Hey everyone,
I have a devlog for you this week in lieu of the usual changelog. I've decided to delay the changelog for a few more weeks, and in its place, I'll be sharing the progress I've made with DR4X in a more chill way and just my thoughts.
So its no surprise that i've been hinting at something real big for the game for the past few weeks. This is because I've realized that this game has a huge problem (And thats a given, given this is my first ever Steam game), that problem is that it has a lot of coherent background lore, gameplay ideas, and secrets, but I never really had a solid plan for an interconnected story that seamlessly integrated the 4x style campaign missions and skirmishes (Which are inspired by my favorite game, Majesty) with the overarching story which is more inspired by ..errm...other weirder games.
Serious question for observant players, did you see this message and not think it was really weird.
So the main point of the game never really materialized for many.
[Spoilers Ahead, Skip If You Don't Want Spoilers]
The original plan was to keep the subgame, which is ACTUALLY a psychological horror, puzzle game based around using a haunted game in a haunted terminal to uncover and resolve your "predicament", separate from the 4x game but in the same package (which i tried to design to be as approachable as possible for new 4x players), hinting occasionally at a deeper storyline without majorly interfering with the gameplay.
However, this plan kinda backfired, and the game became disconnected and confusing to some, with the highlights of the game actually being when the real story interrupted the usual gameplay or people being actually satisified by the 4x gameplay by itself or undersatisified and just walking away and not looking deeper and therefore missing a lot of really cool things. However after recieveing loads of feedback from more people then you would expect telling me how much they loved how much the game "messed" with you. I realized that to create something memorable I needed to lean into this dichotomy far more.
For those who just enjoy the 4x game part for what it is (depsite how incomplete it is) in the future you may find yourself running into weirder elements more often, but you will be able to play as normal (though the game might actually TRY TO mess with you because of this, leading to hilarity), and btw for those who have played while avoiding the horror, and posted videos on youtube I absolutrely love some of your reactions to weirder stuff heh.
It would have been great to keep this stuff completely seperate and pretend that its just a normal 4x forever. But then more than half the players would stay completely unaware of the thing they were actually playing and they wouldn't be able to experiance the deeper story i'm trying to tell with this portion of the game without digging deep on their own volition. Now the game may give you a proper reason to dig deep beyond your insatiable lust for knowledge.
Did you wonder who this was?
I was HOPING that word of mouth would reveal the "truth" but it seems like either peopel saw the weirdness and assumed these were distractions or easter eggs while remaining blissfully unaware. Or they figured it out and kept quiet about it (Noble). Or I had just failed to communicate this well due to my inexperiance and due to the game's incompleteness and it just hadn't really materialized the way I wanted, which ya know, fair given this is my first "story based' game.
So, because of this I've spent the last couple of weeks fleshing out the real story and implementing all the necessary things to allow players to experience it as they play through the game to hopefully make the gameplay more interconnected. Though its mainly focused on the campaign and less on the skirmishes (which is a whole other can of worms to deal with, one step at a time).
Some players certainly wont figure it out, but i've now left more threads for people to pick up on around.
The main reason for the changelog delay is that i have decided to split the story into 6 sections. And I have not yet completed the "1st" section (Which requires, art and music and so on) and i feel like it just wouldn't do it justice to release those changes to you guys in a half finished state.
This obviously hasn't stopped me in the past. But i'm actually really happy with all the progress i've made. And after I deploy these changes it will all stay subject to change, art and code can be done fast, but music and story and puzzles take awhile so you may see me swapping music and so on.
Thanks for reading my excessively long ramble.
Also yes, still also working on new factions heh.