Greetings, fellow Survivors,
Noticed we’ve been a little too sheepish about the general updates and what's what we should be sharing (that’s our Baaaaa-aaad)!
That said, let’s start with a quick recap from the latest playtest:
Overall, the feedback on the demo was fairly positive.
Balancing and difficulty overall needed a bit of a pass, with easy being closer to where we would want normal to be and so on.
We saw which weapons people used the most. Some of it comes down to what weapons were common and easy to find, but people seemed to understand which weapons are better than others.
We also noticed that there are some weak points we needed to work on, such as the bot behaviour and a few special enemy mechanics, such as the woolspinner grab.
So what’s coming next? We’ll for one, we will be having a few more rounds of playtesting, be it public or invite-only (so please be sure to join us on Discord), which means stay tuned!
And what have we been working on….
Overall balance pass on all levels; hordes are less random and more controlled based on where you are located and what has been happening in the level.
Difficulty has been adjusted to be a bit fairer on easy and normal, and to provide a good challenge on hard.
Enemies have a bit more visual variety, with a few additional skins for the regular enemies.
There has also been an overall visual pass on the game; doors now have a visual cue when enemies are trying to break them down, area effects such as fire or acid smoothly fade in/out, and non-special enemies can be gibbed if they receive enough damage to trigger an “overkill”
Lots of props in the world can now be destroyed and even trigger gameplay effects, such as explosive barrels blowing up and Molotovs breaking and starting a fire.
Lots of VFX have been adjusted and improved (in our opinion!)
We introduced an item rarity system so players can get a better feel for what items have unique effects; there are also new icons in the UI to help indicate how items work and if they have special properties.
We also added a checkpoint to the finale of the levels. Getting to the end, losing, and having to redo the entire segment felt a bit too deflating; now there is an additional safe room just before the big finale encounter in each level.
We might as well share a quick teaser on what we’re working on… so here goes!
Stay tuned for more!