Recently, I've been working quite hard on Darkness and a Crowd but haven't had much to show of it. So instead, I'd like to give you some spoilers of what's to be added in the near future. But I don't think I want the post to be so much as a stylish one with tons of formatting additions but rather an informative one.
Enemies
On the grounds of enemies, you will notice upon playing the closed beta, this is indeed an interactive creature, but not one that causes harm of any sorts but just a slight annoyance. This enemy will go by the name of a spickle.
Currently, as you can see, the enemy has tracking at a certain range, but what's behind the scenes is a randomizer in its jumps and the players ability to detect if an enemy such as the "Spickle" is within range of the character along with its ability to be facing the spickle. When the fighting additions are implements, this will be an easily edited feature that levels up as you do. So a level 1 spickle will not be nearly as hard as a level 30 spickle but the rewards are heavily boosted as well. For those who do not have access of the closed beta, I'd like to show off my abomination.
Introducing the Spickle
Customization
A few pending features are set to be added as well as the upgrade menus.
By studying the current picture, you will notice the 3 different tabs, ranging from the basic Task Menu or Task Center, to an upgrade system dedicated to the character. This is not to be mistaken with the Spirited UG Menu by pressing {G}. The Character UG will be specified for upgrading character based abilities such as damage, health, stamina, mana and all those other generic RPG additions. This also includes a map section, which won't be fully functional until the game is close to released. Calculating the locations of where the character is in a separate menu outside of the game will be quite difficult and annoying, but none the less, possible, thanks to built in Unity UI features.
I'm so excited to show you what's in the next installment of the Darkness and a Crowd Updates.
DEV Panel
The Dev panels are clearly marked and constantly flooding the bottom left of the screen with errors. If this is an annoyance, it is always quite easy to turn them off with the close menu button. This just makes debugging for me easier. And if something were to happen with the player, it'd be very easy to find out what's going wrong with them.
The Dev update was installed to simply show that things ARE being worked on, just not ALL systems are in place to make any major progression.
Simple fixes and additions
aaaaand of course, with every update comes bug fixes and easier additions. So why not tell you what's been fixed.
- Some random crashing is now avoidable.
- Buying tornado jump actually GIVES you tornado jump!
- Objective arrows show you how to complete the first missions, I know physics are confusing...
- The missions are more clear! Even though it shows you how to activate your side missions, people still get confused when it comes to finding out how to use their powers. (There is STILL a sidequest going over THIS)
- A few missions were re-written for even MORE clarification. It should be hard to get lost, while keeping the feeling of a puzzle game still alive and well.
Ending
I know this is very exclusive to those who do not have access to the closed beta, but it's a little sneak peek as to what's going on behind the scenes of this extraordinary game. In the future, these announcements will remind me how everything was put together and in what order. It might even help future developers with taking steps like these to making games like this. I also really hope to provide closed beta access to those who supported me through the groupees bundle sale. As mentioned before, by becoming a closed beta tester, you will receive some pretty special features upon its release that should make the boring testing worth it...
Thank you all so much for your time in reading this, and I hope you stay tuned in the coming weeks for the planned updates I have ahead. Just 3 and a half more months!!!!!
- Seth Albertus