Hi all, Tom here!
As they say: no good deed goes unpunished – and shortly after my previous development update I sadly ended up getting a couple of pretty nasty respiratory infections that knocked me out. Long story short, I was isolating most of July and early August, so work on CRT7 had to stop for a little while for me to rest up. The good news is I'm mostly better now, and starting to get my strength back... so you know what that means, I'm back to making puzzles!
The Phosphors Are Still Glowing
One small advantage of the pause was that it gave me a some time to think about puzzle design, in particular the puzzle I had to stop midway through making: the viridian glowing monitor that appears in one of the side rooms. I was struggling a little with the design because, while I loved the paper puzzle style inspiration, I wasn't quite sure how to make it link into the rest of the game in an interesting way. Well, as I always like overcomplicating things, I came up with a linkage I think you'll find pretty fun! I'm not going to reveal exactly what it is – that's for you to discover – but the programming work on making the puzzle is really getting there and with a little more complication to the ruleset and some more puzzles we'll have another interesting sequence to solve!
I've also made interacting with the puzzle and drawing lines way more intuitive and, as you can see below, I've linked them up into something you can navigate around. I should say, the video below is still a work in progress. Expect puzzle and audio design to change, but there still might be minor spoilers!
Falling Back Into Line
As the days are growing shorter and we slink back towards Autumn, I have a pretty clear goal for this coming month: get this puzzle sequence done and dusted. As hinted at above, there is a little more to be added to the ruleset and I'd like to give a little more visual and aural interest to it. Plus, once that's done it needs a bunch of puzzles designed for it. The nice thing about it being paper puzzle inspired, however, is that I can design them pretty much where ever I am. After that, it's back into the basement, and unlocking one of my favourite elements from the trailer. Are you ready to search for voices in the static?
As always, if you want keep up to date with development, help out a (mostly) solo dev, or just be told when the game released please add CRT7 to your wishlist. It is a massive help and really keeps makers and creators going through the long dark winter of development!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2096780/CRT7
Stay well and see you all soon!
-Amicable Animal