Hello everyone,
Over the past two weeks, I've been pretty frantic about updating the game with bug fixes and minor additions to solve some relatively large issues at launch (notably clarity, accessibility, and death-related bugs). If you weren't aware, this is my first game and is entirely solo-developed, so I'm very grateful for everyone who gave respectful feedback, both good and bad, and am trying to learn everything I can.
That being said, I believe that most of the major problems at release have been dealt with, and now I can focus on one of the game's other problems: depth of gameplay. At the moment, the player's actions are pretty much limited to answering the fax/phone and scaring away the monster, and going back and forth between the two constantly. The story elements are nice, but entirely detached from the main gameplay loop. As such, I have several new features in the works to remedy this:
Large addition of features to the core gameplay loop - while I don't want to give too much away yet, the player will have a new way of directly interacting with the monster inside the cabin. I'm also planning on giving more purpose to a feature that is currently in the game but does not directly affect gameplay. The hope is that these changes will give the player more to do, give the monster a greater feeling of direct threat, create more suspense, and limit downtime.
Better utilization of outdoor space - as it stands, there really isn't much to do outside, and it's pretty empty. Look forward to more utilization of this space.
Better animations - this is a big commitment for me because I have absolutely no clue how anything related to animation works and have been largely avoiding it, but I think it's finally time to get my toes wet to improve the fright factor of the game, especially when it comes to the realism of the monster.
Since I'm still a full time student and also work part time, I don't have a definitive release date for the update. Expect about 3 weeks or so as a rough estimate.
Thanks to everyone who's sticking around through the janky development cycle. This game means a lot to me, and I'm going to put a lot into making it the best it can be. As always, leave any feedback for me in the comments and I will be sure to read it.
Thank you all,
Matt Karge