Hello detectives, thank you for your patience!
We have used this long period of silence to do some major reworks of the game we felt were needed to turn what was born as a game jam project into a full length release. The whole codebase was rewritten to support these changes, so we expect some bugs to come up as people explore the game. We will spend some time to work on fixes and make some last changes based on the feedback play testers give us, with the aim of reaching feature lock by the start of the summer and start preparing for the full release.
Changelog:
Main Changes:
The setting was moved forward 6 years from 1923 to 1929, and the art style and general “vibe” of the game have been updated to more classic noir aesthetics, as the plot is more focused on Faulkner’s internal struggles than the bureau of investigation subplot.
A full UI rework, including new police dossiers, new inventory, a letter boxing for the text and some GUI elements, and a new briefcase screen
The piece of evidence screens have been transformed into areas of interest, each containing multiple objects of interests the player can interact with
We have introduced the guilt system, a reflection of Faulkner’s struggle with guilt and alcoholism. Right now it is a bit bare-bones, and our objective for future updates is to flesh out its effects on the game world.
New music
Completely rewritten dialogue and descriptions to fit the new direction of the game
Replaced voice acting with typewriter sounds - we loved the voice acting and the VO did a fantastic job, but considering the new, more surreal aesthetic and the difficulties of voice acting the whole game we decided to move to away from it.
Created a new dialogue system that can be used to interrogate witnesses. It is currently very simple, but we might expand it to make it a more important part of the gameplay if we decide we have the need and capacity for it (no promises!)
Minor Changes:
New tutorial that accounts for the new systems and makes the office section shorter and more focused on representing the new mechanics
New main menu graphics
Improved button feedback
New text box UI
Text appearance animation added
Removed unnecessary options from the settings menu
Improved the sequencing of the end of level screen to give more information and give the player more control on when the text appear
Fade in/out added on some transitions we felt were too fast
Removed the end of demo epilogue, in preparation for a new one that will fit the new narrative better
Migrated to the new Unity input system to start setting up controller support
Set up keyboard/controller friendly navigation for some menus