Hi everyone!
This month’s build is a little different to our usual update. We have created a short, demo version of the game that we showed last week at PAX East 2016, and we would love to get your feedback on it on the forums.
It’s a little different. Items will be easier to get (in fact, we’ll straight up give them to you), the game world will be much smaller, and there are a bunch of new features we have created. And you escape in a slightly different way...
We’re looking for feedback on everything in here. We want to know about all the little things that drive you nuts. We want to know about the weapons that don’t feel great. We want to know about the weird things the Wellies do when you throw the berserk bomb. Do stealth, conformity and combat work well enough? Basically, this is our chance to take a look in the mirror and fix up all the little things we’ve ignored until now.
“But Compulsion, I don’t want to play the small map!” If you want to roam around the previous version, you still can! It’s available on the “oldschool” branch on Steam, which does not require a password to unlock.
Here is a short summary of the changes:
World
• Smaller world.
• New building generation system is in, meaning that the Village and Garden District are more densely packed. This should also mean no more missing bridges.
• Massive art upgrade to the Garden District. No, really. Literally everything in the Garden District has changed.
• Garden District buildings now have gardens! Finally. It’s like we weren’t even trying before.
• The train station is back, temporarily. Good luck getting in!
• Village security systems have been upgraded - be careful.
• There may be some useful loot in the Village safe house.
Gameplay
• Improved tutorial/intro experience.
• 5 new encounters! These are the first “real” encounters that show what level of complexity we’re aiming for.
• Manuals have been added! These allow you to permanently modify some built in stats, like your stamina regeneration and stealthiness. These do not persist across playthroughs.
• New “second chance” mechanic. This will be a more forgiving alternative to permadeath, where instead of dying outright, you are given a chance to recover.
UI
• New HUD! The needs system (including health) has changed, and is now represented by different icons at the top left of the screen. We now have location text letting you know where you are, and a suspicious icon will pop up when you’re breaking the rules.
• You now have a status screen! The ? screen in the player menu has now been activated, and can tell you all about what kind of state you’re in. Keep in mind that the art for the player menu is still placeholder.
Performance
• Improved optimization for low end machines. We need to review the default settings for Low - Ultra, but all settings should be improved from previous update.
• Load times have been improved, but this is mostly a consequence of the smaller map. We are doing work in the background on improving this for the main map.