🐺 Greeting Huntresses & Hunters!
This is a little developer update about the latest Demo Patch (v1.4.26.0801) to bring more improvements to the demo! Check the patch notes below for details!
⚙️ Demo Improvements
Tutorial
Tutorials are now shown in center view and disables gameplay inputs until the tutorial is dismissed
Some Tutorials have multiple panels to read through to help present information in smaller chunks
Updated images for Tutorials to help with new flow of information presented
Added "Wolf Sense Tutorial Book" in Woodcutter Glade level to remind players of how to track trails (replaces the single ghost combat encounter)
UI / UX
Investigation sites are now always visible (before you had to use your Wolf Sense to detect them)
Trail Tracker UI will only show one Folktale Type in the Tutorial Region since you are only hunting one there (Elder Teakettler in Hunting Trials region)
Gameplay Tuning
Thorns (passive ability) - will only deal damage back to the melee attacker if this character has taken damage (no longer will deal damage back when dodging attacks)
Display Settings
On first time launch, checks which Screen Resolution best fits based on the end-user display resolution and sets it correctly in the Options menu
On first time launch, set VSync to toggle on if end-user display refresh rate is 60hz and sets it correctly in the Options menu
💻If you have a high-end display (more than 60hz refresh rate), then it's likely you won't need VSync on as the target framerate is capped at 60fps. So if you found that the player character was zooming across your screen, turn off VSync in the settings.
✅VSync is best to toggle on if you get screen-tearing (most likely for displays with 60hz)
🔨 Demo Bug Fixes
Fixed bug where sometimes player character can be offset on grid-tile space (when rapidly pressing the movement inputs when returning to exploration gameplay from a menu screen)
🎮 Demo Playtest Learnings
🏗️ They say Tutorials is one of the more difficult features to implement. This is one of the areas that I continuously had to rework a lot in playtesting before Demo launch and I'm still improving on it today!
👀 One thing that helped the most was seeing how people were playing the game when I went to exhibit the Demo at a local game showcase right here in Vancouver, Canada. Every person perceives and interprets information differently, so it's not a one-size-fits-all to create a tutorial flow for all audiences.
📝 The main takeaways I saw were people missing there was a tutorial on-screen, not fully understanding that damage dealt is equal to the target's fear, misidentifying the trail to follow, and forgetting the input to use the wolf sense ability. So I did an overhaul on the Tutorial for this Demo Patch and I hope it improves the first time tutorial for new players!
🌱 If you're curious about the local game event, it's called Vancouver Game Garden: https://vangamegarden.com/
📢 Have feedback to share?
📋 Feel free to keep on sharing your Feedback on the Google Forms survey!
🐞 And if you encounter issues, help fill out a Bug Report on Google Forms so I can fix them!