March plans

TLDR; month long support for the demo based on players feedback and my own gripes.

Hello everyone,

For the new faces here: every month I make a post outlining what I’ll be tackling during the current month. It’s my way of keeping everyone updated instead of going radio silent, especially since this game is developed part-time. That’s also part of the reason why I released a shareware episode instead of a small traditional demo.

After taking in all the demo responses and feedback, it’s clear I can’t quite leave it behind just yet. There have been quite a few requested features that would be beneficial for many of you. I wanna make this future proof for at least six months after all.

First priority

My first objective will be rewriting how the game detects controllers, since the current system is causing issues on certain devices and setups.

Second priority – Requested features

I’ll be implementing several of the most requested and feasible features for the demo:

• A slider to tweak visor color saturation

• Item pickup notifications (similar to Doom, Quake, and other classic shooters). Honestly, I’m kind of mad I didn’t think of this sooner. Will be enabled by default.

• Hitmarker notifications when damaging enemies. Will be disabled by default.

• A fake shadow to help with platforming. Will be disabled by default.

Third priority – Tutorial rework

The strafe-jumping tutorial clearly isn’t working as intended, so it will get a substantial rework.

Plans include:

• Making the practice arena larger

• Adding a short demonstration video showing how it’s done in a non-intrusive way

Only a minority of players are genuinely filtered by this mechanic and there's always the option to have it done automatically, but that doesn’t mean the tutorial can’t be improved.

Personal changes I want to make

There are also a few things I personally want to add.

• I will add a new tunnel exit in the Sandpit, so it no longer acts as a soft point of no return. It was cool in a Half-Life -style way that you were trapped in the pit until defeating the swarm of enemies before the Warden boss, but overtime I realized that’s a bit unethical for a Metroidvania. So Level 2 will get a new tunnel exit system. Of course, you’ll still have to deal with that pesky Warden eventually if you want to progress.

• I will add a unique mini-boss in the Sandpit village, acting as a proper village chief. This will replace the Twin Bruisers encounter and will also serve as the blueprint for future “super heavy” enemy units. The hint for this encounter will be updated as well. I think this will add more fun world building and make progression in the sandpit more straightforward.

Each of these lists will arrive as separate updates.

Some might wonder why many of these things weren’t already in the demo. The simple answer is that there’s a big difference between your friends being the only ones playing your quirky game vs hundreds of strangers experiencing it for the first time.

I enjoy the challenge though. It makes the journey more interesting, and the game becomes better because of it.

Once all of this is done, I’ll finally be able to move forward with creating the first Early Access build. I’ll go into much more detail about that when the time comes.

Anyway, thank you all for being here.

Now back to work.