Welcome back for our July update, which barely made it into July!
The Blazemaker
In City of Beats, we want to make sure that every weapon feels unique, both in terms of gameplay as well as its soundscape and what it adds to the music. So, in the past month we’ve been working on another rather unexpected instrumental weapon: a flamethrower called Blazemaker.
Shooting flames with it adds an euphoric synth layer to the music, as was our idea right from the start. But it quickly became clear that something is missing: while our other weapons play a melody on each shot, the flamethrower just… continuously shoots flames. Our solution was to play the melody through our burning enemies: Enemy drones take fire damage each quarter beat, and this is what plays harmonic notes that create the melody. Therefore, make sure to keep them burning if you want the melody to keep going!
(In hindsight it might not have been the best idea to work on a flamethrower weapon during the heatwave here in Europe. Literal heat & sweat went into creating the Blazemaker. Might want to reschedule that Ice Beam weapon we had planned for Winter.)
Working on the Metagame
Besides the Blazemaker, we’re also reworking and adding to the game’s metagame systems and persistent progression. If you’ve played the demo, you already know the trait system, where you can permanently improve your character stats.
In July, we’ve implemented the hovercar AI component system, which allows you to upgrade your hovercar’s software to gain out-of-combat advantages on your expeditions. Examples for this are unlocking new flight paths on the map or even re-rolling combat rewards if you’re not happy with the selection you were given. You can buy/upgrade these components in the hub and enable up to 3 of them at the same time.
WIP screen of the hovercar upgrade menu
The Pursuit of Flow State
Last but not least, there’s a new blog post from Nick where he explains the techniques we’re using to get the player into a “state of flow” in City of Beats.
Check it out here!
Thanks for reading & see ya next time!
Kai