The First playtest is done!

Update Time: [Alpha Iteration 389]

The first playtest showed some unexpected player behaviors that required me to scrap 20% of the level design and completely rearrange the levels .

Player Side:

New menus Better tutorials Making the UI animate in order to improve the "notifications" the player receives New HUD with item icons instead of text and many new warnings Players are now warned if they are flying/drifting away from the map Prompt fixes for multiple items - making it way more understandable and context sensitive New Icons for story specific malfunctions Game stability and cohesion - updated multiple systems to initialize correctly Player can now use or scraps items without picking them up , streamlining te the following steps :See Item you want to scrap> Inventory full cannot pickup > selection item in inventory > dropping the item to free a slot > picking up the new item > using it

CUT the ball puzzles- where the player plays a 3D pool and ricochets between surfaces - I really wanted to keep it and improve it since it was a major part of the first game and I can imagine it being cool once or twice , but upon replaying the original I found it unpleasant and just way too much. If there is a place where it will work well I will bring it back but I will not actively seek to do so.

Players now can Opt-in to recycle every item and risk not being able to progress but being rewarded with extra materials. Its more fun replaying the game this way.

Reworked the way parts are explained to the player :Player now has a smart device where there is a catalog with all the legal parts shipped to the station and how they look

The Max scrap is smaller but upgraded with each new suit - this is to stop the players from vacuuming all the objects

Simulation of atmosphere when opening doors to space will now suck the player and items into space A placeholder debris belt round the station You can no longer eat while you are in space with your helmet on

Very Updated levels post the player test feedback New endgame concept that should be more fun and challenging Amazing new reflections

Developer Side:

I created a lot of proprietary tools that help me work faster Refactored the way time passes to be better in every way Created a tool to take pictures of all the objects I made a really smart way to hide and show the cheat menu without any risk of it being "forgotten on" when shipping the game updated the cheat menu to have 3x the amount of debug options Refactored game saves to improve startup and reset consistency but still not satisfied with the way progress is loaded for the scripted parts of the game new physics glitch detection , which allows for more player agility Started transition to Niagara for the particle system Tweaked some materials so I can later implement raytracing natively