Just checking in to let everyone know where we're at, and what's been worked on. The update will hopefully be out next week, and there are a few key things to look forward to.
Brand new character creation
- I have done away with the interview, which bogged down the early game. Now the character creation is similar to a certain pen-and-paper game that I have drawn inspiration from.
- Players can now choose one of four pre-made characters, the Programmer, the Engineer, the Hacker, or the Academic. These are designed so new players can hit the ground running.
- Players are also able to build their character from scratch. New characters will have 5 "priorities": A, B, C, D, and E. They also have 5 aspects, Money, Skills, Hardware, Software, and Traits. The first step in the character creation is to assign an aspect to each priority, with A being the best and E being the worst. From here players assign values to their skills, and choose their traits.
- Traits are perks that are only available at character creation that help define you character's backstory and their abilities. There are good traits, such as "Genius" which lower the XP required to raise skills, and bad traits such as "Bad Scripting Habits" which doubles the time it takes to build programs. The previous 4 starting perks have been converted to traits, and I have created 11 more to give a total of 15 unique perks available only at character creation.
- Custom character appearance is not implemented yet, sorry!
Brand new safehouse
- The small basement apartment has been replaced by a large underground bunker, with several areas. Currently it's mostly empty or filled with junk and clutter, but there is room to stretch your legs. In a future update, I'm hoping to add the ability to sink money into it to upgrade and clean it up.
New RIG design
- The large bed design has been replace by a classic rendition of a cyber-deck, with a VR headset. This change was made because in the next title in the series, players will be able to bring their RIGs with them, hacking devices and systems on the fly, and the bed design made wouldn't work.
I still have some work to do to get the new tutorial level finished, as well as updating all of the early game missions and goals. Once I have that complete, along with my list of bugs to squish, the update will be ready to go!