October status update

Development hasn't stalled! We've been working on improving mechanics, designing the level and story progression, designing the characters, and working on more puzzles. It's all very good and all, but we haven't been able to translate all this work into an interesting blog posts.

There are however, some things to write about...

What we learned from our gameplay video

So, it's been almost a month since we released our first gameplay video. Making and releasing the video was quite a valuable experience because it helped us to see the game with fresh eyes.

Even though the material is edited from a very early and basic gameplay clips without any advanced features, it still helped to see what things to tweak. The video kind of takes away your rose tinted glasses and let's you see how things move and flow in a more honest and brutal way.

Some tweaking has since gone into animations and how transitions between animation states blend and change. We're also smoothing out the movement of the player character without affecting playability. Enemies are getting the same treatment. More animations and variations will be made. It's an ongoing process until the very end of the project without a doubt.

New elevators

Visuals

There's been some new assets in the works. Elevators are a new addition which will hopefully add some more life to the world. The player character can use them to move or send items to different levels. Enemies can use them as well.

Character design is underway and we'll be introducing the main characters later when the concepts are done. It's exciting to finally get a face, or faces, for the game!

Chemical tanks

Our latest #screenshotsaturday shot

Levels and progression

Maps for the first episode are well on their way as well. There has been plenty of planning for the flow of story, increased challenges throughout the levels and fluency of the gameplay. We're also working on how (often) to reward the player to keep the interest levels up. The gravity weapon itself improves as the game progresses but it needs to be balanced right so that the player won't become too powerful.

We've also locked down the areas of which the first episode consists of, but the individual levels themselves still need more tuning. We'll be making more maps for the first episode in the coming weeks, from which we'll select a few to make an iPad build that we can use to try out all the new and improved gameplay mechanics. It's quite exciting to finally see the game world coming together.

An in-depth post about the goals of this project, our team, our motivation and inspiration is coming next week so keep coming back and as always, thank you for reading!

Oh, you can lift and throw enemies about as well, of course!