Heya, I’m back with another development update for City of Beats!
This month we’ve reached a major milestone - we’ve finished implementing the final boss encounter. And it’s a crazy one, we’re really firing on all cylinders here. This means that we can now play through the whole thing, from the start screen until (and including) the end credits sequence!
Of course, there’s still a lot to do - but now my probably favorite part of gamedev begins: Tweaking and iterating on the campaign so that it flows well from start to finish, and adding additional content where we feel like there’s still some variety and fun missing.
Balancing Run Duration
After a bit of internal playtesting, we found that a full run through all 3 biomes & the final boss currently takes about 50-60min. This is quite a bit longer than I originally intended, considering that we know the game really well and are probably faster than the average player in their first few hours.
Ideally, I’d like the length to be around 40min, as having more but shorter runs results in an increased number of “big choices” and therefore more gameplay variety. Of course, if the runs are too short, those choices lose some of their weight and a successful run might not feel as rewarding, so we’ll have to find the perfect balance between the two. I’ll try to shorten the length and amount of combat encounters a bit and see how it goes. I’m already looking forward to the 15min speedruns. 😅
Summer Gaming Events
In the past few months, we brought the game to a couple of gaming events, which really paid off on the marketing front. Between Gamescom, Tokyo Game Show and EGX London, we’ve gathered tons of wishlists, followers and feedback. 🥳
Check out this interview with Nick, which dives deeper into the origins of the game and highlights some of the decisions we made regarding the music/rhythm aspects!
Our latest trailer!
Adaptive Music
Nick has also recently published two new interviews on his blog that are must-reads if you’re into adaptive music and music design in general:
- Halo, and the birth of cinematic adaptive music (with Halo audio lead / composer Martin O’Donnell)
- Dying Light 2, and the importance of music design (with Dying Light 2 composer Olivier Deriviere)
Have a great day & see you next time,
Kai