Devlog 1
Now that next fest is over I'm going to share what I've been working on since I released the demo two weeks ago. After seeing and hearing player responses to the demo I've decided to shift gears a bit and rethink some fundamental aspects of the game. I realized that as it is now, the game needs some serious changes to become something actually fun and playable. Some major mechanics and content will be going away in favor of new ones.
As a quick summary, I'm changing the visual style of the game, removing the sleep and hunger systems, removing physics "puzzles", removing the first area from the demo, adding combat, and I'm redesigning the gameplay loop as a whole.
When Will We See These Changes?
I wanted to address this nearer the top so that more people would see it and so no one gets the wrong idea. These changes will not be passed on to the demo, the demo is staying as is. These changes will likely only be seen once the early access build has been published.
How Will This Affect the Release Date?
Not sure yet. I think it's likely I'll have to push back the release. I'll make sure to make a post once I know for certain whether or not I can make the end of November. If I'm proud of what I got by the end of next month I might just release a shorter version of the game than originally intended just to get it in the hands of players.
What's Going Away?
Mechanics
- Hunger is being removed.
- Sleeping as a means of saving is being removed as well.
- Building is going away for now. I'm undecided as of yet on whether or not this is a permanent decision, but it will not be included in the first early access version of the game.
- Advanced movement like wallrunning is no longer going to be a core mechanic of the game. Although I'd like to come back to it in the future.
- All crafting is being removed temporarily.
- Physics based "puzzles" like those in the demo are going away as well. Stuff like hallways being blocked and you need to push the right thing or drag up a table from somewhere else. The trouble with physics is its unpredictability, and I personally witnessed basically every player I watched struggle with some physics quirk at some time or another. Another problem is conveyance; for example in the demo there are objects that can't be moved arbitrarily despite looking identical to other moveable objects. This was a necessity for the game at some points and other times it was just an accident, but either way this can lead to frustrating scenarios where someone tries to push past a shelf that can't be moved. Or even worse, they could encounter an immovable shelf and just ignore all shelves thereafter under the logical assumption that that kind doesn't move. So in short, these specific kinds of puzzles are being removed because of their inconsistent rules, and a lack of overall player control.
Levels
- The escape section is being removed.
- Right now I'm looking into the possibility of removing all loading doors in favor of level streaming, but how that'll actually turn out remains unclear.
- The whole level you see in the demo is being taken out of the base game.
- The levels will no longer change shape based on how many times you've slept.
Game Loop
- The night system will not function as it did previously. You will no longer progress to the next night by sleeping.
- Both altars are being removed, as the night system no longer exists either.
- I'm removing the huge doors that open on a timer as a consequence of the night system changing. The doors will still exist, but they'll operate differently.
What's Changing?
Visuals
- I've decided for now to go for a more stylized look for the project going forward. I spent who knows how many hours just tweaking graphics settings in order to make my game performant and good looking, and haven't managed to really succeed at either one. As a result of that I've decided to move in another direction. The art style is kind of in flux right now, but I've gotten some interesting results experimenting with it, so we'll see. More updates on that in the future.
Mechanics
- The old player character and code has been completely thrown away in favor of a clean slate. This means movement has changed significantly.
- The physics interactions from the demo have been changed to something more tactile for the player. So no more headbutting shelves to arrange furniture and stuff. Instead you can now press a button to pick up and move light objects and the same button to push or pull heavy objects.
- Doors are now physics objects. Specific ramifications for gameplay are still unclear for now.
- The inventory system is changing to a limited one with distinct slots.
Level Design
- The scale of the levels is going to shrink dramatically. For the time being I'm going for one mid-sized to large level with distinct small sections. The idea is to have less space, but to do more with that space in terms of gameplay.
- The game is going to remain fundamentally nonlinear, however I'm now emphasizing chokepoints of linearity that all players are funneled into in order to have more control over the player experience.
- Goodbye endless samey hallways. I personally liked the idea of making a huge sprawling labyrinth of tunnels, but actually making it was becoming boring and difficult. Not only that, but it was hard for players to navigate, and became tiresome relatively quick. So instead I'm working on making levels with visually distinct rooms and sections.
GameDesign
- My focus on gameplay design is shifting towards a more replayable and arcade-like aspect with stricter failure states and emergent gameplay, as opposed to the deliberately crafted spaces from before. Attempting to put together specific moments of gameplay for the player over the past month made me realize I was stretching the mechanics of my game really thin over wide areas. Inevitably that meant the vast majority of the time wasn't spent doing anything interesting, and the player wasn't really forced to make any intentional decisions or tradeoffs. Anyways it's difficult to get into gameplay specifics right now as it's all in the design phase, but it's definitely beginning to take shape.
- Exploration and discovery is still going to be a crucial aspect of the game, but it'll be more focused than before. There are a few new mechanics that demand exploration as a means of survival that definitely incentivize risk in more meaningful and interesting ways than the old sleep, time, and hunger systems.
- For now the emphasis is changing from exploring vast spaces into attaining mastery over smaller spaces that get more familiar (and yet more dangerous) over time.
What's New?
This is the more tentative part of the devlog as everything here is in active development so it's likely to receive changes, but what's written below is the stuff most likely to make it into the early access build. I'll keep everything up to date in future devlogs.
Mechanics
- Combat is getting a bit more emphasis in the new versions of the game, both as a deterrent and as a means to actually kill monsters.
- Sickness system... so the hunger and sleep systems are gone for now, and this is what we have instead in their place. It's very simple; you take medicine to reduce your fever, if your fever gets too high you get weak, noisy, and slow. The consequences for extremely high temperatures haven't fully been decided yet, I've got a few ideas though.
- Resource management is now going to be a fundamental problem you have to solve while playing the game. You'll need to decide whether you should carry ammunition, medicine, or tools...
- Proper hiding places are on the list of things to get through for the next version.
End
All right! Thanks so much for reading, and I'll be back here sometime next month with a new update. For now I'm changing the release date on the steam page from November to Coming Soon, just in case lol. Anyways, I sometimes post updates and screenshots on my twitter so feel free to follow me there as well if you'd like to keep up with my daily work.
Link to my Twitter/X right here!