Hello, I was supposed to release the new demo publicly this month, but unfortunately it got delayed again.
I keep adding new features, more content, and letting the scope creep get completely out of control. While all of these additions are already available to the beta players, I still don't feel comfortable releasing the demo publicly just yet.
Here are some of the things I worked on over the last month.
Fast Travel (Finished)
Fast travel is now fully implemented and accessible through the Book UI.
Using it briefly shows a loading screen to make transitions smoother on lower-end hardware. If you're playing the game linearly without backtracking, you'll never see a loading screen. They only appear when fast traveling between already discovered locations.
Flight Minigame (Work in Progress)
I've been working on a new minigame that will be included in the demo. It's heavily inspired by the Flash game Flight, which was actually one of the biggest inspirations that eventually led me to start making Paper Sky.
The reason this feature is still a work in progress is also the main reason I'm not ready to release the demo publicly yet.
Minigames in Paper Sky are completely optional, but they're highly recommended. They introduce completely different gameplay mechanics, offer a nice change of pace, and reward you with exclusive paper plane models and new Words that can power up your plane.
Wall Climbing and Sliding
This started out as one of those accidental mechanics that naturally emerged from the custom physics and movement system.
Instead of leaving it as an obscure discrete trick for players to discover, I decided to fully embrace it by adding dedicated climbing and sliding behaviors. Everything depends on your movement and camera angle relative to the wall, so it should feel intuitive without requiring any special inputs. Most importantly, it preserves your momentum, which keeps the flow intact.
Player Ghosts... and Multiplayer?
Here's where the scope creep really starts.
I've added asynchronous player ghosts that appear around the world after someone leaves a message. The idea is to make the world feel more alive by letting you occasionally see other players rolling and flying around, almost as if they had just passed through your world. They can even subtly guide you toward interesting places.
Together with the message system, this already makes Paper Sky feel social, and it required setting up backend servers to make it all work. I've also been thinking about taking things one step further by allowing brief peer-to-peer encounters between players, similar to Journey.
The challenge is that Paper Sky is a much faster game. Players are constantly moving at high speed, so there's a good chance you'd simply fly past each other without ever creating the same kind of quiet connection that Journey is known for. So it would be kinda pointless...
I'm curious what you think. Would you like to occasionally encounter another player while exploring, or do you think the asynchronous approach fits the game better?
For now, I'm keeping the online features exactly where they are and focusing on finishing the game first.
Two Weeks Until the New Demo
Tomorrow I'm leaving for a one week vacation, my first break in over three years.
I genuinely wanted to release the demo before leaving, but after playing it over and over, I knew it wasn't quite there yet. The plan is simple: take a week off, come back refreshed, spend one more week polishing the demo, and release a slightly smaller version than I originally had in mind.
After that I will be entirely focused on just wrapping up the full game, and we will be looking at the full release of the game very soon!