Summer Update - We Have a Video Game! 🎉

Cadence always had a smattering of levels, vaguely gesturing at how the final game might eventually play. But today, for the first time, that is no longer true: Cadence has a complete level campaign! I've been locked away adding late game content, and the now the total count is close to 60 levels.

This is a huge milestone! It means the build currently on Steam, give or take some change, represents what people will play when it's released. It's really happening folks!

So is the game done?

Well, not quite. I still have a long list of polish, bug fixes and tweaks to chew through. Not to mention marketing - which I've largely neglected for the last six months. And well, no one else will do that if I don't, so my time will become increasingly absorbed in figuring out a release plan and creating supporting materials. But the fact that's even on the radar is mega.

New Content

I pivoted away from the original 3D abstract art Cadence because it was impossible to gradually ramp up difficulty. A cliff edge existed beyond which level complexity exploded, making levels hard to interpret. Finding solutions felt like getting lucky rather than getting good. This made designing deeper levels difficult after the first few basic ideas were exhausted.

By contrast, the 2D grid's constraints made the game infinitely more readable. Players could now understand what the game asked of them, and more importantly what actions were available. This allowed levels to get bigger; however, they still tended towards mess. Here was the "hardest" level before: solvable but still messy.

Way back in 2018/2019 (before I had to put the project on hiatus) - I started working on instant lines and Generator tiles, elements of logic gates and boolean logic to tame the chaos. I sensed this would be a fertile design space. Indeed, some users have built crazy things in the editor, but I never quite knew how to package this into the game.

But with this latest update I believe I've cracked the chestnut: the logic system really comes to the fore. I've created big levels that players can digest in chunks and solve one unit at a time. If I've got it right, these levels will feel challenging but fair. Cadence finally feels like the game I wanted to make - I'm really excited to find out how you experience it.

Beta testing

Testing early levels is easy - I just put an iPad in front of someone and see what happens. But testing late game levels means I need people who actually know how to play the game, and are excited to spend more time with it.

I would really love screen recordings of people playing through the later levels (i.e. worlds 3 to 5) with a stream of commentary explaining what you do or don't understand as you play. It's invaluable data that helps me understand if the level actually communicates the way I intended.

I'm not sure how many people with Beta keys are still paying attention here, so if you don't already have a beta key and would like to help out, please pop me a DM on discord.

Changelog

A new build is available (both default and beta branches).

• 24 New levels (and many tweaks to existing levels)

• New Tile: Validator - a gameplay tile that validates sections are played in the right order, or else...

• Generator Tile - improved telegraphing when it's blocked

• UI: Made more screens mobile compatible

• AddedUIAdded credits screen

• Sound: Some tweaks to the list of presets for the Helm synth

• Upgraded from Unity 2019 to Unity 6 - no gameplay changes, but helps keep the project working on modern hardware

• Many smaller fixes and tweaks