HomeGamesUpdatesPricingMethodology
Steam News16 July 20214y ago

The dust will hurt you

Is originality always good? When designing a game there are always choices to make between following the beaten path or trying to explore new ideas and mechanics.

In this update3

Full notes

Full Just Read The Instructions update

Read the full published notes in a cleaner layout. The original post stays linked below.

What changed

0 fixes2 additions3 changes0 removals
  • Gameplay
  • Balance
  • Compatibility
addedIs originality always good?When designing a game there are always choices to make between following the beaten path or trying to explore new ideas and mechanics. It can range from new takes on core mechanics that permeate the whole game, to singular “simple” innovations. The bad ones are sometimes called gimmicks. Balancing between being original enough to stand out and still doing what players expect from your game and genre, that is a tricky thing. In Just Read The Instructions we are taking a big step into mechanics that is completely new, at least for us. Some might say too big of a step, but we hope to be convincing in our execution!
changedThe death of a CrawlerThe primary enemy in the game is the crawlers, we have talked about them in previous blog posts. They don’t hurt the player directly, instead when they come near the player they explode into particles. These particles are what hurts the player, it’s not the only thing that does damage, but the primary thing. These particles behave like you would expect particles to behave, they explode out from the crawler and come to rest in the air. Then if you walk into a cloud of particles you take damage. When a lot of crawlers run you down and explode, it quickly gets out of hand with particles flying everywhere, it looks pretty but it’s quite dangerous.
changedThe death of a CrawlerThe player walking into some particles and losing HP
changedThe fun counterplayHow is the player supposed to handle this then? First of all, if the crawler gets shot, the particles coming out of it quickly fades away. But if the crawler gets too close, explodes and the particles get everywhere, the player can still fire away with their weapon and use the “air puff” from the discharge to blow the particles away. That means that when the player is firing, the weapon discharge will make particles everywhere move and generally fly away. We think this is kind of a novel and fun way to deal with the crawlers and their tendency to explode. We are still experimenting with different mechanics that can enhance and make interactions with particles more fun. But so far the particles and their behavior feels both novel to play with and pleasing to look at, and that is a good start!
addedThe fun counterplayWe hope we will bring something new and exciting to the FPS table! So don't forget to sign up for our beta! www.Knackelibang.com

Just Read The Instructions changes

addedWhen designing a game there are always choices to make between following the beaten path or trying to explore new ideas and mechanics. It can range from new takes on core mechanics that permeate the whole game, to singular “simple” innovations. The bad ones are sometimes called gimmicks. Balancing between being original enough to stand out and still doing what players expect from your game and genre, that is a tricky thing. In Just Read The Instructions we are taking a big step into mechanics that is completely new, at least for us. Some might say too big of a step, but we hope to be convincing in our execution!
changedThe primary enemy in the game is the crawlers, we have talked about them in previous blog posts. They don’t hurt the player directly, instead when they come near the player they explode into particles. These particles are what hurts the player, it’s not the only thing that does damage, but the primary thing. These particles behave like you would expect particles to behave, they explode out from the crawler and come to rest in the air. Then if you walk into a cloud of particles you take damage. When a lot of crawlers run you down and explode, it quickly gets out of hand with particles flying everywhere, it looks pretty but it’s quite dangerous.
changedThe player walking into some particles and losing HP
changedHow is the player supposed to handle this then? First of all, if the crawler gets shot, the particles coming out of it quickly fades away. But if the crawler gets too close, explodes and the particles get everywhere, the player can still fire away with their weapon and use the “air puff” from the discharge to blow the particles away. That means that when the player is firing, the weapon discharge will make particles everywhere move and generally fly away. We think this is kind of a novel and fun way to deal with the crawlers and their tendency to explode. We are still experimenting with different mechanics that can enhance and make interactions with particles more fun. But so far the particles and their behavior feels both novel to play with and pleasing to look at, and that is a good start!
addedWe hope we will bring something new and exciting to the FPS table! So don't forget to sign up for our beta! www.Knackelibang.com

Is originality always good?

When designing a game there are always choices to make between following the beaten path or trying to explore new ideas and mechanics. It can range from new takes on core mechanics that permeate the whole game, to singular “simple” innovations. The bad ones are sometimes called gimmicks. Balancing between being original enough to stand out and still doing what players expect from your game and genre, that is a tricky thing. In Just Read The Instructions we are taking a big step into mechanics that is completely new, at least for us. Some might say too big of a step, but we hope to be convincing in our execution!

The death of a Crawler

The primary enemy in the game is the crawlers, we have talked about them in previous blog posts. They don’t hurt the player directly, instead when they come near the player they explode into particles. These particles are what hurts the player, it’s not the only thing that does damage, but the primary thing. These particles behave like you would expect particles to behave, they explode out from the crawler and come to rest in the air. Then if you walk into a cloud of particles you take damage. When a lot of crawlers run you down and explode, it quickly gets out of hand with particles flying everywhere, it looks pretty but it’s quite dangerous.

The player walking into some particles and losing HP

The fun counterplay

How is the player supposed to handle this then? First of all, if the crawler gets shot, the particles coming out of it quickly fades away. But if the crawler gets too close, explodes and the particles get everywhere, the player can still fire away with their weapon and use the “air puff” from the discharge to blow the particles away. That means that when the player is firing, the weapon discharge will make particles everywhere move and generally fly away. We think this is kind of a novel and fun way to deal with the crawlers and their tendency to explode. We are still experimenting with different mechanics that can enhance and make interactions with particles more fun. But so far the particles and their behavior feels both novel to play with and pleasing to look at, and that is a good start!

Blowing away the particles looks kind of pretty!

We hope we will bring something new and exciting to the FPS table! So don't forget to sign up for our beta! www.Knackelibang.com

/ The Knackelibang Team

Source

Steam News / 16 July 2021

Open original post

Changelog.gg summarizes and formats this update. How we read updates.