Hey all!
This week the team continued working on various aspects of the game including: the intro, the environment, the NPC voice overs and of course, the next build update!
We’ve been keeping quiet about the next update, because we were not 100% sure when we’d complete the work. It’s a very technically important update, because it is all about alleys and filler buildings in the Village and the new biome. “Why does that matter, you say?” Well, it completely changes the game. No more running away from people and hiding in random woods behind houses, no more easy escapes into the wilderness. Plus, it makes the Village and the new biome look significantly better - and much more in line with the first trailer that you guys saw. However, it has been a technically difficult thing to implement, and required a huge amount of work from Matt and the artists. Hopefully you’ll like it as much as we do.
The next update should be released next week, although that will depend on whether our office move goes according to plan. We’re moving just down the hall to a slightly bigger space next Tuesday, which should help us from stepping on each others’ toes as the team expands.
Art Team
Marc-André
This week I worked on a bunch of little things. I integrated various elements into the game, made pretty signs and optimized collisions.
Gameplay Team
Vince
Still working on the intro, fixing all the little bugs and adding the last functionalities. It is now playable from start to end. I also integrated some of the key objects and animations as soon as the others were done with them to make sure everything still works as intended. I also tested spawning it in the actual game world, and it works…sometimes. I’ll need some of Matt’s magic.
To give me a little break on the intro stuff, (and to give you guys something to tackle in the next update), I also did a little Village encounter! The Overdosing Wellie. Yeah, who said there’s such a thing as too much Joy, right? This poor Wellie learned it the hard way. At least some other good citizens are watching over him, caring for him… or are they?
Mike
This week I have worked on several new encounters for the game. These special events are meant to add variations and content all around the world of We Happy Few. Here is one of them:
Mysterious special event!
Two wastrels are digging a hole in the ground… but for what reason?
New crafting recipes!
I added new chemical crafting recipes to the game:
They can all be crafted, or found at some places in the game.
I have also worked on a big, multi-objective quest that we will reveal later. ;)
Narrative Team
Alex
I split this week between editing barks, and working on narrative content for the opening scene.
I selected audio takes for the bobby and the doctor. I also built audio for the opening scene.
We’ve been building the opening scene. Although the full narrative won’t come out until the game’s released, the game will start with a bang -- a bang full of details about Arthur, and about his world, and what he needs to do and why he needs to do it. There will be gameplay, and there will be narrative cutscenes, and there will be narrative audio that responds to the gameplay.
So I’ve been building that audio; and I’ve been filling Arthur’s opening with characters and items, so that if the player wants, he or she can not only explore a bit, s/he can unravel some mysteries about who they are and what they’re up to.
By “filling,” I mean writing lists of things that could be in places. Then I discuss them with the art department, and we talk about what can be done and what can’t. (It turns out we could do Uncle Jack bobbleheads! But we thought that was too Fallout-y/Borderlands-y.)
The more we develop the characters in the opening, the more likely we’ll want to see them again later...
Thanks for tuning in!
Compulsion Games
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