in general to be slower and have less health, but are increasing the number that will be on-screen. We decided we wanted the feeling of fighting a horde of zombies rather than the individual faster zombies that are currently present. That design choice drove the idea to revamp the score multiplier system. As a player moves through the score multiplier tiers, they will be granted faster movement speed, their weapon specials will charge faster, and their bullets and flamethrower (not explosives) will deal slightly more damage. We want to incentivize players to keep decimating zombies as quickly as possible! There may even be a cool surprise when the player maxes out their score multiplier...
Another very big change for the Story Mode is that buildings will have roofs when viewed from the outside of the buildings! We have a cone of visibility mechanic when looking into a building entrance, and after entering, the lighting becomes darkened. The player might need to be careful while moving within the confines of an unknown building.
The inventory system has been changed, and will now allow the player to equip powerups to their weapons and character. Powerups will include damage increases, piercing rounds, and laser sights. These equips can be moved around on your various weapons to allow a player to choose their favorite weapon and beef it up! We are also currently tweaking the ability to turn unwanted ammo and powerups into extra scrap.
A more minor change that we felt was needed is toning down the AI mercenaries on Easy and Normal modes to make them less difficult to fight. Based on feedback, we realized this was a major roadblock for a lot of players.
We noticed that in some situations involving lots of things happening onscreen that performance could decrease. We fixed this issue by limiting the number of blood spots that can appear at one time, and also improved some lighting performance.
Moving Forward
The list above is not complete by any means! We are working on various other changes large and small to how the game plays, such as making the random level generation feel more varied. We at SouthWater Games are ecstatic to be working on Flashlight again and will post updates here as we solidify things and work toward releasing what we think will be a more fun version of Flashlight!