Hey everyone!
Hope you're all doing well, my apologies for the overdue update here on Steam, we've been busy at work on the new chapters and a few other things shown on Crimson's YouTube channel (fun behind the scenes videos of the Miami series development), I've also been streaming on Twitch if you want live updates and/or want to ask any questions/provide feedback.
In the last Devlog, I mentioned a development schedule that was waaaay too ambitious, but alongside that our overall ideals and goals for the new chapters took a turn. Our workflow adjusted to try to make them more unique, fun, and levels that make you want to come back for more. As developers we're always striving to improve the game and make it the best it can be, we're never settling for something that seems "okay", we want something that people can look back at and think "damn, that was a fun level".
New Intended Update Release
That being said, the Miami update has been pushed back to December (hopefully, we're working hard to have it all done by then), before then we'll have the Miami series- or at least the blockouts of the chapters uploaded to the Test Branch to gather crucial feedback and bug reports ASAP.
The Test Branch is still live if you're interested in trying out the new mechanics and features that we've been working on.
Now, onto the progress!
We've made tons of progress on 2 more chapters and almost finalizing the Shipyard, we also have another chapter in early blockout phases (one that I think many of you will enjoy), we'll show that one off in a future devlog.
The two chapters after the Shipyard are the Cathedral and the Art Exhibit.
The Cathedral is split up into 3 different sections/floors, the Lobby/Atrium, the Upper Rooms, and the Catacombs- a place that originally was used for religious activity is now used for illegal activity for gangs, an interesting twist.
The Art Exhibit is big and has a ton of unique mechanics that we begin introducing from this level and onwards, things like destructible walls and specific enemies holding a keycard that you have to hunt down to progress should change up playstyles and make things feel a bit more fresh.
We're super excited to bring these new chapters to all of you, and we're doing our best to take what we learned in the Campaign and applying it to the new series. We'd love to one day revisit the Campaign to bring it up to par in terms of quality of all of the new chapters, that should be fun.
If you're curious about the new wall destruction, check out this video showing a technical breakdown of the details we've added.
Thank you everyone for your patience and support these past few months as we work on this update, even though we're a super small team (3 people), I personally feel bad that the update has taken so long, but we're certain it'll be worth it once it releases.
The Team
I'm not sure if I've ever gone in-depth on Steam about Godmode Interactive and its ever-changing numbers. Currently we're 3 developers all focused on different things:
Crimson - Lead Developer (that's me), I focus on gameplay, environments, level design, sounds... basically most of the game except for music
Tallowahh - Music, handles all of the music and parameters run through Fmod
Reckless - Level Designer/Environment Artist, relatively new to the team but contributing a ton to the blockouts and levels of the game (he's also the one working on the 4th chapter that we'll show off in a future devlog!)
That's the team currently, we used to have an animator but the team is always changing (that's just how things are), a big shoutout to Kyle Style who was handling the animations and is the past developer who worked on a ton of the execution animations you see in the game today!
Anyways, I'm sure not many of you would be interested in the team section above but I wanted to point it out anyway for those that are interested.
That's the Devlog for this month though, thanks to everyone for their bug reports and feedback as we work towards finishing this big update, we're reading all of your messages spanning from the Discord all the way to the Community Hub.
See you in the next one!