Developer Diary #4

A Year of Mindmoss

Hello! We're back once again with a new dev log, only this time it's in celebration of the Mindmoss birthday! We've been working long and hard over the past year to add all sorts of new and exciting features to Defiled West. In this log, we'll be reflecting on what has changed in twelve months, providing some insight into our current endeavours and giving a little insight into what we have planned next.

A Year of Progress

When we set up Mindmoss, Defiled West was already over one year into development, following on from its humble beginnings as an entry to the NSE Game Jam 2024. At this time, the demo was still not yet released. Our first town, Stickstead, was still largely unfinished and the concept of adding additional towns was still very much... conceptual.

Since then, development has sped up tremendously. Stickstead is now complete and fully playable in the Defiled West Demo, and its successive towns of Wraithwood, the Screaming Caves and Banshee's Bluff are all in very good shape, with a new town on the horizon...

Here we've compiled a little carousel of before and after images to show how the game has evolved!

As we implement more and more of the underlying game mechanics, the speed at which we can create new towns and levels only accelerates. (Limited only by the lengthy amount of time it takes to create all of our new art and music!) We're so excited to continue on this journey and bring even more fun and variation to the game in the coming months.

Upcoming Demo Updates!

As the game grows behind the scenes, bug fixes, optimisations and sometimes even new features make their way into our demo, currently live on Steam. We want to make sure that the demo is continuously updated so that players can always experience the first section of the game to its fullest. Recently, we've made a few feature changes that will soon be making their way to the demo - here's a little more about them...

The WHERE Wagon?!

We've been hard at work overhauling the weapon wagon to give it a little bit more utility. Previously, its sole purpose was to provide access to all unlocked weapons, allowing players to easily swap them in and out of their current weapon loadout. This function still exists, but has been expanded on in a big way!

In the basement of Brainsbury's, in a long forgotten cell, a mysterious stranger cries out for your help. Rescue him, and he will join you on your journey, providing not only storage for your weapons, but storage for your items. Gone are the days of carrying your valuables in your pockets everywhere you go - the wagon now allows you to store a small number of items on it to help you tidy up your inventory. The wagon will also be upgradeable as you progress, allowing you to store even more items over time!

Feeling lost on your adventure? Well now you're in luck - your new friend isn't just a pretty face. Approach the wagon at any time to request a hint, and you will be directed towards wherever you need to be next. We hope that this feature helps to refresh memories and even provide some progression-based clues along the way.

Massive Weapon Storage Expansion!

We've touched on this briefly before, but the number of weapon wagon slots has increased substantially. Previously, we only had room for 24 ranged weapons, and 24 melee weapons on the weapon wagon, and as more weapons were added, we came to realise that we were running out of space very quickly. With the new and improved layout, we are now able to store a grand total of 88 weapons on the wagon, leaving us plenty of room as we continue to add new weapons to it!

Steam post image A preview of the updated melee weapon UI, with some weapons still locked for secrecy ;)

Improved Ability Selection Cards!

For the longest time, ability selection cards have been somewhat illegible and have lacked the proper polish to make them truly interesting to interact with. This changes now. The fonts and descriptions on the cards have been updated to make them a lot easier to read, and we have recently implemented a cool new card animation which we hope makes them feel a lot nicer to select.

Words of Encouragement

Of course as always, there have been plenty more bug fixes and improvements but we shan't bore you with the details here. These changes should all be pushed to the demo very soon and we very much hope that you enjoy them.

While there is still a fair bit of work left ahead of us, we grow closer every day to a full release which is a something that we are incredibly looking forward to. We're very proud of what we have created thus far and hope that players can find the same level of excitement in this project as we have!

The Future!

With Banshee's Bluff reaching its completion, we look towards our next major location: the site of an old army fort. Once a bastion of hope, this fort has been overrun by dark forces who seem to be arming themselves with weapons far beyond their own ability to create. Attempt to harness these unearthly technologies for yourself to force your way through the unnerving abominations that emerge from Fort Experiment!

Steam post image (Picture of a mineshaft, not a fort.)

Thanks for reading!

That's about it for now, thanks for sticking with us as we continue development on Defiled West. As always, please leave any feedback you have on our new feedback form here, and we'll be back again soon with more updates! All the best, The Mindmoss Team