Hello everyone,
As the title suggests, I will be taking September off from gamedev. However, I have entrusted some friends to work on certain elements while I'm taking a break, so at the very least, the game will still be worked on in some capacity.
Working nearly non-stop during this summer on my least favourite aspect of game development has worn me thin, but at the very least, every feature I wanted for the game and some more are finally in the game.
Not only have I added the previously listed stuff, I've also added new features that weren't initially promised, such as tracers for hitscan weapons, which makes them more visually interesting and makes them feel like proper firearms, and an alt mode for certain weapons (think of the latest Doom).
Weapon alt modes was an idea I toyed with but wasn't certain about, but since everyone I spoke with about this was immediately interested and not a single soul asked me about NPC summons, it was a no-brainer, so therefore, I decided to cancel summons in favour of making guns cooler.
I also decided to hard cap the game's levels to 10-12 (not counting hubs). It makes the current state of the game more defined and makes development much more streamlined. For example, the current demo has 3 levels and a hub.
I've changed the Steam page to reflect these decisions.
So anyway, the next step is to refine these features further and make them pretty, which shouldn't take too long, and after that, I can just focus on making content for the eventual paid release.
Once the next public playtest build is ready (will be hosted on itch), I will be delisting the demo from Steam once it's no longer representative of what's currently out there. A lot of the new stuff I added/changed that was outside the scope of the demo has been made based on feedback/complaints I've received, such as:
A map system.
I've redone certain sounds for certain things.
Tracers were added in an effort to not only make guns feel cooler but to make free aim feel better.
A journal to keep track of the current timeline of events so some players don't go "wait, what was I doing again?"
Difficulty options.
Save slots.
And lots of refinement on current stuff.
There will be new enemies to make lock-on more strategic.
Naturally, fixed a lot of deep-rooted technical issues.
I'll give like a 2 weeks' notice before I delist the demo.
So yeah, I think I've covered all my bases. October's blog post will for certain be very short haha.
Time to rest and trust in the power of friendship. Take care...