Concise Development Diary #0

I thought it was time to share some news on the development of EMPTY SHELL 2:)

Over the past few months, I've been working a lot on the levels, and I'd say I'm roughly at 50% done with the environments. The interesting part is that, even in its current state, the sequel is already bigger than the first EMPTY SHELL:)

But level design for the sequel is more complex than in the original.

In the first game, each level was kind of a "standalone" entity: any key items required to progress, as well as the puzzles that need to be solved, were always tied to the area currently being explored.

In EMPTY SHELL 2 things are different: given its extraction nature and the possibility/necessity of freely entering and leaving the various locations, a deep interconnection has formed between different levels.

Volunteers may often need to extract from an area in order to find a key item needed to progress, potentially located in a completely different level. They might need to unlock a path through a remote terminal located in a different building, or retrieve an access badge belonging to a facility administrator, before going back to the level where the badge is actually needed.

A switch on a control panel in one part of the Facility might open a passage in another building, which volunteers may only visit days later while carrying out a different task on their list.

At the moment, one of my favorite locations is 建物F (Building F). Its exact purpose is unknown, but judging from the abandoned equipment it seems to have been some kind of support complex for Building B in the East Wing, where plants necessary for the production of nutrients for the Facility's personnel were studied and cultivated.

And it seems that, as eventually happens, those very plants and nature itself reclaimed the entire building, turning it into a tomb overrun by roots and vines of unnatural size.

Anyway, in these past days, I've paused level design to focus on new enemies. Personally, spending too much time in a row on a single task can be harmful in terms of originality and variety.

For me, it's always useful to throw in new movies, books, or videogames, so I can draw fresh inspiration or make some comparisons before moving forward.

I'll give you more updates in the coming weeks : )

Speak soon, volunteers.