Welcome to Development Update #2!
Welcome to Development Update #2!
Looking back over May, it feels like a bit of a blur because so much work has been done.
The main focus this month ended up being a hard look at some of the core mechanics and making some fairly significant changes to the game. Those decisions are never easy when you’ve already invested months of work into something, but I’m through that process now and I genuinely think the game is much better because of it.
Before I get into the meat of the changes, one small update going forward.
Patreon supporters will continue to get early access to these development updates, but after a couple of weeks I’ll also make them publicly available so that people outside of Patreon can follow the development of LIVING HELL as well.
As always, thank you for supporting the project.
Overview
As I’ve mentioned previously, I have a publisher for the game: Future Friends.
One of the biggest advantages of having a publisher involved this early is that I can get people to playtest the game internally and give very honest feedback without worrying about anything leaking. They’re invested in helping the game succeed, so I get a lot of useful criticism from them and that’s incredibly valuable at this stage of development.
From the beginning I’ve always told them that I want the most honest feedback possible. Praise is nice to hear, of course, but it doesn’t help much when you’re trying to improve a game. What’s useful is finding the things that aren’t working and figuring out why.
One thing I’ve learned over the years, especially from working on DEVOUR, is that when somebody gives negative feedback it’s usually worth paying attention to. That doesn’t mean they’re always right about the solution, but they’re often right that there’s a problem somewhere. I believe everyone’s perspective is valid.
It’s very easy as a developer to apply band-aids. If players get lost, you can add a map. If they don’t know what to do, you can throw a giant tutorial on the screen. If they don’t know where to go, you can add objective markers everywhere. Those things can work, but I always try to step back and ask why the player got confused in the first place.
Usually there’s a deeper issue underneath and if you can solve that instead, the whole game becomes stronger.
I’ve probably gone through this process a dozen times already during the development of LIVING HELL. Every time it happens it means revisiting systems I’ve already spent weeks or months working on, which is never particularly fun. It costs time, money and sleep! But every single time I’ve gone through that process, the game has come out better on the other side.
The biggest piece of feedback I was seeing, both from publisher playtests and from sessions with friends, was that there was too much friction in certain parts of the experience.
LIVING HELL takes place in a large city, and one of the dangers when designing a large environment is giving players too much freedom. In an open-world game that’s often a good thing. In a game where you’re racing against sunrise and every minute matters, it’s important to be respectful of the player’s time.
Players generally understood the overall objective, but there were moments where they weren’t completely sure where they should be heading or what they should be focusing on next. Sometimes they would spend longer navigating than I’d like, and sometimes the path forward wasn’t as clear as it should have been.
That became the focus of most of my work throughout May. I’ll split it up into 3 different topics.
1. Reworking the Terminal
The first major thing I looked at was the artificial intelligence system and terminal interface.
If you’ve seen the trailer on the Steam page, you’ve probably seen the terminal already. In the trailer it actually comes across really well, and I still like a lot of what it brought to the atmosphere and lore of the game.
The problem was that over time I had gradually started using it for more and more things.
It was handling menu systems, travel selection, player guidance, objectives, lore, tutorials and various other interactions. The more playtests I watched, the more I noticed a fairly simple truth that I’ve always known: people don’t really like reading in co-op games.
Players are talking to their friends, exploring, reacting to what’s happening around them and trying to keep the pace moving. Even in single-player games you have to be careful about how much reading you ask people to do these days.
A lot of work had gone into the terminal system, so it wasn’t an easy decision, but I ultimately felt it was worth stepping back and rethinking how that information was being presented.
One thing that was important to me was preserving the lore. I still wanted players to feel connected to UREI (United Recovery of Earth Initiative) and the wider story of Pelican City. I didn’t want to remove those elements. I just wanted to present them in a way that felt more natural and immersive.
Without giving too much away, a lot of the systems that previously lived inside the terminal have now been moved into the train and the depot platform where players begin and end each day. Some others now live on your handheld device.
The result is that objectives feel clearer, information is communicated more naturally and the whole team is involved rather than one player sitting at a terminal while everybody else waits around.
Most importantly, the flow of the game feels much better. Players spend less time trying to figure out what they’re supposed to be doing and more time actually playing. Yay! 😀
Most of that work is now complete. What’s left is mainly content work such as voice acting and presentation to fully support the new approach.
2. Improving Navigation
The second major area I focused on was the city itself.
Pelican City is intentionally large. It’s loosely inspired by cities like New York and I wanted it to feel like a real urban environment rather than a collection of disconnected levels.
The challenge is that large cities are very easy to get lost in.
While exploring a huge environment can be fun, it wasn’t always serving the core experience of LIVING HELL. Players are racing against sunrise, managing resources and trying to complete objectives under pressure. Spending too much time wandering around wasn’t really adding tension. It was just creating unnecessary friction.
To address this, we’re tightening up some of the dead space between locations and made the critical paths easier to follow without relying on objective markers or intrusive guidance systems.
At the same time, I still want exploration to feel rewarding. If players choose to wander away from the main route they’ll still find useful resources and optional discoveries, but reaching your objective should now feel much more natural and intuitive.
Another related change is the way buildings are accessed.
Each day now features one main building and one smaller building that players can enter. Which buildings are available changes from visit to visit, helping keep runs varied while also making the overall structure easier to understand.
There’s still more work to do in this area and I’m looking forward to sharing more screenshots from the environments when they’re ready.
For now though, the first district is largely complete. There are still some smaller improvements and polish tasks remaining, but the bulk of the work is behind me and it’s in a good place.
3. Creatures & Combat
The other major topic I’ve been thinking through is combat.
When I first started building LIVING HELL, I always assumed players would have access to firearms. These ideas were heavily inspired by games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill, where players scavenge resources and craft ammunition to survive.
Firearms naturally give players a sense of power, as if they have some sort of control. This can be bad for horror games as it reduces the fear factor.
The ways to counterbalance this is to make ammo scarce, have the guns feel more cumbersome to fire and slow to reload. This is done effectively in games like Amnesia: Bunker for example, where each bullet you fire is a conscious choice.
I’ve been iterating on combat and how it affects the primary creatures. Those creatures aren’t designed to be killed. The intention is that players evade them, hide from them, distract them or temporarily slow them down.
This is something we accidentally got right with DEVOUR. The UV flashlight gave players a way to defend themselves without removing the threat entirely. You could slow the demon down, but you couldn’t eliminate it.
I’m still working on the solution for LIVING HELL. When I originally wrote this dev post, I thought I had it all figured out. But I needed to go back and update it because it’s not as easy as I had assumed. How do I balance melee vs gunplay? How many resources do you start with VS need to find or craft? How do creatures look or sound when you fight them in different ways?
There will be some fun defensive weapons, too, that I’ve been working on such as single use fire extinguishers or pepper spray.
I’m also introducing more weaker creatures into the world. These creatures can be fought and killed, creating moments of action and satisfaction without undermining the larger threats that are meant to be feared.
You’ll encounter some of these creatures outdoors, and others may find their way into buildings through windows and other openings. They create additional pressure during exploration while also giving players more opportunities for combat.
A lot of the creature work during May wasn’t necessarily visible work. It was spent figuring out how different creatures, scenarios and encounters should be selected so that each visit to the city feels distinct while still maintaining a clear sense of progression and purpose.
There’s a surprising amount of complexity hidden inside those systems, but I feel like they’re starting to come together nicely now.
Looking Ahead
Looking ahead, I’m getting close to a point where I can really focus in on the creatures themselves and their behaviors.
They’re easily the part of the game I’m most excited about and now that many of these core systems are settling into place, I can finally spend more of my time creating the weird and disturbing things that inhabit Pelican City.
My goal has always been to create memorable creatures that feel distinct from what you’ve seen in other horror games, and I’m looking forward to sharing more of them with you over the coming months.
Roadmap Update
I’ve attached an updated roadmap below.
As mentioned throughout this update, a lot of May was spent refining core systems and addressing feedback from playtesting. While that work doesn’t always produce flashy screenshots, it’s been incredibly important for improving the overall experience and making sure the foundations of the game are solid.
Because of these changes, Closed Alpha access isn’t quite ready yet. The goal remains the same: once all roadmap items marked as required for the Alpha milestone are complete, I’ll begin inviting supporters into the game for testing.
I know many of you are eager to get your hands on LIVING HELL, and I’m just as eager to get it in front of more players. I want to make sure the experience is in the best possible state before that happens.
Thank you for your patience and continued support.
May Changelog
Below is a detailed list of changes made throughout May.
New & Improved Content
Continued building out Gosford Heights, Marble Street, Apartments, Houses, Police Station, Hotel, Bank, subway areas, and the Depot with new dressing, props, lighting, collision, entrances, blockers, signs, rooftops, and navigation polish.
Expanded the secondary building system with more building definitions, access tasks, locked entrances, teleport fixes, scenario spawning, and better support for primary and secondary creature encounters.
Renamed the lobby into the Depot and started turning it into a stronger hub space, with new machine art, cockpit updates, fuel intake work, storage crate updates, lighting, collision, and train-related dressing.
Added and polished more environmental interactables, including electronic locks and blocker gates.
Train, Power & Objectives
Reworked the train and terminal flow so the terminal focuses on the subway map, with clearer destination selection, locked destination feedback and updated map visuals.
Added the Fuel Intake setup, fuel pack visuals, fuel pack movement, collision sounds, and early supporting logic for train power/fuel handling.
Added HVAC failure behavior with smoke, train effects, power feedback, and related audio/visual polish.
Replaced the train power display with a dedicated power gauge and improved power-on feedback, screen transitions, and train arrival/departure behavior.
Creature Updates
Added major early work for the Twins, including blind/deaf behavior, interaction between them, new animations, scenario setup, and carry behavior after kills.
Built out the Cockroach with initial behavior, hitboxes, flashlight reactions, dodgable/multi-attack behavior, head-look support, hit/death animations, and tuning.
Continued tuning the Spider with new audio, flinch/stun behavior, trap improvements, better grabbing/drop behavior, jumpscare polish, reverse animations, and more reliable investigation logic.
Improved Bats with better sleeping placement, wake timing, attack speed, hitboxes, eye emission, audio, and tuning.
Adjusted Birds, Horses, Soldiers, Slugs, Deer, and mutant player behavior across detection, movement, attacks, stuns, spawn timing, and scenario placement.
Added fleeing behavior after stuns for primary creatures that scales with dynamic run difficulty.
Gameplay & Items
Added new and prototype items including steel pipe, pepper spray, glass bottle, energy drink, dirty/filtered water flasks, fuel packs, alcohol, and early fire extinguisher setup.
Reworked guns so firearms are rarer crate finds, firearm ammo no longer appears as normal loot, and starting loadouts focus more on melee and utility items.
Improved melee feel with heavier swing timing, new impact materials, updated weapon visuals, and support for more weapons damaging props.
Added item drops from creature kills and max spawn quantities for items.
Simplified drinks and flask logic, including dirty/filtered water, melted ice pack behavior, and thermal load risk from unsafe drinks.
Improved storage and inventory interactions with protected starter slots, shift-click dropping fixes, shortcut keys, storage capacity logic, and cleaner prompt behavior.
UI & Multiplayer
Added Steam support, Steam name fixes, player Steam buttons, and better display-name handling across nameplates, kick modals, chat, and joining messages.
Added gamepad support, host settings, FOV setting, credits view, updated splash/options screens, and mic selection polish.
Improved nameplates with better distance, visibility timing, mic icons, and cutscene handling.
Updated chat styling and moved text chat toward world-space/system-message presentation.
Improved map, subway, and terminal UI with new modals, better location naming, selected destination feedback, unavailable-location visuals, day count display, and cleaner button states.
Audio & Visual Polish
Added and updated a large number of FMOD events for spiders, birds, slugs, crates, coolers, levers, locks, gates, keycards, fuel packs, train announcements, game over, character vocals, skill checks, and creature impacts.
Added more Jennifer vocals for jumping, landing, coughing, healing, melee, downed pain, stretcher pain, character select, and wake-up moments.
Improved music and ambience across the shelter/menu, Depot/train, city weather, radio, spider scenario, and game over.
Added new VFX and shader work for creature deaths, processor effects, blood, goo, car fire, smoke, shield impacts, mutated decals, tracker effects, and weather/day progression.
Improved visual polish across item icons, crafting previews, map pins, storage/container UI, hints, cutscene messages, character select, ammo counts, and machine screens.
Fixes & Stability
Fixed many creature issues around detection, attack range, stun recovery, sleeping placement, investigation, ragdolls, grabbing, pathing, and multiplayer scenario loading.
Improved navigation and collision across Gosford Heights, Marble Street, Apartments, Houses, Hotel, Police Station, Bank, subway entrances, doors, stairs, fire escapes, rooftops, windows, lockers, and blockers.
Fixed multiplayer/client issues around map selection, train destination setting, levers, teleport rotation, revive commands, downed interactions, inventory visibility, game over UI state, ragdoll teleporting, and name display.
Fixed UI bugs in storage, context menus, modals, map destination sounds, chat input, splash options, mic selection, and menu state.
Continued behind-the-scenes cleanup for spawning, scenarios, threat levels, train power, interactables, creature tuning, audio emitters, and repeated network/state issues.