Recently we have made some major decisions regarding the design and scope of the game. This project has gone through several phases where the scope/design has changed drastically. We originally planned on building a rogue-like, and then later shifted to a Metroidvania with handcrafted levels. The demo we released at the end of March was a simple FPS. Later we added more puzzle elements and backtracking so that it would be more of a Metroidvania. It seems like players responded more positively to the FPS gameplay, and the Metroidvania world construction in 3D has proven to be a massive effort. So we are planning on reducing the backtracking and puzzle elements, and shifting to a more traditional FPS with faster paced gameplay. I've already started implementing features to support this style. I've taken out some of the puzzles in the game, reduced fall damage, and added double jump. These features are not yet in the versions available to the public.
Over the next few weeks we will be focusing on improving combat mechanics since this is the core of the game. We are in the process of adding an “Endless Wave Arena” mode where the player just fights off enemies as long as they can until they die. The reason we are adding the wave attack mode is so we can have players test the combat mechanics before we are finished designing the levels for the single player campaign.
We are aiming to have the first iteration of the wave attack mode be available to the public by the end of this week. After that we will make several updates to it, and then our focus will shift to finishing the single player campaign. We plan on having the single player campaign finished by the end of January. After the single player campaign is implemented we will shift our focus to implementing PvP deathmatch and plan on having it in the game by the end of Q1 2023.
