Heyo friends! 💜
Welcome once again to Nova's Diary, issue number... *check notes* 14 already?!?
Spring has arrived! No better time to jump on the myriad of things we've done this month!
[ DESIGN & STUFF ]
Given that it's springtime, this naturally means it's time for spring cleaning!
Now, before you comprehensibly come at me with torches and pitchforks for YET another month of "design updates", let me lull you by saying that it's not just bugsmashing that we've done this month: A whole plethora of design subjects have been discussed, changed and improved, and I'm going to show you the best bits!
Ta-Dah! A brand new image of the final Area, named Punta della Dogana. Unlike Santa Marta and Inner Dorsoduro, Punta della Dogana is much cleaner and well taken care of, considering it houses some of the more important administrative buildings of the city, as well as some of the few remaining monuments and landmarks.
It is introduced in the final arc of the game, and it features its own NPCs, quests and whatnot.
(I would love to share more with you but as you know, this is pretty endgame and I wouldn't want to spoil the end for you)
Hey, doesn't that holo-sign look familiar? Yes it does!
One issue we noticed during playtests was that it was very difficult for new players to navigate Venice during the High Tide; most of the signs are submerged during this time, and with the pathing changes it makes for a difficult, albeit fresh experience for players that are still trying to memorize the level design. On top of that, we still believe we can add a little more "tech" into our future Venice, so we started thinking about an hybrid version of signage based on the traditional ones you'd find in Venice today (and hopefully in our 2089 too), but holo!
It's still our first iteration and it's probably going to get a lot of changes, but hopefully this new way of orientation (paired with some big-brain placement) will help players have an easier time exploring Venice!
This one isn't that big of a thing, but I very much like it and it deserves its own spot
Along with the new holo-signs, we also discussed on what other technological elements we could add into the level to better sell the "2089 but not that futuristic" vibe, and honestly WHAT BETTER CHOICE THAN A BUNCH OF ANTENNAE!
They are the perfect element of old-tech in a place that doesn't match the current year, almost like it's timelost, that is our brick-built, bright coloured Venice. Besides, they are so common throughout Italy (even to this day!) that if you've ever been to Venice, if you'd look up on the rooftops, they'd be filled with a mix of dishes and antennas.
They are easy to make, pose little to no problem from an optimization standpoint, and embellish the view during the High Tide!
Another thing I wanted to add to the design section is my intention of updating the game's Steam Page soon. Back when I made it, in December 2020, I basically speedrunned it, and so made it very similar to our Itch.io and Gamejolt counterparts (which at the time were booming, soo I thought "hey, this must be the way to go!")
But a year later and nearing release, it's kinda... Meh...
I feel there could be much more personality in our page, that can be shown for example by putting better gifs (the first ones do have a compression issue), or updating the texts (now everybody and their dogs know what's written in there) and generally changing the layout, in order to make it less...Google Docs-like?
Oh yeah, and change whatever outdated info is there. It may be correct for our demo, but for the full-fledge game I'd like to have solid information of the actual official build, rather than our 2020 demo release, you know?
I dunno, I have to consult my fellow designers and a couple of artists too, luckily it's not that urgent of an issue. But SOON™ there shall be a shiny new Venice 2089 Steam Page!
Oh, and if you have any feedback, idea or suggestion about how should I shape the new page, I'm all ears, let me know 🤗
[ 2D ART & STUFF ]
The spring cleaning saga continues!
While most of March has been an updating month for our artists (yes, even artists do that), there is one piece of content that I really want to show you!
Made by our master artist (AKA Art Director) Federico, these terrific graffiti are very much different from the ones normally found, and pack a serious punch to the gut in terms of worldbuilding.
Back when planning the narrative ecosystem of Venice 2089, I always wanted Venice to feel like a "lived in" city, and with the countless events that happened before the start of the game, it'd be natural to have some sort of evidence of what happened and what meant for the people of Venice....
These works, made a very long time ago by an unnamed artist, show the cold reality of the times before Nova, and to this day stand as a memento of the discomfort and worry of the citizen of those times.
One might say it even encouraged a certain rebellious artist to start expressing his feelings with spray paint...
[ 3D ART & STUFF ]
Not much to be said about 3D this month, other than the madlads managed to do us a big favour by downscaling the textures of half the models of Venice (it means that Venice won't be a 40 gigs game lol)
Apart from that, they worked close with us designers in finalizing Punta della Dogana, and created a couple more variations of our loved altane for the High Tide, in order to bring some more variety both visually and mechanically!
[ PROGRAMMING & STUFF ]
...You really want me to comment the programming section of the now known "Month of Updates?"
Jokes aside, nothing terribly groundbreaking happened, lots of optimization has indeed happened and now the game runs smoother as ever!
Will update when the big news will arrive
[ SEND OFF ]
And that's about it. Holy moly what a long devlog, it's been ages since I had a design section that verbose!
Honestly though, we're just that close to finishing Venice, and let me tell you WE ALL FEEL IT, the hype is real!
Thanks for sticking with our devlogs, thanks for interacting with us here on Steam or on our social platforms, and I cannot wait to hear more of you guys!
See you next month!
