We've been listening to the feedback and making lots of awesome tweaks to the demo. So the first thing to address is probably that you don't spend enough time doing sweet hockey moves. We revised all of our current traps to support our new motto: always be skating!
As you can see your player now keeps the puck on the ground and his head in the game! No more standing to lob pucks unless you find yourself behind the blockers. It plays SO MUCH better.
Next up was that when you started the game it was kind of deflating to have just two traps to work with. How can you get creative with your trap placements? So we also gave you a Puck Turret to start the game bringing the total starting loadout to three traps!
But wait, there's more! While there is still some work to be done on our aim system, we greatly improved how targeting happens under the hood. It's much more reliable. It also did need some explanation up front because it's tempting to predict your shots, so we added more optional tutorials in Rookie Pond.
We also watched some gameplay where people go to use the blocker trap for the first time - and its just a slap of wood with no explanation. We totally get how that would be confusing as a player so we added info boxes the first time you place any traps. Oh and we added fun animations to the holograms:
That about sums up most of the fun quality of life changes. Here are the rest of the meaningful changes that we have just put into the game:
Demo playtime for a full playthrough was averaging around 2 hours, which is a bit beyond the sweet spot for a demo experience. We’ve streamlined the pacing so the main story now takes roughly 45–60 minutes to complete. Woo! This means more players will actually reach the end of the demo and get the full introduction to Wild Ice’s core experience. Of course, if you go yarn hunting for Sara’s Knits, you can still stretch it back out closer to the 2 hour mark
No more locked out enemy hit reactions. Previously when enemies got hit they wouldn't play a new hit animation until they recover and it wasn't very reactive
Enemies in the open world show up as red dots on the mini map upon discovery for a brief time
When enemies get hit on their way to the furnace they don't just instant peel and come after you - they make a choice now. Runners prefer the furnace, hosers and exploders will come at you bro about 50% of the time
Thanks again for giving the demo a try and letting us know your thoughts (and any issues you spot along the way). We really appreciate it.
Now if you’ll excuse us, the Stanley Cup is in the building tonight, so we might be MIA for the evening.
Happy Next Fest!