It's that time again! As Halloween draws near, so does the season of spooky games, and I've been hard at work getting ready for it. No promises on a release date just yet, but perhaps there's a demo on the horizon? We'll see!
In the meantime, there's been a lot accomplished since the last Devlog. Take a look.
- Environment Variety
In a game about exploration and atmosphere, it's very important to have some atmospheric environments to explore. If you've been following along here or on Twitter you may already know I'm not using asset packs. Voidseekers is hand-built lovingly from scratch. One of a kind! That's a lot of work for one person, but I think it's well worth it to get my own unique space-horror look and feel.
Tilesets make that work manageable for a solo dev and they're incredibly versatile. From huge ships built of mile-long hallways and vast cargo holds, to claustrophobic little access tunnels and cluttered crew areas, the tilesets can do it all.
Texture decals and shaders also help bring a little extra touch of variety to maps without too much extra labor. With a mask texture and a palette-swap shader, you can get a lot of mileage out each map tile. It's not a huge thing, but it makes a difference. Replayability is king for games like Voidseekers, if players can enjoy wandering through the creaking halls of a dead cargo freighter just taking in the sights then I've done my job well before even getting to enemies...
- Enemies
Speaking of which, we've got more new spooky boys on the way. Pro gamers will likely be able to spot the gameplay mechanic here at a glance. These misshapen new additions to the enemy roster lumber around, just waiting to blow up at some unfortunate astronaut. After modeling, rigging, and a quick mottled grey and purple paint job in Blender, it's into the game. Shoot the glowing orbs before he gets to you or you may find out just how unfriendly a hug can be. And worse yet, it makes one heck of a loud noise that other things might hear.
- The Spaceman
Last but not least, the promised suit customization is well in the works. Once again those texture shaders come in handy. Visors, suit, and armor can be changed individually for some very cool (and some hideous lol) combinations. The sets themselves though will be unlockable in the game as what I hope is a fun way to encourage and reward achievements and exploration.
I'm shooting to get as many suits in as possible in the game by launch, but these are fun and simple enough to do that more will likely come with post-launch updates as well just as a little bonus. There will also be some polls and community-design suits getting included, so follow along here and on Twitter to make sure you get a say!
In any case, I hope you've enjoyed this look behind the scenes. Development treks right along, so if you'd like to see future updates you can find Voidseekers on Twitter at @VoidseekersDev and Tiktok at @VoidseekersGame. And if you really want to support Voidseekers, give it a Wishlist right here on Steam!
- Captain, signing off
