Hello again! Welcome to the second Devlog for I’ll be Brave, Tomorrow. The day this goes live will be the same day that Steam’s Next Fest starts, so we have got lots to talk about - Mainly, our brand new demo! Featuring brand new 2D levels, minigames, and much more, we hope that you're excited! To start this Devlog, we wanted to first talk about what you can expect from I’ll be Brave, Tomorrow in the coming months leading up to release.
What’s coming up?
From now until release, we are going to be hard at work making sure IBBT is as great as it can possibly be. In order to help us out, please feel free to join our community discord server, where you can chat directly to us, spot bug fixes in the game, and let us know what you want to see in the game (Unfortunately, a fishing minigame is off the table!).
You may be able to find us at some upcoming events! Firstly, IBBT will be attending TwitchCon. From the 29th of June to the 1st of July, you can visit the Great Ormond Street stand to learn more about IBBT, and possibly even get your hands on our coveted stickers! Unfortunately, none of the dev team will be in attendance, but you will be able to talk to our amazing connections at GOSH!
Develop Brighton. From the 9th to the 11th of July, the InkForge team will be attending Develop to meet fellow developers and members of the public. While we will not be exhibiting, we are very excited to talk to as many people as possible about IBBT!
Recently, we attended our University game expo, Falmouth Games Expo, and showed off IBBT to lots of members of the public, staff and students - below you can find a photo of a few of us after 4 long days of expo!
Watch out, it’s hot!
For the new demo, we knew we wanted to include a brand new minigame, unlike anything seen in our first demo. This got us thinking back to how our imagination was as children, and how even a boring room can become an obstacle course with just a little stretch of the imagination. From there we ended up with something I think almost everyone played as a child - The Floor is Lava!
Become SpaceSoldier-Sam and use your jetpack to navigate the hospital room like never before! You are tasked with collecting stars dotted around the room, all the while dodging the lava covering the floor, which was placed by SpaceSoldier-Sam’s arch nemesis - Space Chimp!
This level was a lot of fun to make for me in particular, as I was able to stuff it full of cheeky references to not only other video games, but some of InkForge’s own titles! If you’ve played our first ever game SEMU, you may see a familiar face…Mine!
Somebody called for a mechanic?
From talking to fans both in person at events and online, it was clear how fun everyone found the racing game! Although we were happy with how it was in our first demo, we knew we could improve on it in a lot of different ways. So, we hope you are excited for Racing 2.0!
The track has been completely re-imagined. With new bridges, spinning wheelchairs and even boost pads, you will be flying around the track! We have tried to keep the feel of the RC car the same, with just an extra layer of polish to really make you FEEL the speed.
We have many more ideas for the racing game…But that's for another Devlog ;)
For fun, we must go to Don Hedgehog!
We absolutely loved seeing everyone's reaction to fighting Fred the Frog from the first demo. However, we felt as though Fred wasn’t intimidating enough. I mean, look at those rosy cheeks!
We knew we wanted to expand upon the idea of ‘Boss’ levels in the 2D game, but also wanted to make them feel unique from other games. A major point of criticism we faced about our first demo was that the Boss Fight against Fred was too easy. We totally agreed, but it wasn’t going to be as simple as just changing a few numbers. From the get-go, the idea of ‘hurting’ other animals never felt right in IBBT (or in real life for that matter!). Therefore, we decided to lose the idea of ‘Fighting’ bosses. Instead, you have Don Hedgehog!
Leader of the hedgehogs, he really isn’t one to mess around! You better watch out, otherwise you will be running away from a spiked boulder…
Getting that Summer feeling!
When it came to deciding how long this demo was going to be, it was very tough. We wanted to show what we were capable of as a team, show what you can expect for the full release, but also keep back some of the larger secrets and narrative points. To that end, we are only including the Summer levels of the game, which in context of the whole game, is under a 1/3rd of what you can expect.
These levels all take place at the start of the game, and are used as an introduction to the mechanics and narrative. If you feel as though the demo is too easy, that is completely understandable. However, please remember that there will be lots more to come, with a lot more challenges as well!
Final thoughts
We really hope you enjoy playing the new demo for IBBT. We have poured months and months of hard work into it, and we hope it's up to your standards. We still have so much more to show you, so we hope you are looking forward to that.
From all of us here at InkForge, and on behalf of GOSH, thank you for your continued support of I’ll be Brave, Tomorrow. We will see you in the next Devlog!