Happy (very late) summer, everyone!
It has been a long time since our last devlog, with several reasons for that, but we hope to still have plenty of exciting news to share with you. We are still hard at work, and though progress may be harder to see, we are getting happier with the game and more excited about it as development goes on.
Like we said back at the end of January, we are still working on better developing the identity of Mimicry and reworking core mechanics, even changing them since the last devlog. That being said, we have made significant and more visible progress elsewhere in the game, as we get ever closer to the next update.
- Dramatic Changes -
Mimicry as a game is something we have always felt had a lot of potential because of its unique perspective on the dungeon crawler genre. However, it is not something we have often felt lived up to this potential. A great number of days and nights have been spent brainstorming the best way to make a game that takes full advantage of being a game where you play as a monster of a dungeon, while still having rewarding dungeon crawler gameplay. It is not a problem that we have by any means solved, but we feel confident that we are moving in the right direction.
Mimicry in the 0.3 update will be almost entirely rebuilt from scratch from how it is in now, in 0.2. That’s not to say that everything about the game will be different, but for us it has meant tearing old systems down and building new ones that we felt better represented our vision for the game. Much of what has changed, and will change, are the actual gameplay mechanics.
Gameplay
While we do want to save specifics for the next devlog to keep this one from turning into an essay, there are a lot of broader changes we can mention here. Abilities, enemies, and combat on the whole are key aspects we’ve been working on, alongside changing the dungeon (again, again), moving around the floor and overall progression, remaking shops and items… It’s a long list but the point is that gameplay will be changing a lot.
Combat specifically is something we’ve been working on a lot, even since the previous devlog. The skill tree concept we talked about last time was better than what we had in 0.1, but we still felt that it wasn’t quite right. It felt too complicated for what should at its heart be a fairly simple game. We’ve reduced the number of abilities in the game but given them ways to adapt to new environments and later game difficulty. It is still very much a system that is in development, which means there isn’t much we can show or talk about, but hopefully that will change by the next devlog.
A simple way we’ve thought about Mimicry is that if there are fewer mechanics to keep track of in the game, it would not only be easier and more fun to learn and use them, but also allow us much more time to focus on each mechanic and make it better. This is why a lot of what we’re doing is actually scaling down our vision for the game to be more enjoyable, not just conceptually, but also physically making the floors smaller (from what we had previously planned, not necessarily the current version of the game) and more digestible.
- Floor Redesign -
As promised last time, we do have some level design work to show you. Floor 2 is still undergoing a lot of change, with a big part being that it is no longer floor 2, but rather now floor 1. What was previously going to be floor 1 will now be a sort of floor 0 free play and exploration area. We felt it no longer fit well into the main gameplay progression, but it still had a lot to offer for players.
The rest of the floors will have been shifted accordingly. When the game is finished there will still be 6 floors, but they will only be numbered up, or I guess down actually, to 5. The plan is still to have about half of the now floor 1 in the 0.3 update. The “floor 0” is no longer something we expect to add in the following update, but that does mean we are likely to add more of the lower floor in its place.
New Floor 1
The new floor 1 is all that will be available in the coming update, and much like in the 0.2 update will be completely remade (For the last time, this time around). While the previous layout was a big step in the right direction, it still felt somewhat nonsensical and lacked a lot of identity and rewarding progress. Floor 1 is where the player starts the game, and will have the introductory portion of the game, but we still wanted the floor to feel complete and challenging.
Visually, we also wanted to give the floor a unique look that is less bland than what we had come up with before. Floor 1 is supposed to be just below the surface, so we wanted some of that to leak through in ruination of structures, light foliage, and a rare spot of sunlight. Visual distinction should also apply to progression on the same floor, which is something we wanted to make clearly felt in the different regions of the floor.
Floor Regions
We do want the individual floors to feel distinct with their own characteristics, but we don’t want them to all feel repetitive, even with the planned downsizing. We don’t want to get too much into the player’s objectives and the story just yet, but we do want progressing through that on floor 1 to be represented in the look of the dungeon. We want the different regions on floor 1 to represent different points of progression in the game that the player can recognize as earlier or later game content.
One floor 1, there are 4 regions, each with their own minor subregions. The player starts out in the Reclaimed region of the floor, a more homely area where one could get away from invaders and visit a merchant or two. The Open Dungeon region is where dungeon creatures roam and human patrols will wander. It’s a good place to go spelunking for early game items without great risk.
The other two regions are the Crypts and the Human region. Home to the humans and the evil soul magic, these two regions are both hostile to mimics and dungeon monsters alike, but will have valuable rewards if navigated successfully. These two will unfortunately be the most incomplete regions in this update as they are part of late game floor 1. However, there will still be accessible areas of them.
- Less Dramatic Changes -
Just because some changes are smaller doesn’t mean they have to be any less exciting. There are a number of smaller features that have seen reworks and new additions. A lot of this falls in line with the ideas that we’ve had for focusing on simpler and more connected mechanics of the game.
Inventory
Let’s take the inventory for example. The concept art from the previous devlog was like many other talking points from previous devlogs, a step in the right direction. We continued brainstorming and ended up with something we were happy with how it looked and functioned.
What we have also done is scaled down the role and amount of weapons in the game. We’ve added some other items that players can use instead of weapons to give them more choices for how they want to deal with a situation.
Urns
Urns are a more minor change that has more to do with style than substance of the game. We didn’t really like the idea of the player getting items from loot chests, largely since we wanted those to have other uses. Urns now exist to provide some findable gear in the dungeon. Certain regions or subregions may have their own versions of urns that have unique loot tables.
- The Future -
As briefly mentioned in earlier sections, one of our biggest decisions with Mimicry is to scale down how big we want the game to be. It is important to say that there are only two of us making this game, and that means that what we are able to spend our time on is very limited. At the end of the day, this is our first game, so we would rather have something smaller and better than a larger and messier game.
There are a lot of changes we’ve made and planning that has been done that we didn’t talk about here because they are more niche specifics. But those are aspects we want to talk about more in later devlogs.
Game Updates
Updates for the game are something that has been completely derailed from our original plans when we launched the game over a year ago. That being said, we also now feel like we have a better understanding of what it takes to put each update out. 0.3 has been in development for months, but we feel that it is a necessary length of time to make sure we take strong steps forward in future updates.
0.3 will also be a very radical update compared to what we expect to put out going forward. We hope that following updates will be smaller and more manageable, but also come out more quickly for all of you.
Progress Updates
As for progress updates and other information regarding the development of the game, after this devlog we want to make sure nothing like this happens again. 8 months in between putting out new information is not something that we wanted to happen. We had some very real complications in our personal lives this year, but we still want to let you know that we are working on the game.
In the next devlog we want to talk more about what will actually be in the 0.3 update. What the story is for the player and what options they have for playing through it are all big things we’ve been working on and look forward to sharing. We may even have some new video clips or game art to show next time.
We may not put anything out in October, but after that we want to try to put out a progress update every month. Even if we have only minor progress to share, we want to let you know that progress is still happening. In some cases, if we have bigger progress that takes a little longer, we may do one after two months, but that will hopefully be irregular. We will also try to put out more minor sneak peeks on our Discord server, and be more active with the community.
- See You Next Time -
A pretty long devlog here, and hopefully it at least partially makes up for the long gap in news from us this year. We do know that Mimicry is a very small game in the vast sea of indie games that exist. But we also recognize that there are a number of you who actually care about this game and the work we’re doing on it. Those of you who actually read these devlogs and ask questions or give us suggestions on the Discord server are really appreciated by us, and we don’t take that for granted.
This game is very silly, but it is something special to us and to some of you, so we hope that you’re excited about its progress like we are. Hopefully you’ve all had a good year, and we can’t wait to tell you all more in the next devlog.
-Noah & Grayson