FPS Quest Devlog 1: Everything Connects

Hello everyone!

First of all, I'd like to apologize for taking so long to post another devlog. The past few months have gone by incredibly fast, and I've been so absorbed in development that I haven't spent as much time communicating as I would have liked.

Building the Foundations

Over the last few months, a large chunk of my time has been spent connecting systems together and building the foundations of the game. It hasn't been the most visual part of development, but it's probably one of the most important. A lot of the work has involved testing different mechanics, making sure they interact well with each other. I'll go into more detail on why this is so important later on, especially since traps and geometry are closely related in the way these systems interact.

One of the tasks has been designing all of the game's areas/biomes and creating a first playable iteration of each one. At this point, the focus is no longer on adding completely new areas, but on expanding the existing ones with more rooms, encounters and secrets.

Bosses

I've also finished implementing the first boss and the system used to summon it. I don't want to reveal exactly how it works, but one of my goals from the beginning was to let players decide how they want to approach each run. If you want to challenge a boss, you'll be able to. But if you'd rather spend a run farming resources for the roguelite progression, you can do that as well. I didn't want every run to end with a mandatory boss fight if that's not what the player is looking for.

The bosses are designed to feel like classic medieval-style encounters, but with a twist: they appear as if they are partially glitched or affected by bugs in the world itself. This ties into the game's underlying systems and gives them a more unstable, corrupted presence. Players will have multiple ways to deal with them. You can choose to defeat them through pure force, relying on weapons and combat mastery, or you can take a more experimental approach by using Settings to manipulate the world's geometry and destabilize the encounter.

Scripts

Another system I've been expanding is Scripts. Until now, during a run you could mainly obtain new weapons or new Settings. Now you'll also be able to find Scripts, which are abilities that can completely change the way you approach a fight.

Some Scripts remain active for a limited time before automatically shutting down, while others can stay active for as long as you want. The latter continuously increase your temperature, so keeping them running for too long can become dangerous.

Scripts can also be combined. For example, you could activate one Script that makes your damage equal to your current FPS while also activating another that temporarily gives you an automatic shotgun. Combining powerful Scripts like this can give you a huge advantage during combat, but it also comes with a risk. Keeping too many temperature-generating Scripts active at the same time can quickly push your system towards overheating and eventually crash the game, so you'll have to decide whether the extra power is worth the risk. Because of this, Scripts will be relatively rare during a run, or you will only be able to obtain a few of them, meaning players will need to carefully decide what kind of Script build they want to go for. In addition, Scripts can be unlocked through the roguelite progression system, and any Scripts you unlock there will be added to the pool of possible options in future runs.

Procedural Rooms

I've also spent quite a lot of time working on procedural elements inside rooms. Traps, shortcuts and other elements can now appear in different ways. My goal is that even if you revisit the same room, it won't always play out exactly the same.

I also don't want traps to be just another obstacle for the player. Whenever possible, they should become another tool you can use during combat. For example, you might push an enemy into a spike trap or knock them into a pit... as long as you're careful not to end up there yourself.

Since FPS Quest is built around changing the world through Settings, I also wanted those mechanics to interact with traps. Normally, traps are activated by stepping on specific pressure tiles, but by altering the geometry of a room you can sometimes change how they behave. For example, removing the protective door from a spike trap using a Setting leaves the trap exposed, allowing it to activate automatically until you restore the door again. My goal is for players to gradually discover these kinds of interactions and use them to their advantage.

Story

Finally, I've also been working on the game's story. Over the last few months I've finished defining both the story of the medieval world itself and the meta-story surrounding the Patch Engine. I've also planned the main villains for both stories. I won't go into detail yet, but having the narrative structure in place has made it much easier to connect the different gameplay systems and environments together.

Thank You!

Thank you all for your patience and for continuing to support FPS Quest. My goal is to create a game with enough depth that players can keep discovering new interactions and strategies even after many runs. Building all of these systems takes time, but I believe they'll make the experience much more rewarding in the long run.

As always, thank you for all the support, feedback and encouragement you've given me throughout development. I really appreciate it, and I hope to share more progress with you soon!