SPL - what's next?

Hi,

Have some very good news and a little bit of bad news:

• Bad news - The first big patch will be delayed for some (finite and not very long) time.

• Very good news - The next patches will follow a complete plan towards a milestone that will make the game much better.

I am working on a whole plan for the game, rather than trying figure out from update to update how to make the game incrementally better. Incremental changes are ok, but they're a bit like wandering in the dark.

The whole plan for the game - sounds big doesn't it ? The idea is pretty simple, take the most fundamental flaws of SPL and get rid of them while adding more gameplay.

Coming from the creator of the game:

This is the biggest criticism and my motivations for the 'whole plan'

• SPL is predictable in the wrong way, monotonous instead of familiar.

• SPL is linear. Fight arenas, get upgrades, beat boss, repeat. Arena based action roguelikes are like this, but SPL is a space game with free, very fast movement. This contradicts the linear gameplay. Also I spent months of programming preparing the game to be more open. In the end I got scared and stuck with safe, linear play. It's time to get braver and finish what I started.

• SPL doesn't have a good hook for new players. The game doesn't suck you in initially, there should be much more easy gratification in early game.

• SPL doesn't challenge you anymore if you got good at the game.

• SPL doesn't reward you enough for the play. The upgrades are too easy to obtain and predictable.

• SPL confuses new players.

• SPL doesn't capitalize enough on the movement part of the gameplay, the speed, the realistic physics. More gameplay should revolve around it.

• SPL doesn't have roguelike replay-ability, no meta-gameplay.

• SPL offers arsenal limited to 'normal weapons', there's no special combat abilities, items etc.

So the plan in a nutshell is:

Keep what we have, the core is pretty great, make it more open and exciting.

I hope this is something for you to look forward to. Keep in mind that I'm not the most patient person in the world and the first update will be pretty soon. I'll want to show some progress as soon as possible!

Best wishes in the New Year, Paweł