Hello thieves and vagabonds of Tumblefire!
We're excited to release this next major version of Tumblefire, which has undergone many rebuilds and fixes behind the scenes to take into account feedback from 150 play testers we reviewed over the last 6 months.
We've removed fire for the time being, and object fracturing remains behind the scenes FOR NOW!
So what's the major focus of this update?
Making the player and physics of the world MUCH smoother and making the world feel more alive.
You'll notice a new main level, Prospectors Peak, when you try out this update.
Along with that major relocation, you'll notice more visual effects and animation around town as our team has learned how to better leverage more of these systems.
What was the most common complaint?
Players becoming stuck in the world, or unable to interact in ways they expected like moving and climbing ladders, was a major area of feedback.
To address this we've completely re-built the character controller to feel much more immersive than 0.2.0.
So we focused on making navigating the world by climbing, punching, pushing, and throwing objects much easier and more intuitive.
We also added in the ability to rotate objects easily while holding them to allow for precise placement of ladders, explosives, and crates, or when loading wagons.
So how do you win now?
We've changed the core gameplay loop to focus on one major theme for the level, stealing vaults in as little time as possible.
Your time in each heist will replace your last time and shift your position on the leaderboard.
The idea here is to encourage players to play many shorter heists and quickly apply what they learn.
So far I've completed 37 heists this week and I can't wait to hear feedback and suggestions from the community!
What's the next major focus?
Our next focus is bringing object fracturing into the game in a way that feels natural, you'll notice some windows in Prospectors peak shatter and even cling to the window frames. We want to add much more interaction along these lines, to give the player numerous options when completing heists.
Another major focus is bringing the fire back into Tumblefire, with new animations, tools, and interactions in the works to make fire an impactful gameplay choice or disruption, rather than a purely cosmetic addition.
We're also exploring Wave Function Collapse and other forms of procedural generation to see how we can create the most interesting heist competitions on Steam.