Welcome Back!
We’re finally wrapping up act 2 of Summerford now! We’re running slightly behind where we hoped to be at this stage, but every area in this section of the game has ended up being a little larger than we had expected.
One thing that has always been our mind with Summerford is creating areas that are a little more unique than just abandoned houses, mansions and hospitals.
We also wanted to set as much of the game as possible outside, but avoid falling into the trap of endless woods, trees and areas not feeling distinct or memorable. With only one artist, that’s certainly been a challenge, but it’s good to see all these areas coming together.
Dream Valley
Dream Valley is a “Theme Park” - though perhaps not like ones you’ve seen in other games. It’s a “local” theme park, which although far fewer in number in England now, used to be much more common. These parks didn’t have the budget or scale of national parks, but offered more family focused rides and “cheap and cheerful”entertainment. Players will be exploring the whole of main park including the Summerford Pier, and interacting with some of the attractions at the park.
Estuary Island
A different type of park, Estuary Island is a typical English tourist destination: a ruined castle grounds turned into a park in the victorian era, struggling to stay relevant to modern families. Recently, the park purchased a selection of life-sized, fibreglass dinosaurs and, before the infection, were hoping that the draw of their new attractions would help them compete with the newly built theme park.
These destinations are some of the most intricate and dense locations in the game so far, and you’ll be able to complete them in any order you want, providing you’ve solved the right puzzles!
What’s Next?
We’ve essentially got three large chunks of work before we’re done:
The first is bug fixing and polishing what we have. Although not the most glamorous part of game design, it enables us to be in a healthy state to move to the final portion of the game.
Second is the third act itself, which will include the final sections of the game and the Summerford Power Plant. This should be around as large as act 1 in terms of play time, and hopefully in terms of the time it takes to create, as well.
Finally, we’ve got to develop our combat system and integrate that into everything we’ve made so far, which is obviously a big piece of work for any survival horror game.
We’re also committed to being more engaged with the community. As we move closer to launch, we’ll be tweeting and blogging more often and we’ll also be looking for testers and feedback on alpha builds by winter.
We do find ourselves getting stuck into the development of the game, so sorry if we vanish for a few weeks at a time! We promise we’re just really into what we’re creating!