Happy New Year everyone! Thanks for another year of following/supporting the development of Scratchin' Melodii. Let's touch base again on the game's progress over the past few months.
PROGRESS:
In October, I finished implementing the Act 2 boss and I now continue chipping away at animation. I'm currently animating the first stage of Act 3. If you're wondering when I'll be showing a gameplay preview of the Act 2 boss though, I'm not sure at the moment! The audio isn't completely ready yet, but even aside from that, there will probably be a point where I'll have to decide to start saving most of the gameplay previews for when the game is closer to release. Whether or not that point will be before or after the Act 2 boss is shown is still up in the air though.
Another thing I've been working on is the hub world. As I've mentioned before, the tutorial and beginning of story mode are being revamped to better introduce the player to the game's mechanics. This has led to a new, more purposeful foundation for the hub world in general. That's right, by popular demand, the hub world will no longer be useless gameplay-wise. It'll be a safe space to discretely let the player be introduced to and practice new gameplay mechanics. For example, the area leading up to the tutorial song has gates you must unlock by completing simple rhythm challenges using the gameplay style of the actual stages.
This is somewhat of an evolution of the "music boxes" that were seen in the 2022 test demo's story mode, in which they weren't necessary for progression and had a simple mini-game that didn't resemble the main gameplay. Having them directly tied to the main gameplay was out of the question before, but now with the new framework it's finally possible. (There's also the fact that I just hadn't thought of it back then!) Of course, these simple gates from the tutorial area won't be the only way I can utilize this feature, so you'll see it contextualized differently in many areas throughout the game. Think of it as the game's equivalent to puzzles in a RPG (or perhaps even random encounters, depending on your perspective?)
Also, Melodii also has new hub world sprites! This is mostly just to update them to their current design. I might tweak some of the motions a little more later, but I'm much more satisfied with these.
Q&A:
Q: Will there be secret stages in the game?
A: There aren't any plans for this at the moment. With the amount of work that goes into animating the songs, I think it'd be beyond my scope to spend too much time on an entire stage that doesn't contribute to the story and that many players might not even see. There may be secrets to discover within some of the main songs themselves though, so keep an eye out!
Q: How many acts will the game's story mode have?
A: Currently, the plan is for there to be 4 acts with the 4th one being slightly longer than the rest. Earlier in development, I mentioned wanting to do 5, but by this point I think the story would be best wrapped up in just 4.
Q: Will there be multiplayer?
A: I won't go as far as to guarantee it right now, but it's definitely something I want to include! I've been coding everything with the possibility of adding it at some point later in mind. For now, I'll be focusing on singleplayer first.
Q: Will Lucid Mode for Grease Poppin' look the same as it did in the beta?
A: Nope! It'll probably look a lot different, I'm no longer satisfied with the 3d models in that version and I feel I can do a lot more with the scenario for it in general.
Q: Why isn't the beta demo on Steam?
A: This is mostly because I don't think it's a good enough representation of what to expect from the full game, especially with things like story mode and the scoring system. The rest of the game's testing will be done in private now, so it's just something for people interested enough in what that earlier state in the game's development was like.
Q: Will there be any merch for the game?
A: All I can say right now is that any merch will probably be around or after the date of the game's release.
That's a wrap for this one! December was a great month for other indie rhythm games, so if you haven't already, I'd recommend checking out UNBEATABLE, Bits & Bops, and Rhythm Doctor, which all just had their full releases. (I'm not sponsored I swear) That should give you a little something to do in the meantime! Thanks for reading.
-LJ